What has become of your leaders, your bans, O Croats? What has become of your mighty military slogan, Vivat banus c*m Croatis? Your ban has been shrunken into an Austrian bureaucrat, who already lacks even so much vinegar as to shout down a wretched constable, for fear of endangering his cushy position. Your song has grown silent! But what’s there to sing about, anyway?
bans, Vivat banus c*m CroatisbanYet Štúr is nothing if not fair in his distribution of thwacks, for he does not spare himself either. In his earlier idealisation of ancient Slavdom, one of the things he points to, in The Slovaks, in Ancient Days and Now, is the dependence of an elected leader upon the commonwealth that has raised him to his position. Unconsciously perhaps channelling the spirit of the words addressed to Po
