SUPPRESSING THE MEMORY OF SLOVAK PANSLAVISM: THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL MISREPRESENTATION OF KOLLÁR AND ŠTÚR

In the first half of the nineteenth century, intellectuals from northern Hungary usually believed in a single Slavic nation speaking a single language. They imagined Slovaks not as a nation but as a “tribe” of the Slavic nation, and Slovak as a “dialect” or even a “subdialect” of the Slavic language. Modern historians and linguists, however, are so extraordinarily unwilling to acknowledge nineteenth-century Panslavism that many falsify primary source quotations, particularly as concerns the language/dialect dichotomy which features prominently in Panslav linguistic thought: where historical actors refer to a “dialect”, modern scholars substitute the term “language”. The end result is to transform Panslavs into particularist Slovak nationalists. This paper documents the Panslavism of Jan Kollár and Ľudovít Štúr, documents the misrepresentation of their ideas in recent historiography, and speculates why so many scholars refuse to acknowledge past Panslavism.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, many Slavic intellectuals believed in a single "Slavic nation" speaking a single "Slavic language". They typically characterized Russian, Polish, Czech, and so forth as "dialects" of a greater Slavic whole. Indeed, several engaged in language planning on behalf of that Slavic language, forming literary or scholarly networks with savants in other Slavic countries, founding literary journals that published poetry from all parts of the Slavic world, and writing grammars or other works of language planning in the hopes of bringing the Slavic varieties closer together. Slavs engaged in this sort of activism typically characterized themselves as "Panslavs".
Panslavism, as practiced in the nineteenth century, no longer attracts much passion: it has been almost wholly supplanted by alternate national concepts. Nevertheless, many of the particularist nationalisms that currently command popular loyalty in the Slavic world emerged only in surprisingly recent times. Comparing the early twenty-first century map of Europe with the taxonomy of "Slavic tribes [slavische Volkszweige]" listed in Jernej Kopitar's 1810 "patriotic fantasies of a Slav" reveals that five internationally-recognized states (Belarus, Bosnia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Ukraine) bear the name of a titular Slavic nationality unknown to one of the greatest Slavists of the early nineteenth century. 1 The great transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have changed how Slavs understand themselves, their nationalities, and their language(s). The present, in short, differs from the past.
Nevertheless, a surprising number of scholarly works go to great lengths to efface the difference between the past and the present. Scholars pretend that nineteenth-century actors espoused contemporary ideas by "correcting", "clarifying", or otherwise changing the wording of the primary sources they cite, altering the meaning of key passages. These alterations flout one of the most basic scholarly conventions regarding the use of quotations, namely, that text inside quotation marks should not be altered. Scholars have also developed specious theories that basic words have changed their meaning, despite readily available evidence to the contrary.
This paper examines the scholarly depiction of Jan Kollár and Ľudovít Štúr. It begins by documenting their Panslav beliefs at a level of detail that some readers may initially find excessive, reproducing the key words for "language" or "dialect" in the original languages (mostly Slavic or German, but occasionally Latin). The paper then cites secondary literature summarizing or even quoting Kollár and Štúr, showing that translations, summaries and quotations are not accurate. Skeptical readers are urged to consult the original texts for themselves; the original works of Kollár and Štúr are readily available online. The paper concludes with possible explanations for the sorry state of current scholarship. It suggests that nationalist pride plays a secondary role: the main problems are instead anachronistic thinking and the tendency to conflate nationalism with a quest for statehood.
