Moravia

See under CZECHOSLOVAKIA and H. Hassinger, Die mahrische Pforte and ihre benachbarten Landschaften, Abhand. geog. Gesellsch., XI. 2 (Vienna, 1914) ; E. Schindler, Klimatographie von Miihren and Schlesien (Vienna, 1918) and B. Bretholz, Geschichte Bohmens and Miihrens (Lieberec, .

History.

The earliest recorded inhabitants of Moravia were the Celtic Boii, who have perpetuated their name in Bohemia, and Cotini. These were succeeded about 15-10 B.C. by the Germanic Quadi, a Suabian tribe. The Germanic races were pushed back from the Middle Danube with the coming of the Avars (q.v.) in A.D. 567. The exact date of the arrival of the Slays in Moravia, as in Bohemia, is uncertain; but by the late 8th century Moravia was filled with Slavonic settlers, who acknowledged no particular tribe but took the general name of Moravians (Ger. Mehranen or Mahren) from the river Morava. When Charlemagne destroyed the Avar empire (c. 796), Moravia became tributary to the Ger man empire; but its princes enjoyed much independence, repeat edly making war on the empire. It was probably for political reasons that Duke Rastislaus of Moravia invited two missionaries from the coast of Constantinople, SS. Cyril (Constantine) and MethodiuS, to teach Moravia Christianity (863) but in Rastislaus was defeated by King Louis, and Moravia came under the Church of Rome. Having rebelled in 869, Rastislaus was defeated, blinded and banished to a monastery; but his nephew and successor Sviatopluk regained his independence (874) and founded an extensive kingdom of "Great Moravia" reaching to the Oder and Vistula and including Bohemia. After a savage war

against the empire, which allied itself with the Magyars, Sviato pluk was killed (894), and Moravia "wholly destroyed" by the Magyars in 907-8. After long being disputed between Poland, Hungary and Bohemia, Moravia was incorporated in Bohemia, in 1029, thus becoming part of the German empire. In 1182 it was made a separate margravate, but was still treated in practice as a fief and secondogeniture of the king of Bohemia, who was nearly always invested with it. In 1526 Moravia, like Bohemia and Silesia, came under Habsburg rule, which its diet, unlike that of Bohemia, accepted readily. Thereafter it shared the fortunes of' Bohemia (q.v.) with the difference that the Czech national move ment was usually more moderate, partly owing to the higher proportion of German settlers, introduced at various periods. In 1849 Moravia was made a separate Austrian crownland. In Nov. 1918 it became part of Czechoslovakia, being created a federated province of that State under the law of 1927.

For the historic developments in Moravia following the Ger man penetration into Czechoslovakia in 1938-39, see the article