Notes to the work of Ján Čaplovič: "Slowaken in Ungarn"

Abstract

Ján Čaplovič belongs to the most prominent European intelectuals, polyhistors and encyclopaedists of the first half of the 19th century. The focus of his scientific and publishing activities consisted mainly of legal, national, national-economic and ethnographic works in which he drew from the wealth of ideas of enlightenment, rationalism, physiocratism and Josephinism. His theoretical works, mainly on ethnographic research, are based mainly on numerous field studies and journeys throughout the Habsburg Empire. Thanks to them he perfectly understood the Slovak nation, and influenced by the French englightener Montesquie, he characterized the Slovaks as a separate nation. He compared them to the English, in the conditions of then multi-ethnic Hungarian state. This Čalovič’s ethnographic parallel is the main subject of the submitted study notes, because it attracted attention at the time of its creation. From a methodological point of view, the notes are based on an analysis of a historical text and a comparative principle.