Much of the argument rests on the terminology used to express the language/ dialect dichotomy and its translation from Slavic to English or German, so it may be useful to begin with a survey the dichotomy's history. The word "dialect" ultimately derives from the Ancient Greek word διάλεκτος [diálektos], which in antiquity referred to both regional varieties of Greek and non-Greek varieties, such as Latin and Egyptian. During the Middle Ages, scholars used the term primarily with reference to regional varieties of Greek. In the 1500s, however, Mundart; 7 an "Illyrian" dictionary subsequently equated Narěčje with both German Mundart and Dialekt. 8 Lexicographers in Bohemia and Moravia equated the word nářečj with the German Mundart, 9 with both Latin Dĭalectus and German Mundart, 10 or alternatively equated the word nářečí with the German word Dialekt. 11 Polish scholars translated narzecz with French dialect and German Mundart, 12 or alternatively translated German Mundart with Slavic dyalekt and narzecze. 13 Savants from Slavic northern Hungary, the territory that would eventually become the Slovak republic, followed the usage of other Slavs. Though Bernolák's posthumously published dictionary contains no entry for any descendant of *na + *rěčъ, 14 Juraj Palkovič equated nářečj with both Latin dialectus and German Mundart. 15 The language/dialect dichotomy did not, however, satisfy Pavel Josef Šafařík (1795 -1861), the most important Slavic savant from northern Hungary, and a key figure in nineteenth-century Slavic studies generally. Šafařík's name, as Robert Pynsent noted, "is a problem," 16 since he variously published as "Ssaffařjk", "Šafařjk", "Schafarik", "Schaffarik" and "Šafařík". Modern Slovak scholars usually refer to him as "Pavol Šafárik," but Czech scholars prefer Šafařík, a spelling which finds precedent in Šafařík's own usage. Šafařík he introduced an even more complex taxonomy containing no fewer than seven labeled layers. The mature Šafařík divided howor lidský, a phrase that might be glossed as "human speech", into jazyky [languages]. He then divided a jazyk into mluwy, a mluwa into řečí, a řeč into nářečí, a nářečí into podřečí, and a podřeč into různořečí. Šafařík specifically imagined the "Slavic language [jazyk slowanský]" divided into four mluvy, which were in turn divided into seven řeči, in turn divided into fourteen nářečí. Šafařík concluded that "many of these nářeči are subdivided into various podřečí, whose number is not yet known". 18 Šafařík's seven-layer taxonomy inserts two layers (the mluva and the řeč) between the jazyk (= language) and the nářečí (= dialect). Since to the best of my knowledge no Anglophone scholar has ever devised a layered taxonomy with two levels sandwiched between the "language" and the "dialect", Šafařík's terms do not translate into English. Nevertheless, observe that the mature Šafařík subsumed the varieties of each layer within the varieties in the layer above. He specifically classified the Slovak nářeči within the broader Czech řeč.
Šafařík seven-layer taxonomy proved influential, even if Šafařík's contemporaries routinely relabeled the various layers. Osip Bodjanskij's Russian translation, for example, replaced Šafařík's mluwa with the говор [govor]. 19 Piotr Dalhman's Polish translation changed half of Šafařík's labels: though he equated Šafařík's nářečí, podřečí and různořečí with the narzecze, podrzecze and róźnorzecze, he divided human speech into mowy, a mowa into idiomy, an idiom into języki, and a język into narzecza. 20 Other variants were proposed by scholars in Galicia, 21 or in Carinthia. 22  The lexical and orthographic diversity visible in Figure 1 should not conceal certain common features. All these taxonomies assigned descendants of *na + *rěčъ to label the same layer of the taxonomy, namely, the third layer from the bottom. In terms of the language/dialect dichotomy, furthermore, all these scholars treated descendants of *na + *rěčъ as a subcategory of all other noncompound labels. They variously imagined descendants of *na + *rěčъ as subcategory of the Jazyk / Język / Jezik / Языкь, of the Mluwa / Mluva / Mowa / Мова, of the Řeč / Reč / Рѣчь, of the Govor / Говор, of the Idiom, and of the Prostorečje.
With this terminological overview in mind, let us turn to the thought of Kollár and Štúr. The discussion below focuses on how these two thinkers understood the Slavic world, and the status assigned Slovak and Slovaks with that broader Slavic context. Though Kollár and Štúr ultimately differed on the precise status of Slovak, both followed Šafařík in positing a "Slavic language".

Jan Kollár's Panslavism: The Slavic Language and its Dialects
Jan Kollár (1793Kollár ( -1852, who in defiance of subsequent convention did not publish as "Ján", was born in the town of Mošovce, then part of Turóc county in the Kingdom of Hungary. A Protestant pastor and an influential poet, Kollár published several works, including songbooks, collections of sermons, and various pamphlets on patriotic themes. He is best remembered for his epic Sláwy dcera, first published in 1824 with 150 cantos. 25 Kollár substantially expanded the work to 615 cantos in 1832, 26 and a posthumously published 1852 edition ultimately included 622 cantos, plus supplementary material. 27 The poem's narrator sings of his love for a goddess named Sláwa; romantic-sexual feelings symbolize patriotic love for the Slavic nation.
