Zips
Zips
Names in other languages
Slovak: Spiš; Hungarian: Szepes; Polish: Spisz; Latin: Scepusiensis, Scepus
Etymology
In the earliest references dating from the 12th century, the region is referred to as ‘terra Scipiensi’; in later documents, it is known as‘Chypus’,‘Scipus’,‘Scepusiensis’or ‘ ’ ‘Scepus’. The strategic importance of the Zips region on the northern border of the Kingdom of Hungary is thought to lie at the origin and meaning of the name, namely the descriptive term ‘border forest with fortifications’ (Latin: cipus). Originally, the name ‘Zips’ referred to a mountain. The castle and one of the Hungarian counties were named after this mountain. The settlement of the Saxon population in the region played a role in the further development of the concept from ‘border forest’/‘border region’ to the proper name ‘Zips’.[1]
Location
Spisz is a historic region in north-eastern Slovakia. Geographically, it stretches between the Tatra Mountains (Slovak: Vysoké Tatry) and the Levoča Hills (Slovak: Levočské vrchy), as well as between the Crown Mountains (Slovak: Pieniny) in the north and the Slovak Ore Mountains (Slovak: Slovenské Rudohorie) in the south. The northern part of Spiš, Northern Spiš (Polish: Polski Spisz or Górny Spisz), has been part of southern Poland since 1945.
Historical Geography
The Spiš region had been part of Hungary since the second half of the 11th century and was organised administratively as the County of Spiš (comitatus Scepusiensis). Until the 16th century, the administrative centre was Spiš Castle. Thereafter, Levoča, which had already been performing this function alongside Spiš Castle since the 13th century, became the sole administrative seat. The counties of the Kingdom of Hungary, and thus also Spiš County, essentially existed until the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918.
From 1918, Spiš belonged to Czechoslovakia. In the wake of the Czechoslovak–Polish border disputes, Poland annexed northern Spiš (195 km²). The territories that remained part of Czechoslovakia were divided in 1923 between the newly created administrative units of the Sub-Tatra County (Slovak: Podtatranská župa) and the Košice County (Slovak: Košická župa). During the existenceof the ‘Slovak State’from 1939 to 1945, Spiš formed the eastern part of the Tatra County (Slovak: Tatranská župa) from 1940 onwards. After the Second World War, following the dissolution of the Tatra County in 1945, the area became part of the Košice Region (Slovak: Košický kraj) and the Prešov Region (Slovak: Prešovský kraj) from 1949 onwards. This administrative division remains in place today, with only minor changes. Important towns include Deutschendorf/Poprad, Leutschau/Levoča, Zipser Neudorf/Spišská Nová Ves and the traditional cultural centre of Käsmark/Kežmarok.
Prehistory and Early History
Archaeological finds provide evidence of prehistoric and early historic settlement in the Spiš region. Slavs have inhabited the area since the 6th century AD. An important source for the history of settlement and the interrelationships between the Slavic and German populations are the place names of the Spiš region. Kežmarok is a case in point; its name is derived from the German ‘Käsmarkt’ (from ‘Käsemarkt’). The present-day place name Gelnica/Göllnitz is derived from the Slavic name of the river Gnilec (Hlinec); however, the later Slovak name ‘Gelnica’ is derived from the German name ‘Göllnitz’.
Middle Ages
From the 12th century onwards, particularly following the Tatar invasions of 1241, which had devastated and depopulated large parts of the country, the Hungarian kings encouraged the settlement of the country and also of the Poprad Valley (Slovak: Popradská dolina) with German ‘hospites’ – miners, merchants, craftsmen and farmers – who were settled in various parts of the Kingdom of Hungary for military and economic reasons. In medieval sources, the terms ‘Teutonici’ and ‘Saxones’ are used to refer to the first groups of these‘hospites’, not only in the Spiš region but in the wider Hungarian context. For this reason, some researchers suggest that the Spiš Germans originated in Saxony. The majority, however, hold the view that they came to the Spiš from various parts of the German-speaking world (Central Germany, Bavaria, Silesia), albeit predominantly from Saxony.[2]
The settlement by the Spiš Saxons was of great significance in both cultural and economic terms. Most towns in the Spiš region developed from German settlements. They were granted special privileges by the Hungarian kings. With the charter of 1271, the newly established ‘German’ towns were granted extensive self-government. This included the free election of their provincial and landgraves as well as their clergy, and also their own jurisdiction and extensive rights to hunting, fishing and clearing land. On this basis, the ‘League of the 24 Spiš Towns’ was formed in 1298. The privileges, which were renewed in the 14th century, were codified in 1370 in the so-called Spiš Charter. The legal provisions, based on Magdeburg Law, remained in force until the 19th century.
