The historic-ethnographic monography Myjava is being published on the occasion of the four hundred’s anniversary of its foundation. Its intention is to put down and prove by documents the origins, and mainly the development of the Myjava city of today, which has become a natural centre of a wide-spread region forming a passage between the Small and the White Carpathians - the Myjava Hill-Country.
The certificate of the foundation has not been preserved, but it is proved by all accessible documents that it was founded in 1586 in the place of Stara Myjava (the Old Myjava) of today, by Francis Nadasdy, the owner of the domain of Cachtice, though his farm existed in the area of the Myjava city of today already in 1436.
Myjava was colonized by the population who had fled the southern parts of Slovakia being afraid of Turks and, by the population of the Orava nad Trencin districts as a part of the Wallachian colonization. The inhabitants from the Wallachian colonization had mastered the use of fire-arms. It was expressed in the participation of the Myjava citizens in Anti-Habsburg uprisings. The mentioned colonization has influenced on the Myjava dialect.
In 1621, the Myjava inhabitants and Anti-Habsburg rebels of Gabriel Bethlen invaded neighbouring Moravia and, in the battle near Rohatec they successfully attackech a unit of Cossacks sent by the Polish ruler to help Ferdinand II. As a revenge, the Cossacks and German soldiers plundered and burnt out Myjava on November 25, 1621. 80 inhabitants were killed.
In 1643, when Francis Nadasdy, the landlord of Cachtice became Catholic (was Protestant before), the Myjava Protestant Church had to accept a Catholic priest. But, according to the conclusions of the Linz Peace Treaty between the Austrian emperor and George Rakoczi, the sent out commissioners (both rebel and imperial ones) made public a protective letter for other conveniences were given back to Protestants. As a matter of fact, it was a reward for merits of Myjava inhabitants in the rising of Gabriel Bethlen. But the landlord of Cachtice abolished the religious freedom of Myjava irresponsibily in 1661. That fact caused other disturbances.
The Turkish-Tatar soldiers had passed also across Myjava. It was plundered and burnt out three times in 1663.

707 people were captivated, some of them were executed.
During the so called Ten Years’ Victimisation of Protestants in Hungary which took part after Wesselényi’s conspiracy, there was violently taken also a church in the neighbouring village Tura Lúka (today part of Myjava). It resulted in the Revolt of Tura Lúka that was cruelly repressed. After the revolt in Senica (June 4, 1673), several rebels sheltered at Myjava farms on newly-cleared land and, led by John Strezenicky who was sent to the Myjava region by Anti-Habsburg rebels (”kuruci”) from Upper Hungary, they attacked Catholic priest nad yeomen’s mansions. In fact, those were already the first actions of the rebels ”kuruci” before the open stand up of Emmerich Thokoly to the emperor in 1678.
In 1690, the emperor Leopold I. Issued protective letters given out by mediation of the highest military council for Myjava and Tura Lúka. It protected his villeins from billeting soldiers on them and, it allowed the villeins to be taken under the imperial-royal protection and patronage. By that note he satisfied wishes of villages addressed to him concerning the subject of the religious liberty. Therefore, the Myjava inhabitants invited a Protestant clergyman Daniel Krman jr., the personality of whom influenced on the course of further events. On his initiative, a new church was built and, in 1697, Myjava was ransomed from paying duty of the copyhold, so that Myjava could gain also new lands on the ground of the town of today for settlements of new immigrants - mainly of craftsmen.
After the rising of Francis Rakoczi II. Broke out in 1703, the Myjava people, loyal to anti-feudal traditions, acknowledged the Rakoczi’s rising. The villeins took part in raids to the neighbouring Moravia. As a revenge, the imperial army burnt out Myjava on April 10, 1704. Several thousand people from Myjava and environs answered in the battle of Smolenice on May, 28, 1704, where they, together with rebellious soldiers killed 700 imperial soldiers. There were killed also 300 men from Myjava and its surroundings. During that rising, the Myjava inhabitants undertook other raids to Moravia, for which fact the imperial army plundered and burnt out Myjava three times again.
After the Rakoczi’s rising, many people left the subverted Myjava for southern parts of Slovakia, even for Hungary of today. E. g., in the village Oroszlanyi (Hungary), the use of the dialect from Myjava - Brezova was found out even after the World War II. and, the inhabitants remembered several Myjava songs.
The further development of Myjava is connected with the development of crafts. The oldest furriers’ guild existed there already in 1676, and its privilege was given them by the emperor Leopold I.