Distinguishing Slovak feeling from Slavic feeling is sometimes difficult because the terms slovenský and slovanský long served as stylistic alternatives: Jozef Ambruš rightly warned that scholars "have not paid enough attention to the coherent expressions Slávsky [Slavic], slovenský [Slovak], Slovensko [Slovakia], and Slovenčina [the Slovak language]". 28 In the expanded 1832 edition of Sláwy dcera, however, Kollár provided a series of geographic references that unambiguously delineate Panslavic nationalism, rather than Slovak particularism. In verse 257, he described the national homeland "All-Slavia [Wšesláwia]" as including the cities of Prague, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, and Istanbul, as well as the Ural Mountains and the Volga river. 29 Kollár also expressed an unambiguously Panslav national concept, rather than Slovak particularist nationalism, in various prose works promoting what he called "literary reciprocity [wzájemnost, Wecheselseitigkeit]". His first work on reciprocity was a short essay published in the periodical Hronka: Podtatranská Zábavnice. 30 Kollár then expanded this essay into a German-language book: the first edition was published in Pest; 31 a slightly different second edition in Prague. 32 Kollár's reciprocity imagined the nation primarily as a literary movement. Kollár advocated reading rooms, book exchanges, libraries, university chairs, and a "pan-dialectical [wšenářečné / allmundartliche] literary newspaper". 33 Kollár's works on reciprocity repeatedly evoked the language/dialect dichotomy. His initial essay in Hronka divided the "many-tribed Slavic nation [mnohokmeného národu slawského]" into four "main, living, educated and Neither of these works explicitly discussed the status of Slovak, though the terms českoslowenské, böhmischslowakischen, and böhmisch-slowakischen suggests a "dialect" extending from Bohemia to northern Hungary and thus encompassing Slovak. In a separate work on orthographic reform, however, Kollár was unambiguous. Specifically addressing a Slovak audience, Kollár called alluded to the "dialectical ties [nářečními swazky]" uniting "we Slovaks, Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians and in part Lusatians too", and subordinating this Czechoslovak "national tribe [národní kmen] within a broader Slavic nation. In the same tract, he opined that "the Slovak on his own does not have anything in literature, or rather what he has, it is more Czechoslovak than Slovak proper". 36 Kollár's national feeling, then, attached itself first to a Slavic nation [národ, Volk, Nation], then to a Czechoslovak tribe [kmen / národní kmen / Stamm], and only then to anything Slovak particularist. His concept of the national language similarly posited a Slavic řeč / Sprache, which encompassed a Czechoslovak nářečia / Mundart / Dialekt, which in turn encompassed Slovak as either a smaller nářečia/Mundart or a podnářečia/Untermundart. These ideas are not compatible with subsequent Slovak particularist nationalism, which vigorously proclaims that Slovaks are a "nation" speaking their own "language". Twentyfirst century Slovak nationalists also insist that Slovak is not a dialect or other subcategory of Czech, but assign both Slovak and Czech the same rank in linguistic taxonomies. Kollár's linguistic nationalism, therefore, was Panslavic, rather than Slovak particularist.
Many scholars have responded to Kollár's Panslavism with annoyance or anger. Slovak philosopher Marianna Oravcová rejected Kollár's Reciprocity as "an unclear, fuzzy and elevated vision of Slavism" and as "a projection of values and goals completely different from the actual needs and possibilities". 37 Ukrainian philologist Solomiya Kost' not only declared Kollár's ideas "utopian, detached from political realities, incompatible with the historical imperatives and aspirations of the Slavonic peoples", 38 but suggested that literary reciprocity meant "the rejection of national identity, which was the path to the nation's disappearance" since it contradicted "the aspirations of many Slavic peoples to either restore statehood, or at least become full-fledged European nations". 39 Slovak linguist Eugen Jóna similarly judged that "restricting Slavic reciprocity to four literatures was just dead theory". 40 Canadian-Slovak literary scholar Peter Petro wrote that Kollár "mentally lived in Slavdom, a beautiful but unrealistic fiction", 41 while Hans Kohn dismissed "the Kollar-inspired phantasy of one great Slav nation and one Slav language". 42 Alfred Thomas thought "Kollár's Panslavism was … based on a dream of harmonious relations between brother Slavs rather than a reflection of objective political reality", 43 and elsewhere condemned "Kollárian Panslavism" as "a reinvented tradition without authentic origins". 44 37 ORAVCOVÁ. Annoyance and anger perhaps explain why so many scholars refuse to take Kollár's Panslavism seriously. Several depict Kollár as positing multiple Slavic "nations," rather than "tribes" of a single nation. Croatian historian Nikša Stančić, for example, claimed that Kollár "grouped all Slavs in only four literary languages, and, consequently, into four nations". 45 Kollár actually posited one language with four dialects, spoken by one nation with four tribes. Ľudovít Haraksim substituted "nations" for Kollár's Stämme when describing the "treatise On the Literary Reciprocity Between the Slavic Tribes and Dialects (1836)" as "a programme for co-operation between the Slavic nations". 46 Haraksim did not explain the discrepancy between Kollár's book title and the ideas he ascribed to it, but elsewhere drew attention to lexical substitutions: he wrote that subsequent intellectuals subordinated their ideals of Slavdom to "the interests of their 'tribe', i.e. nation", or alternatively to "the interests of their own tribe, i.e. nation". 47 Several scholars are so eager to conceal Kollár's Panslavism that they even misrepresent the title of his book. Paul Radosavljevich translated it as "On the Literary Reciprocity between the Families and Dialects of the Slavic Nations," 48 that is, transforming the singular Slavic "nation" into plural "nations." Anna Grigorieva gave "About literary mutuality between the Slavic nations and dialects." 49 The aforementioned Thomas not only gave plural "nations" but also misrepresented Mundarten as "languages": "Concerning the Reciprocity between the Various Tribes and Languages of the Slavic Nations." 50 Even experts on Panslavism transform Kollár's "living educated dialects" into "languages". Both Hans Kohn and John Erickson described Kollár as believing in multiple Slavic "languages". 51 Petra Svoljšak wrote about the "Pan-Slavic ideas of Ján Kollár, who advocated the concept of four great Slavic languages." 52 Mikuš acknowledged Kollár's belief in a single Slavic "nation", but thought "that nation would, however, still speak four languages". 53 Oravcová, concentrating specifically on Kollár's českoslowenský / böhmischslowakische tribe speaking its českoslowenský / böhmischslowakische dialect, claimed that Kollár posited "one united, though non-existent, Slavic tribe" speaking "one common united Czechoslovak language". 54 Kollár had in fact characterized Czechoslovak as a nářečia / Mundart / Dialekt.