The pledging of 13 towns in Spiš and the area around Altlublau Castle/StaráĽubovňa by the Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437) to Poland led to the dissolution of the ‘League of the 24 Spiš Towns’ in 1412. However, this move did not constitute an interference in the self-government of the pledged towns, but rather concerned economic aspects, particularly tax revenue. Nominally, the pledged territories continued to belong to Hungary. In 1412, they formed the ‘League of the 13 Spiš Towns’. The remaining eleven towns, which joined together in the same year to form the ‘League of the Eleven Spiš Towns’, became increasingly dependent on Spiš Castle.
Modern times
The Hussite Warsin the first half of the 15th century led to severe devastation in the region. Subsequently, the Spiš region experienced a period of prosperity, which was facilitated by the work of the ‘Thurzo-Fugger Company’ (co-operation between Jakob Fugger [1459–1525] and Johannes Thurzó [1466–1520]) in the mining sector. The expertise of the mining engineer Thurzó and the Fuggers’ capital gave new impetus to mining in Upper Hungary (the name used until 1918 for the area that is now Slovakia ), and thus also in the Spiš region. The towns that had been pledged as security, in particular, flourished thanks to their economic links with nearby Kraków. The capital flowing into the Spiš region from mining attracted prominent artists to the area, such as Master Paul of Leutschau (c. 1465–c. 1540), who established a workshop here. Many significant buildings were constructed during this period.
As a result of the First Partition of Poland, the pledged towns of Spiš returned to Hungary in 1772. From 1770 onwards, the territories were formallyorganised as the‘Province of the 16 Spiš Towns’. The self-government of the Spiš towns was not abolished until 1876, after which administration was exercised by Spiš County. Of particular significance was the commencement of coin minting in Schmöllnitz/Smolník from 1772 onwards.
Following the ‘Compromise’ of 1867 between Austria and Hungary, the regions in the Hungarian part of the monarchy were subjected to Magyarisation. As a result, Hungarian national patriotism took root amongst the Germans of Spiš. A characteristic feature of many Germans in Spiš was their self-identification as‘hungarus’(members of the Hungarian nation). They felt themselves to be Hungarians whilst at the same time belonging to the German-speaking and educational community. Not only Germans, but also Slovaks and Jews, pinned their hopes for social advancement on learning the Hungarian language.
In the 19th century, the social upheavals resulting from industrialisation and the region’s lack of development triggered a wave of emigration, primarily to America.
Contemporary History
In 1918, Slovakia – and with it the Spiš region – became part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Immediately after the First World War, there were approximately 37,000 Germans living in the Spiš region.[3] This number increased during the interwar period. During this period, there was a strengthening of the national self-awareness of Germans in Slovakia, a ‘rediscovery’ of German identity and a trend towards radicalisation under Franz Karmasin (1901–1970), the Chair of the ‘German Party’. The party exerted a major influence on all German organisations and associations.
Following the proclamation of the ‘independent’ Slovak state in 1939, with the Catholic priest Jozef Tiso (1887–1947) as its first president, the Jewish and Roma populations were deported from the entire territory of Slovakia and, as a rule, murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Following the Slovak National Uprising in the summer of 1944, the majority of the German population left the region for fear of the Red Army. Of those who remained or returned, many were expelled in 1946–47.
Since 1989, the Carpathian German Association has been working to revive the cultural traditions of Germans in Slovakia.
