Päť storočí prítomnosti chorvátskej minority na území Slovenska
Five centuries old presence of the Croatian minority in Slovakia

Author(s): Ján Botík
Subject(s): Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet
Summary/Abstract: The presence of Croatian colonists in Slovakia has been documented since the 16th century. This enclave was part of a large linguistic island in the middle Danube region, whose inhabitants, under pressure from the military conquests of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries, moved from their old Croatian settlements to the Habsburg Monarchy. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary (1918), this linguistic island broke up into several parts that were incorporated into the newly formed successor states – Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Historians have expressed admiration for the fact that Croatian minorities have persisted here for five centuries. However, they did not live here as a closed and isolated community, but in symbiosis with their different ethnic surroundings. This meant that their development was influenced not only by continuous trends, but also by discontinuous ones. As a result, the ethno-cultural development of Croatian minorities in Central European countries was characterized by processes of persistence and change, tradition and innovation, acceptance and rejection, resistance and assimilation. The key attribute of their long-term persistence was their mother tongue, which served as the true foundation of their group identity, i.e., their Croatian identity.

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