Still other scholars pretend that the word "dialect", when it appears in Kollár's text, actually meant "language". Karol Rosenbaum, sought to problematize Kollár's concepts by placing the uncomfortable words in quotation marks and adding specious glosses: he wrote of Kollár's "agitated patriotism" for "his 'tribe', 'dialect', i.e. nation and language [svoj "kmeň", "nárečie", t. j. národ a jazyk]." 55 Most scholars, however, prefer parenthetical misinformation. American Slavist David Cooper for example, wrote that "Kollár recognized what the loss of a dialect (that is, a language) would mean." 56 In a spectacular display of cognitive dissonance, Eugen Jóna acknowledged that Kollár's reciprocity imagined "four tribes with their dialects and literatures (Russian, Polish, Czech [sic] and Illyrian)", yet still ascribed to Kollár the belief that "the Slovak dialect (that is, the Slovak language), is rich, succinct, melodious, clean and well-preserved". 57 Kollár had actually imagined Slovak as a subdialect of the Czech dialect.
A few Slovak linguists, meanwhile, have engaged in straightforward lexical substitution, using parenthetical comments only as a grudging concession to Kollár's actual text. Vincent Blanár wrote that in the correspondence between Kollár and Šafařík "Slovaks were considered a special branch of the Slavic family and Slovak as a special Slavic language ('dialect') [osobitný slovanský jazyk ("nárečie")], but did not accept its literary-linguistic independence." 58 Ján Doruľa also has Kollár imagining a "Czechoslovak language (Czechoslovak dialect of the  Kollár. In Slavica Slovaca, 2009, Vol. 44, no. 1, p. 60. description to parenthetical comments. Perhaps they chose to cater to twentyfirst century expectations, rather than explain nineteenth century thinking?
In the context of linguistic classification, however, descendants of *na + *rěčъ cannot be assumed synonymous with the term jazyk. The language/dialect dichotomy treats them as binary opposites, and while the multi-level taxonomy propounded by Šafařík was more complex than a simple dichotomy, it still clearly subsumed descendants of *na + *rěčъ within a řeč, subsumed within a mluva, subsumed within a jazyk. When discussing Kollár's thought, scholars cannot simply substitute jazyk for a descendant of *na + *rěčъ, even with parentheses or other distancing devices.
Some of this confusion, admittedly, derives from the idiosyncrasies of linguistic jargon. Linguists often collectively denote the rules set forth in grammar books as a "standard language", a "literary language", or something similar. Indeed, several scholars hypothesize that it is precisely the processes of standardization that transforms uncodified and unwritten "dialects" into written "languages". 60 Linguists have variously opined that "a dialect may be defined as an undeveloped language", 61 theorized how "institutionalisation transforms … a dialect into a language", 62 or contrasted literary standards with "exclusively spoken dialects". 63 A standard or literary "language", furthermore, does not necessarily evoke the language/dialect dichotomy, because the "literary language" can also be juxtaposed with "spoken language". When Ivo Sivrić wrote that "Kollár advocated that only four literary languages among the Slav nations should be developed and cherished," 64 his usage was technically correct.
Nevertheless, terms such as "standard language" or "literary language" encourage confusion because the modifying adjective is easily omitted. Emil Horák, for example, discussed Kollár's "four-branched theory of Slavonic languages [slovanských jazykov], according to which Slavic literary languages [slovanské spisovné jazyky] would have four written forms". 65 The second clause is correct, and the first would be, had a modifying adjective been included.
Viewed through the lens of the language/dialect dichotomy, furthermore, the terms "standard language" or the "literary language" misleadingly conceal the possibility of associating the "standard language" with the dichotomy's subordinate half. Šafařík and Kollár were not the only Panslavs who associated distinct literary traditions with various "dialects" of the "Slavic language": several Slavic savants wrote grammars and dictionaries of Slavic "dialects". 66 Matija Majar's grammar even explicitly described itself as rules for the "Illyrian dialect [narečje] and the Slavic language [jezik] generally." 67 Given the danger of evoking the language/dialect dichotomy, scholars might do well to avoid the terms "literary languages" and "standard languages", and refer instead to "literary standards," "literary codifications", or something similar.

