English Translation

26a "e 7 - 2 - him from them or together with them. On the other hand, the Slovaks lived a cultural and national life in spite of all these and similar influences with the Czechs. No one doubts that we had a common written language, a common Bible, that in certain historical periods powerful influences of cultural, military, political and religious life penetrated us, which had a powerful influence on the people and strengthened the old bonds of the national community. Some writers even assure that the powerful influence of the Czech language stood in the way of the development of a Slovak literary language, and Czambel, through certain unclear statements, shows that there are documents that testify that a Slovak literature language existed in Slovakia even before the Czech one. But the later invading Czech language pushed them back or destroyed them for centuries: It is difficult to speak of a Slovak political, i.e. nationally conscious life before the end of the 18th century. We have had enough national and linguistic zealots before, and the history of the Evangelical Church in Slo-wakei is at the same time the story of the national revival, but only in the first half of the 19th century. In the 19th century, the leaders of the Slovaks, writers, clergymen and intellectuals emerged with clear national-political ideas and tried to realize the emancipation of the Slovakians and Slovakia from the magyar supremacy and noble prepotence. The Magyars themselves point to this in the great history of the Magyar literature: "A magyar irodalom törtenet" by Ferencz Zoltán. Pintér Jenö writes there (p. 246) that at the end of the 18th century he had lived in slavery and was overcrowded by noble families. In the 19th century in Hungary 75,000 noble families lived, while at the same time in the four times larger France only 28,000 noble families were living, so Hungary had about ten times as many nobles as the rich France, The number of families of high nobility" (Barons, Counts, Princes) of magyan origin was about 150, together with the foreign magnates resident in Hungary there were 350, 75,000 Adeli- - 3 -