After the Satu Mare Peace other guilds are founded: the shoemaker’ in 1716, the weavers’ in 1719, and the butchers’ in 1726. In that period, also the craft of making sifting sacks for mills (so called pytlikarstvo - sack making) extended there. Economically, it became the most important craft of Myjava that met with a ready market in the whole territory of Austria-Hungary.
It was Daniel Krman jr. Who played important part in the economic rise of the village. His personality attracted non-Catholics both from neighbourhood and from Moravia to such a degree that they even moved to Myjava and joined the increasing crafts. Under constraint of Moravian authorities, the emperor Charles VI. Ordered to remove Krman from Myjava in 1716, but the Hungarian authorities did not accept it. Under other constraints and various pretences, his influence upon the Moravian borderland was hindered and, in 1729, the emperor ordered to put him to prison and sentenced to life imprisonment in Bratislava Castle. Daniel Krman died there in 1740 having left an important scientific and literary work. The emperor prohibited the Myjava Protestant Church and ordered to take the church and property. Intercessions were vain, though the following ambassadors interceded: Danish, Prussian, Saxon, Hanoverian, Norwegian, British, and even the Russian Queen Ann in 1736, and the English King George in 1745. However, the Austrian emperor Charles VI, and Maria Theresa after him remained hard-hearted to Myjava.
The Act of Toleration of Joseph II in 1781 meant a peaceful beginning of the economicn and cultural development of the city that had already 8,387 inhabitants in 1785. In the forties of the nineteenth century, under the influence of J. M. Hurban and other patriots, the whole region of the Myjava Hill-Country becomes one of the most significant centres of the Slovak national movement. Its aim was to grant equality of the Slovaks with other nations of Hungary. The Government in Pest proclaimed a martial law and issued warrants of arrest for leaders of the Slovak nation, Stúr, Hurban and Hodza. The mentioned leaders organized a corps of volunteers in Vienna, who crossed the frontier of Hungary on September 18, 1848 and, on the same day they reached Myjava - a centre of the first Slovak rising. The following day, a rally of people took part there and declared in public the Slovak National Council to be a representative of the political and military forces of Slovakia, as the first national authority in the history of the Slovaks.

The inhabitants of Myjava and its environs joined spontaneously the rising and fights near Brezova pod Bradlom, Senica and Stara Tura. Nevertheless, the tactics of Vienna, the lack of arms and of training of the volunteers caused that the army of rebels was dissolved, and the leaders retreated to Moravia on September 28, 1848, after the last fight in the region of Myjava farm on the community U Klasovitych. 60 inhabitants of Myjava who engaged most in the rising fled from the persecution there too.
In 1850, the Government in Vienna established the Myjava district. As it became a seat of the district authorities, Myjava was constructed - mainly its central part - so called small city, around which were even 120 communities already at that time belongigng to Myjava.
After the Austro-Hungarian settlement in 1867, the oppression of nations increases. The Hungarian Government abolishes modest gains of the Slovak nation - the Slovak grammar-schools, the Matica slovenska (cultural association of the Slovaks) and, later it makes the Slovaks speak Hungarian in public, in churches, unions, clubs, and elementary schools. Myjava resisted those pressures to a considerate degree. It was a merit of patriots - a lawyer Jan Klempa, a teacher Karol Viest, teachers Pavel Kulisek, Michal Simonovic and Vladislav Lajda, then Dr. Jan Slabej, Dr. Jan Krno, Dr. Jan Valasek, Jan Cadra and many other ones. They had an effect on the development of the Slovak consciousness at schools, they founded cultural, social and economic associations, then organized theatre performances and cultural undertakings, trips, they published books, newspapers, magazines in the local Slovak printing-house of Daniel Pazicky. In 1893, the Slovak bank institute - Myjavska banka was established as the answer to the establishment of such an institute in Myjava in 1886 that belonged to the Hungarians. However, the Hungarian authorities oppressed the activity of the Myjava patriots more and more. Many of them were police supervised. The cultural-social societies were prohibited in Myjava. Myjava, the most significant centre of patriots in western Slovakia at that time was called ”nest of Panslavists.”
The unsolved social claims and national oppression were expressed to the utmost during elections when the victory of the candidates would be reached deceitfully and violently. It is not earlier than in 1901 when four deputies from Slovakia became members of the Hungarian Parliament after more than thirty years.