Ľudovít Štúr's Panslavism: Fighting for the "Slovak Dialect"
Scholars prove equally reluctant to confront the Panslavism of Ľudovít Štúr (1815 -1856), a multifaceted patriot celebrated, among other things, for his 1846 Slovak grammar, remembered as a milestone in the codification of literary Slovak. Štúr was born in a small mountain town in the west of the future Slovak republic. Like Šafařík and Kollár, he had a Protestant education in northern Hungary and attended university in Germany. When he started a teaching career at Lutheran lyceum in Bratislava, Štúr showed his enthusiasm for Kollár's literary works by assigning Sláwy dcera to students. His social activism often reflected his enthusiasm for a broader Slavdom: he helped establish a Serbian reading room, 68 and published articles in Croatian newspapers. 69 Štúr also showed his zeal for Kollár's Czechoslovak "national tribe" uniting "we Slovaks with the Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians and in part Lusatians too" 70 by participating in a "Czecho-Slav" literary society, and, while visiting Bautzen, urging Sorbian intellectuals to "nurture reciprocity" and "unite with us". 71 In short, the young Štúr's Panslavism followed Kollár's example. Hungarian politics, however, ultimately led Štúr to break with Kollár. In the 1840s, Slavophobe Hungarian elites, interpreting Panslavism as Russophile irredentism and promoting assimilatory policies collectively remembered as "Magyarization", 72 began investigating schoolteachers. Štúr responded with a tract defending Slavic linguistic rights, 73 and was removed from his job in December 1843. 74 As an attempt to silence an outspoken defender of Slavic interests, this sacking may have proved counterproductive, since Štúr then founded an influential journal, the Slovenskje národňje novini [Slovak National News]. 75 Persecution, however, led Štúr to the conclusion that Slavs in northern Hungary would better defend their interests with a literary standard different from literary Czech. A literary tradition indigenous to Slavic northern Hungary would counter Magyar reproaches that Hungarian Slavs "living here [in Hungary], do not act like we live here, in that we deliver our literature to the Czechs, unify with them politically, and even that we may have no rights to liberation for our nationality in Hungary". 76 Breaking with literary Czech, Štúr reasoned, would demonstrate the loyalty of Hungary's Slavs and thus remove the pressure to Magyarize: "We are already, and wish to remain, at home; but we will see that our neighbors, and particularly our Magyars, will welcome us home." 77 In 1846, therefore, Štúr published not only a grammar book, the Nauka reči slovenskej [Handbook of the Slovak reč], but more importantly a pamphlet entitled Nárečja slovenskuo alebo potreba písaňja v tomto nárečí [The Slovak Dialect, or the Need to Write in this Dialect, hereafter Nárečja slovenskuo]. 78 Štúr's codification utterly failed to reconcile Magyarizing Hungarians with the existence of a Slavic intelligentsia promoting Slavic interests, but did much to overcome confessional differences between Lutheran and Catholic literary circles in Slavic northern Hungary. 79 Kollár, however, thought that Štúr's efforts to cultivate a uniquely Slovak literature contradicted the spirit of Slavic reciprocity. He responded by compiling a collection of essays denouncing Štúr, 80 prompting an indignant reply from Miroslav Hurban, one of Štúr's collaborators. 81 In many ways, the quarrel between Hurban and Kollár in the 1840s foreshadows the twentieth-century dispute between Czechoslovakism and Slovak nationalism. Interwar scholars debating Czechoslovakism by proxy have powerfully shaped how both Kollár and Štúr have been remembered. 82 The conflicts of the first Czechoslovak republic, however, should not obscure the common ground shared by Štúr and Kollár in the 1840s. Both Kollár and Štúr believed in a single Slavic nation divided into "tribes". Kollár imagined a "many-tribed Slavic nation [mnohokmeného národu slawského]", 83 while Štúr argued that "tribalism [kmenovitosť] (die Gliederung in Stämme, divisio in stirpes)" affected the Slavs more than "any other nation". 84 Both agreed that the Slavic nation shared a common language, namely, the Slavic language. Both divided that language into several written "dialects", each with its own literary tradition.
Štúr and  Slovenskím nárečím]". 85 Štúr was explicit and unambiguous about his belief in a Slovak "tribe" speaking a Slovak "dialect", writing: "We Slovaks are a tribe and as a tribe, we have our own dialect, which is different and distinct from Czech [Mi Slováci sme kmen a jako kmen máme vlastnuo nárečja, ktoruo je od českjeho odchodnuo a rozďjelno]." 86 The modern Slovak republic claims Štúr as a national hero. Štúr certainly made important contributions to Slovak history: he played a striking role during the 1848 revolution, and his linguistic ideas influenced the work of Martin Hattala, 87 which ultimately served as the basis for literary Slovak. The Slovak Academy of Sciences Institute of Linguistics bears his name, as does the town of Štúrovo. Štúr's face has graced several banknotes. Bratislava even boasts a "Štúr café". Štúr's status as a Slovak national hero, however, perhaps explains why so many scholars seek to suppress his Panslavism.
