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.