Great Moravia (Latin: Regnum Marahensium; Greek: Μεγάλη Μοραβία, Meghálī Moravía; Czech: Velká Morava [ˈvɛlkaː ˈmorava]; Slovak: Veľká Morava [ˈvɛʎkaː ˈmɔrava]; Polish: Wielkie Morawy, German: Großmähren), or simply Moravia,[1][2][3] was the first major state that was predominantly West Slavic to emerge in the area of Central Europe,[4] possibly including territories which are today part of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine and Slovenia.

Separatism and internal conflicts emerging after Svatopluk's death contributed to the fall of Great Moravia, which was overrun by the Hungarians, who then included the territory of present-day Slovakia in their domains.

After his request for missionaries had been refused in Rome, Rastislav asked the Byzantine emperor to send a "teacher" (učiteľ) to introduce literacy and a legal system (pravьda) to Great Moravia.

The missionary brothers Cyril and Methodius introduced a system of writing (the Glagolitic alphabet) and Slavonic liturgy, the latter eventually formally approved by Pope Adrian II.

[5] The Glagolitic script was probably invented by Cyril himself and the language he used for his translations of religious texts and his original literary creation was based on the Eastern South Slavic dialect he and his brother Methodius knew from their native Thessaloniki.

Mojmír and his successor, Rastislav ("Rostislav" in Czech), who ruled from 846 to 870, initially acknowledged the suzerainty of the Carolingian monarchs, but the Moravian fight for independence caused a series of armed conflicts with East Francia from the 840s.

[19][20] Archaeological findings of large early medieval fortresses and the significant cluster of settlements growing around them suggest that an important centre of power emerged in this region in the 9th century.

[6] Martin Eggers suggested the original location of Moravia was centered around modern Banat at the confluence of the rivers Tisza and Mureș ('Moriš' in Serbian),[42][43] with further expansions extending to the territories in present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia.

[45] Archaeological sites have yielded hand-made ceramics,[46] and closely analogous objects in southern Poland and western Ukraine appeared at the confluence of the northern Morava River and the Middle Danube, dated to around 550.

[44] Even though the Avar settlement area stabilized on the Danube river in the early period of the khaganate (southern border of present-day Slovakia), a smaller (southernmost) part came under their direct military control after the fall of Samo's empire.

[44][57][58] The Royal Frankish Annals narrates that Avars who "could not stay in their previous dwelling places on account of the attacks of the Slavs"[59] approached Charlemagne in Aachen in 805 and asked to be allowed to settle in the lowlands along the river Rába.

[21] On the other hand, Ján Dekan writes that it represents how Moravian craftsmen selected "elements from the ornamental content of Carolingian art which suited their aesthetic needs and traditions".

[8] In the autumn of this year, according to the Royal Frankish Annals, Avar rulers and the duces or "leaders of the Slavs who live along the Danube"[66] visited the court of Emperor Louis the Pious (r. 814–840) in Aachen.

[84][85][86] A third view is presented by Püspöki-Nagy and Senga, who write that the reference to the Merehanii—who obviously inhabited the southern regions of the Great Hungarian Plains to the north of the Danube, but south of the territories dominated by the Bulgars—and their 30 fortresses shows the existence of another Moravia in Central Europe.

[citation needed] Although the Holy See never denied Methodius's orthodoxy, in 880 the Pope appointed his main opponent, Wiching, as bishop of Nitra upon the request of Svatopluk, who himself preferred the Latin rite.

[129] A letter written around 900 by Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg (r. 873–907) and his suffragan bishops mentions that the pope sent Wiching to "a newly baptized people" whom Svatopluk "had defeated in war and converted from paganism to Christianity".

[142] In the bull, the pope refers to Svatopluk as "the only son" (unicus fillius) of the Holy See, thus applying a title which had up to that time been only used in papal correspondence with emperors and candidates for imperial rank.

[139] Led by Bishop Wiching of Nitra, Methodius's opponents took advantage of his death and persuaded Pope Stephen V (r. 885–891) to restrict the use of Old Church Slavonic in the liturgy in the bull Quia te zelo.

[114] For instance, the Bohemian dukes (based in the Prague region) accepted King Arnulf's suzerainty in June 895, and Mojmír II attempted to restore his supremacy over them without success in the next two years.

[174] A letter of Theotmar of Salzburg and his suffragans evidences that around 900 the Moravians and the Bavarians accused each other of having formed alliances, even by taking oaths "by the means of a dog and a wolf and through other abominable and pagan customs",[175] with the Hungarians.

[172] The Moravian land, according to the prophecy of the holy archbishop Methodius, was promptly punished by God for their lawlessness and heresy, for the banishment of the orthodox fathers, and for the torments inflicted on the latter by the heretics with whom they acquiesced.

The most important were localities with central functions like Mikulčice-Valy, Staré Město – Uherské Hradiště and Nitra, where several castles and settlements formed a huge fortified (pre-)urban agglomeration.

[249] The territory of Great Moravia was originally evangelized by missionaries coming from the Frankish Empire or Byzantine enclaves in Italy and Dalmatia from the early 8th century and sporadically earlier.

Similarly, the Great Moravian criminal law code was not merely a translation from Latin, but also punished a number of offenses originally tolerated by pre-Christian Slavic mores, yet prohibited by Christianity (mostly related to sexual conduct).

The Cyrillic script was created in Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School, which became the standard alphabet the Bulgarian Empire and later in the Kievan Rus' (modern day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus).

[206] However, in the words of Czech archaeologist Josef Poulík, "these new forms and techniques were not copied passively, but were transformed in the local idiom, establishing in this way the roots of the distinctive Great Moravian jewellery style.

On the one hand, recent research indicates that a significant part of the local aristocracy remained more or less undisturbed by the fall of Great Moravia and their descendants became nobles in the newly formed Kingdom of Hungary.

[264] On the other hand, both Anonymous and Simon of Kéza, two chroniclers of the early history of Hungary, recorded that the prominent noble families of the kingdom descended either from leaders of the Magyar tribes or from immigrants, and they did not connect any of them to Great Moravia.

For example, the ancestors of the clan Hunt-Pázmán (Hont-Pázmány), whose Great Moravian origin has been advanced by Slovak scholars,[264] were reported by Simon of Kéza to have arrived from the Duchy of Swabia in the late 10th century.

Great Moravian history has been regarded as a cultural root of several Slavic nations in Central Europe and it was employed in attempts to create a single Czechoslovak identity in the 20th century.