Scholarly accounts of Štúr, like those of Kollár, seek to conceal his use of the language/dialect dichotomy. The effect is particularly dramatic when scholars discuss the pamphlet in which Štúr advocated a distinctively Slovak literary standard, Nárečja slovenskuo alebo potreba písaňje v tomto nárečí. The word nárečja appears in the title not once but twice, a fact which subsequent scholars apparently find inconvenient. Scholars are aware of Štúr's status as the "father of the Slovak language". Scholars have, perhaps, also grown accustomed to thinking about a literary standard as a "literary language", and thus expect Štúr to use the word jazyk, not a descendant of *na + *rěčъ.
When writing in English, therefore, scholars simply engage in lexical substitution, replacing the word nárečja with something more palatable. The word nárečja has been glossed as "orthography", 88 as "idiom", 89 and as "speech". 90 At least four scholarly works have mistranslated Štúr's title as "The Slovak Tongue or the Necessity of Writing in this Tongue". 91 Many scholars, finally, have rendered nárečje as "language". The title of Štúr's pamphlet has been given "the Slovak Language or the Need to Write in this Language", 92 as "the Slovak Language or the Necessity of Writing in this Language", 93 and as "The Slovak language and the need to write in it." 94 Štúr's word nárečje is also routinely mistranslated when scholars cite a key passage from Štúr's argument "Mi Slováci sme kmen a jako kmen máme vlastnuo nárečja." Iván Berend, using quotation marks, translated the passage: "we have our own language, which is quite separate from the Czech", adducing it as evidence that Štúr "argued that Slovaks constituted a nation" and "advocated a separate Slovak language". 95 Scholars writing in Slovak lack the option of hiding behind inaccurate translations, but justify lexical substitution with parenthetical "clarifications". Eugen Jóna claimed that "the main argument according to Štúr is that the Slovaks are a tribe (i.e. a nation) and as a tribe they have their own dialect (i.e. language), which is different and distinct from Czech [Hlavným dôvodom pre Štúra je to, že Slováci sú kmeň (t. j. národ) a ako kmeň majú vlastné nárečie (t. j. jazyk), ktoré je od českého odchodné a rozdielne]". 96 An article by Slovak linguist Ján Kačala similarly cited passages in which Štúr used a descendant of *na + *rěčъ, inserting each time the bracketed comment "[read: language]". Lexical substitution thus enabled Kačala to speak about Štúr's "understanding of Slovak as a national language". 97 A few scholars putting words into Štúr's mouth have tried to justify their lexical substitutions. Even after acknowledging that "Slavophiles considered Slavdom a nation and the Slavic languages dialects", Peter Petro insisted of Štúr that "the word 'dialect', as he used it, meant 'language'". 98 American historian Hugh Agnew claimed that Štúr "insisted that Czech and Slovak were two separate distinct languages (though he still used the word 'nárečie' [sic])". 99 Samuel Cambel wrote of Štúr that "the main idea of his work" was that "Slovaks Slovaks are a tribe and as a tribe we have our own language," but admitted in a footnote that "dialect" would have been a "more exact" translation. 102 None of these scholars, however, provided any explanation why Štúr would use a descendant of *na + *rěčъ to insist upon, or understand, a distinct Slovak "language". Nevertheless, at least one Slovak scholar has formally proposed a theory of lexical shift. Writing in the Československý terminologický časopis [Czechoslovak Journal of Terminology], Vincent Blanár argued that during the 1860s and 1870s the semantic meaning of the word nárečie was simplified. While in Štúr's era the meaning "language [jazyk, Sprache]" dominated, in the 1860s and 1870s this meaning decreased to an archaism. The basic meaning of the word became "dialect [Dialekt, Mundart], which corresponds to the present state of affairs. 103 Rather than espousing the Panslav theory of a single Slavic language so common among other nineteenth-century Slavic intellectuals, Blanár argued, Štúr actually espoused the Slovak linguistic particularism familiar to twentiethor twenty-first-century readers, but he did so using archaic nineteenth-century terminology. According to Blanár, national concepts have not changed since the nineteenth century: Slovaks have always espoused Slovak particularist nationalism. Štúr invoked a descendant of *na + *rěčъ because Slovak words have changed their meanings.
Blanár's hypothesis of lexical shift has the virtue of falsifiability. Had the meaning of the word nárečja had actually changed relative to the German terms Sprache, Dialekt, and Mundart, that change would leave traces in dictionary definitions. Slavic lexicography, however, does not support Blanár's hypothesis. As noted above, numerous Slavic lexicographers, including Juraj Palkovič, Štúr's teacher and mentor at the Lutheran school in Bratislava, defined descendants of *na + *rěčъ as Mundart, Dialekt, or dialectus. Šafařík's usage also contradicts Blanár's hypothesis: Šafařík, and the many Slavic savants influenced by him, consistently treated descendants of *na + *rěčъ as a subcategory of the jazyk, not as a synonym or stylistic alternative.