There was also Jan Valasek from Myjava among them who was sentenced for one year and fined for ”provoking” in the pre-election campaign.
The decline of the home-made and craft production in the latter 19th century caused by the developing capitalist production, made the situation of the Myjava population worse because the land could not be sufficient to feed the increasing population. That is why many inhabitants of Myjava emigrated mainly to the USA since 1890. The immigrants settled both in big cities, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and in smaller towns on the eastern beach in the states New York and Pennsylvania. In the North Dakota and in Texas there settled those who were interested in the agriculture and in work on farms. However, the small city Little Falls, N. Y., became the greatest centre of immigrants, called ”the second Myjava”.
The immigrants from Myjava tried to develop the national consciousness in the Union of the Physical Culture Sokol, in the Slovak Protestant Union, Slovak National Association, and they joined the economic life and social fights. In the Slovak League the main organization for the national liberation, Jan Samuel Bradac from Myjava, an outstanding representative of the Slovak national life in the USA, was one of 7 participants of the Slovak delegation who made a contract known as Pittsburgh Treaty.
From the centres of Myjava inhabitants living in the USA, a reviving capital was flowing to Myjava. It caused that the properties that were in debts came again to the hands of the original owners. In 1906, another Slovak bank - New Bank was founded in Myjava. But money made in the USA and put by in the Myjava banks came from the hard life experience, and not only once were they marked by hard destinies of many emigrants.
The World War I hindered Myjava from the economic development. The poverty of farmers and landless persons in many families was even multiplied by the lost of fathers and sons, because in the battlefields there died 286 men from Myjava. The establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic meant the end of the Hungarian oppression, and the Myjava inhabitants greeted enthusiastically the national liberation. The Matica slovenska was opened again, the national life developed in freedom, as well as the cultural and educational work, theatres, physical culture and sport.

The emigration was restricted partly because of new working occasions in the construction of the railway track Veseli nad Moravou - Myjava - Nové Mesto nad Vahom, because of which there were conditions for further economic development of Myjava.
The rich history of Myjava is connected with mentality of its people that have preserved their industry, implacability with oppression, purity of the national consciousness, as well as a preservation and an anxious protection of the own traditions arisen in the territory of the Myjava Hill-Country. The mentioned characteristic whole known by clean-cut shapes and temperate colours of the national costume nad houses, by a typical dialect and way of life preserving traditional manners and customs attracted the attention of ethnographers and folklorists already in the past. At the beginning of our century, a Swiss aesthete William Ritter came to Myjava and became an admirer of the folk-architecture and art of Myjava. In the thirties, an outstanding Czech ethnologist and photographer Karel Plicka records Myjava manners and customs, songs, music, dances and folk-costumes. However, a complex research of the material and spiritual culture of the people of that region was carried out in the sixties and seventies of our century, patronized by the Institute of Ethnography of the Slovak National Museum in Martin, and by the Department of the Ethnography and Folklore of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University in Bratislava. Because of that, the authors of this publication could use studies on the material culture of the people, folklore and dialects in this book.
The geographic conditions of the Myjava Hill-Country had an effect on the preservation of traditional forms also in the agriculture, that was the main source of the nutrition of a prevailing part of the population. Hard and tough work is characteristic for the agriculture of Myjava (when trying to gain a new land by grubbing and cultivating it, when ploughing with wooden or semi/iron ploughs with teams of horses or cows, or when sowing corn manually). Corn was also threshed manually with so called flails. Not earlier than in the 20th century, threshing machines were used, first driven by people, later by animals using transfer mechanisms so called ”geple”. Fruit culture and breeding of cows, sheep, pigs, horses were an important part of the agriculture. It helped make better prosperity of a badly productive tilling of the land.
The modest life conditions provided by a relatively overpopulated Myjava territory forced the inhabitants to develop, apart from the agriculture, also home/produced crafts and a peddling. It followed up with the domestic base in raw materials - abundance of wood, hemp, sheep wool and hide. It secured a prosperity of various craftsmen - wheelwrights, joiners, weavers, tailors, sack-makers, furriers, tanners and shoemakers. There worked also other craftsmen there - millers, black-smiths, butchers, dyers, bricklayers, carpenters, etc.

