The key word here is ‘renegade,’ in Slovak: odrodilstvo. This word has connotations of degeneracy, in the primary sense of the term, that is to say, a person unnaturally abandoning the identity into which he was born. The threat that should be underscored here then, is not that of Magyars per se, but rather of those Slovaks like the ‘curate devoted to the Magyar cause,’17 or the Slovak gentry, who defected from their natural ethnic identity for personal advantage. We will deal with this theme of Magyars and Magyarisation, as well as that of the responsibility of every Slovak, every Slav, in the upkeep of Slavic nationality, later.
odrodilstvo. Third, Štúr’s understanding of Slovak identity is based on a somewhat mythologised conception of an enduring, ancient culture, which exists among t