The works of Štúr himself also contradict Blanár's hypothesis. Blanár's hypothesis predicts, for example, that Štúr would describe French, Italian, and Spanish as Romance nárečja. In Nárečja slovenskuo, however, Štúr insisted that the Romance languages are "proper reči and not nárečja, just as e.g. the French, Spanish and Italian nations are proper nations [národi]". 104 Indeed, Štúr elsewhere referred to the rozličnorečja of Genoa, Padua,and Bologna. 105 In the introduction to his grammar, furthermore, he insisted that Slovaks have "their own nárečja, which is not just a rozličnorečja of Czech, which we call Slovak, the Slovak nárečja [mi skutočňe máme vlastnuo nárečja, či je to ňje len rozličnorečja Česťini, čo mi Slovenčinou, nárečím Slovenskím volávame]". 106 Štúr's use of these classificatory categories clearly evokes Šafařík's taxonomy. Perhaps most damagingly for Blanár's hypothesis, however, Štúr himself explicitly translated nárečja into Latin and German as "dialectus, Mundart". 107 Štúr, in short, espoused Panslavism. He did not give familiar words unfamiliar meanings while professing modern Slovak particularist nationalism, he used familiar words with familiar meanings to express a national concept that has since become unfashionable. Štúr articulated the literary Panslavic nationalism that thrived in the early nineteenth century.
Even if Štúr's Panslavism creates difficulties for later generations seeking to depict him as a Slovak particularist national hero, Štúr cannot be blamed. Scholars, however, seem unwilling to face the ramifications of Štúr's Panslavism, and so have resorted to mistranslations and misquotations. Lexical substitutions transform Štúr's Panslavism into the comfortingly familiar Slovak particularism scholars evidently expected to find. Nevertheless, such terminological substitutions remain dishonest scholarship.

Who's Afraid of Panslavism?
Why have scholars been so reluctant to acknowledge Panslavism? This conclusion can offer only speculations, but some speculation seems worthwhile. Perhaps future scholars can learn to better perceive Panslavism in the historical record if they become more aware of the reasons why past scholars have sought to suppress it.
Slovak particularist nationalism is the most obvious suspect, particularly as concerns the misrepresentation of Štúr. Tomasz Kamusella employed the "handy algebraic-like equation language = nation = state" to summarize the broader Central European tendency to equate and conflate language and nation, 108 and linguistic loyalties have indeed played an unusually important role in Slovak nationalism, even by central European standards. Hugh Seton-Watson once wrote that "there is no more striking example than the Slovak case of the role of language in nation-forming", 109 while Tibor Pichler argued that "the Slovak nation was entirely language based". 110 Slovak patriots seeking to glorify Štúr as a national hero thus have a motive to suppress his Panslavism, since it is difficult for them to acknowledge that the Slovak historical record deviates from the Slovak national myth.
Slovak nationalism, however, cannot provide the whole explanation for these poor citation practices. Not all of the Slovak scholars discussed in this article are propagandists. Several of the scholars cited above, furthermore, are not Slovaks at all. The Hungarian historian Iván Berend, the Austro-German-born American historian Hans Kohn and the English-born Canadian scholar Peter Brock all expunged Panslavism from their accounts of Kollár and Štúr. Whatever their motives, Slovak nationalism seems an unlikely candidate.
Anachronistic thinking provides a broader explanation. Historians seeking to understand the past sometimes appropriately impose twentieth or twenty-first century analytical categories on the nineteenth century. The notion of a "Slovak language", however controversial in the past, has enjoyed widespread scholarly recognition since the Second World War. 111 If scholars mistake current fashions about how to classify the Slavic linguistic zone for a "scientific fact", if they mistake the Slovak language and/or nation for an objectively verifiable truth rather than a consensus belief, then they will struggle to understand historical actors who believed in other languages and/or nations.
Even anachronism, however, cannot fully explain why so many historians find Panslavism so difficult to acknowledge. Ideological change lies at the heart of the historical discipline, historians are usually comfortable with the idea that historical actors once thought differently. What makes Panslavism so uniquely hard to perceive? Perhaps a full explanation lies in the curious history of how scholars have understood the definition of the word "Panslavism".