A part of the population of Myjava and its environs lived on trade. They carried goods and, mainly they sold mill sacks in mills of a prevailing part of the territory of Austria-Hungary. A folk-architecture was one of the characteristic features of the material culture of the inhabitants of Myjava and Myjava Hill-Country. It was represented by ground-floor and storeyed houses with an uncountable number of kinds and shapes. Gabled (oblique triangular), originally straw roofs of buildings were one common sign of them and, mainly building material - clay, in shape of unburnt bricks. A clay plaster was often used. It would be of earthy colour, and created areas were divided by horizontal and vertical strips. Sometimes, houses were decorated only by white borders around windows and doors.
The interior was interesting too - earthen, later wooden board floors, earthen whitewashed plaster of walls, wooden joist ceilings, doors of board frames and small windows created together with the furniture of that day, a cosy interior of the Myjava house. A fireplace was a prevailing element of constructions of the interiors. In the oldest houses it would stand in the corner of the room on a stand (open fireplace), and another one behind it in a stove (shut fireplace). In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, fireplace is being situated outside, to an anteroom, so called ”pitvor” that was later changed into a kitchen. The main, and in the past the only place of social life was the living room. In the corner there used to be a bench and a table. The most important place belonged to the head of a family - farmer. His authority in the family would be so expressed, as there used to live also families of married sons or daughters in a common households.
One of the culminating expressions of the material culture of the Myjava people was a national costume. Its characteristic sign is a simplicity of the material, a temperance of colours and adornments. There were two kinds of it - a civic costume put on in Myjava-town, and a costume put on on farms. Apart from it, the costume was difference in age and social position. In the development of the Myjava national costume there we can see several stages connected mainly with the use of new materials. The original cut has not been changed, but new materials often caused that the impression was more aesthetic. At present, we can see the folk-costume only in folklore groups and, from time to time, parts of it put on older women.
The folkloric traditions were seen also in cooking.

The composition and variety of food were often connected with the standard of life of the inhabitants. Sauces, gruels of podders and smashed potatoes compensating bread in the past, they were the old kinds of meals and dishes. Then meals of flour were often eaten - cooked, baked, roasted and fried. Soups, considerably thickened, were eaten as breakfast and, often as the main dish at noon. Milk and milk products belonged to the most important products of the animal produce. Meat was eaten seldom, only during holidays or family feasts, because families sold cattle to buy other necessary products.
Family and annual customs are an inseparable part of the life of the Myjava people. Those rites of the past have lost their original sense. For their regularity, social and amusing contents later, sone of them have been preserved to the present. The family customs are connected with significant family events (birth of children, recruiting, weddings, funerals, etc.). Annual customs are divided into cycles of the winter and summer solstices, and spring and autumn equinox. In winter, a cult of forefathers prevailed, as well as prophesying and telling fortune. In spring, it was a cult of the earth, water, flora and, in summer, a cult of the sun and abundance in the nature.
To the way of life of the Myjava people in farms and towns there belonged a popular prose and folk-songs. The repertory of the stories consisted of tales, superstitions, humouristic stories and of stories from life of the people. The topics of the folk-prose are found in the real-historic and present lives. To one of the oldest topics, narratives of Hussites and Anti-Turkish struggles belong. To the newer ones themes about the revolutionary years 1848-49 belong emigration, local tales and a period of the two world wars. Those are also topics of the popular songs from Myjava, in which hard work, optimism and ethic principles of the people are emphasized. The music of the Myjava folk-songs contains the oldest signs of the agricultural culture, period of the shepherds’ and Wallachian culture, a modal inter-stratum that arose on a base of new harmonic thinking from the 18th century, and a new Hungarian musical expression that influenced mainly military songs and csardas. The folkloric traditions of Myjava are joined by a musical-instrumental expression. In the past, till the beginning of the 20th century, bagpipe was the mostly used solo instrument near Myjava. After the World War I, it was a button accordion.

As far as playing in groups is concerned, folk-bands with 4 - 6 members played a significant part in the latter 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries (violin, contrabass, clarinet, trumpet). In the 20th century, the Myjava Cymbal Folk Band led by Samko Dudik won an international recognition.
Traditions in dances belong to the folk-songs and music in Myjava too. The dance was not a privilege only of dancing parties or weddings in the past. The young people danced when listening to a bagpipe or accordion also when cooking jam, stripping feathers, building or throwing down maypoles or when young men came to see maidens. Ancient Slavonic dances were danced. In the end of the 19th century and, at the beginning of the 20th, csardas domesticated there, before the World War I. mazurka and polka, and then waltz and tango. At present, the old dances are authentically interpreted by the folkloric group Kycer, and a group Kopaniciar is a bearer of folk-traditions and a dignified representative of the treasury of the national art in Myjava.

	Tento článok bol vytlačený zo stránky https://referaty.centrum.sk