Panslavism as manifested in nineteenth-century Hungary mostly concerned literary and linguistic questions. The Slovak lawyer who originally coined the term, Jan Herkel (who in defiance of subsequent convention did not publish as either Ján or Herkeľ) defined Panslavism in his 1826 comparative grammar as "the unity in literature among all Slavs [italics in original]". He compared things like noun declensions and verb conjugations, seeking compromise forms to bring the different varieties together. He also thought all Slavs should use a common alphabet, since "all Slavic dialects are but one single language". 112 Kollár's reciprocity, as noted above, analogously focused on libraries, bookstores, literary journals, and the like. Nevertheless, hostile Magyarizers repeatedly attacked Panslavism for its alleged Russophile irredentism, equated with treason. 113 The journal Pesti Hirlap, for instance, called on the government to investigate the "Panslav element", 114 which supposedly opposed "the unity of the Magyar homeland". 115 Both Kollár and Štúr attracted personal condemnation from leading ethnic Hungarian politicians. Ferenc Pulszky, reviewing Kollár's reciprocity, found it "hard to believe that all Slavs are interested and concerned only with literature", 116 while András Sörés attacked one of Štúr's tracts as "brazen suspicion, false slander, and unfounded lies". 117 Such vehement hostility led numerous Panslavs in northern Hungary to contrast the literary or linguistic Panslavism they supported with a "political Panslavism", which they condemned. 118 Much contemporary scholarship, however, assumes that all Panslavs pursued the "political" objectives imagined by the enemies of the Slavs, rather than the literary/linguistic goals that actually interested north Hungarian Slavs during the nineteenth-century. Reference works variously define Panslavism as "the movement of aspiration for the union of all Slavs or Slavonic peoples in one political organization", 119 or as "the principle or advocacy of political unification for the Slavic peoples". 120 Even specialist studies of Panslavism prefer a "political" definition: John Erickson thought that "in very general terms, Panslavism has been identified with the movement of the Slavs for a political union", 121 while Hans Kohn spoke of "the Pan-Slav program of a union of all Slavs into a powerful whole, shaping the political and cultural destinies of mankind". 122 The persistence of such definitions is curious. To understand Ukrainian anarchism, scholars study Ukrainian anarchists; to understand German social democracy, scholars study German social democrats. Why then do scholars invoke Hungarian or German Slavophobe definitions to understand Slovak Panslavism?
Perhaps modern scholars prefer the political definition because they tend to equate "pan-nationalism", and indeed "nationalism" itself, with a quest for statehood. 123 Since Panslavs repeatedly discussed invoked the "nation", scholars apparently assume that Panslavs secretly or ultimately cherished the desire for a Panslav state. Hugo Hantsch, to give one particularly vivid example, admitted that Habsburg Panslavism originally "had no political, but only a literary, meaning", but still concluded that since "Pan-Slavism could reach its goal only if the Austro-Hungarian monarchy fell to pieces … the actions of Pan-Slavs, therefore, had to be hostile to the monarchy". 124 Theories of nationalism, however, must always be checked against the historical record. While many theories of pan-nationalism assume that literary activism inevitably implies a longing for statehood, such theories shed little light on the national thinking of Kollár, Štúr and their contemporaries. Habsburg Panslavism did not imply Russian irredentism, and indeed is better analyzed as a form of language planning. 125 Linguistic theories, furthermore, must also be checked against the historical record. The contrast between codified "literary languages" and uncodified "spoken dialects" may shed light in other contexts, but proves misleading when applied to Panslavs in Hungary. Kollár and Štúr associated Slavic literary traditions with the status of "dialect" [nářečí, nárečja, Mundart, dialectus]. They disagreed both about the overall number of these various dialects, and specifically about the status of Slovak. However, they agreed on the essential unity of the "Slavic language", and thus that literary Russian, literary Polish, literary Czech, and so forth, were "literary dialects". 126 Nineteenth-century Panslavism thus encourages a new look at the history of "Slovakia". During the nineteenth century, belief in a "Slovak nation" and a "Slovak language" evidently held little appeal to influential figures from what would eventually become the "Slovak" ethnoterritory. That individuals subsequently claimed as Slovak national heroes failed to articulate basic tenets of Slovak nationalism problematizes narratives of Slovakia's "quest for statehood". 127 Scholars may be forgiven if they find the ubiquity of Panslavism surprising, but the aforementioned annoyance and anger directed at Kollár suggests that some scholars are not merely surprised, but threatened. I suggest, however, that scholars should not feel threatened, but intrigued. The lack of Slovak particularist nationalism among nineteenth century "Slovaks" provides historians with an opportunity to investigate contingency in so-called "national awakening," one of the fundamental questions about the origins of nationalism. The contingencies of Slovak nationalism are interesting, and remain surprisingly unexplored.
The misrepresentation of Kollár and Štúr offers one final lesson of particular importance to emerging scholars, or to scholars new to nineteenth-century "Slovak" national thought. For whatever reason, the secondary literature has gone to great lengths to suppress the memory of Panslavism. The basic principle that primary source quotations must be transcribed without lexical substitution is not being followed. Indeed, the extent to which book titles have been mistranslated and key passages from important documents falsified amounts to scholarly misconduct. Until such practices cease, scholars taking an interest in this period must stick closely to the primary sources, ideally in their original editions. The secondary literature is demonstrably untrustworthy.