Population
Over the centuries, the Spiš region developed into a multi-ethnic and multicultural area. Until 1945, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, Rusyns, Roma, Czechs, Poles and Gorals lived here. According to the censuses carried out in Slovakia in 1938 and 1940, ethnic Slovaks accounted for 60–70 per cent of the total population of 210,570 in the Spiš region in 1940.[4] The proportion of the German population ranged between 15 and 20 per cent, whilst the Rusyns formed the third-largest ethnic group. Of Slavic origin, they are now found mainly in north-eastern Slovakia, south-eastern Poland and Carpathian Ukraine. In the 1920s, around 7,000 Jews lived in Spiš.[5]
This multi-ethnicity was linked to the cultural diversity and multilingualism of the population. Among the Spiš Germans, the phenomenon of dual or multiple identities was widespread. Contemporary sources describe this coexistence as peaceful, at least up until the 1930s. The structure of the population changed significantly as a result of the deportations of the Jewish and Roma populations during the Second World War and the expulsion of the German and Hungarian populations after 1945. After the Second World War, Spiš transformed from a multi-ethnic and multi-denominational region into one predominantly dominated by Slovaks and Rusyns.
History of Religion and the Church
The Hussite Warsalso influenced the religious situation in the Spiš region and paved the way for the Reformation. In the first half of the 16th century, the Spiš region was Lutheran. In 1549, the so-called Confessio Pentapolitana by the Bartfeld (Bardejov) scholar Leonhard Stöckel (c. 1510–1560) was published here. In 1569, the Confessio Scepusiana, the confession of faith of the 24 towns of the Spiš region, was drawn up. Both texts were based on the Augsburg Confession of 1530. In terms of ecclesiastical administration, the establishment of the Diocese of Spiš in 1776 was of extraordinary significance. This helped to strengthen the position of the Spiš provostry and the Spiš chapter. The 18th century saw religious conflicts and a return to Catholicism, which also had a negative impact on the economic development of Spiš. The Edict of Tolerance of 1781 finally allowed for the free practice of religion. A theological college was established at the Spiš Chapter in 1815.
Education and science, cultural institutions
The Spiš region held a prominent position in cultural life compared with other counties. There were numerous secondary schools in the region, such as the Protestant Lyceum in Käsmark and the Protestant Lyceum and Jesuit Grammar School in Leutschau. This extensive network of schools produced a large proportion of the Hungarian intelligentsia. In the 16th century, secondary schools were established here based on the curriculum devised by Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560). The so-called ‘Thurzón Foundation’ (named after its founder, Alexius Thurzó [1490–1543]) played a major role in promoting education in Spiš. The switch to German as the language of instruction in schools and the introduction of German as the official language, decreed in 1784, were significant for the development of the Germans of Spiš.
The Brewers’ Printing House in Leutschau, founded in the 17th century, was significant for the printing trade; other printing houses emerged in its wake. It was typical in Spiš for all printing houses to produce books in several languages, in various scripts and for several denominations.
The Thurzó family was one of the most prominent families not only in the Spiš region but also in the Kingdom of Hungary. The Genersich family and the Probstner family of Leutschau, who were involved in mining, also wielded considerable influence.
Particularly amongst the Protestant theologians of the Spiš region, whose centre was Leutschau, there were at all times a number of authors interested in local historical issues. These included Christian Genersich (1759–1825), Jakob Meltzer (1782–1836) and Samuel Weber (1835–1908), as well as other scholars and academics such as Thomas Mauksch (1749–1832) and Michal Greisiger (1851–1912).
Tourism and spa culture emerged in the Tatra Mountains in the early 18th century. From the late 19th century onwards, the Carpathian Association played a significant role in the development of tourism. During the interwar period, there were around 1,000 different cultural, sporting and other associations in Spiš, for which ethnic affiliation was often a criterion for membership.
Culture of memory and remembrance
The Spiš region is rich in cultural monuments. Of European significance is the work of the woodcarver and sculptor Master Paul of Leutschau (c. 1465–c. 1540). His works include the altar in St James’s Church in Leutschau, which is regarded as the tallest Gothic altar in existence.
During the Renaissance, a number of significant architectural monuments were built, such as the Town Hall and the Thurzó House in Leutschau. The town of Leutschau, Spiš Castle, Spiš Kapitula, Žehra and many other cultural monuments, such as wooden churches, are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
In contrast to the typical Slovak region ofLiptov, Spiš was often perceived as a ‘German’ region, and the town of Leutschau was described as the ‘Slovak Nuremberg’. After 1945, there were attempts to (de-)construct and reshape the region into a Slovak or Czechoslovak one, by over-emphasising the Slavic culture and language of the past whilst simultaneously obscuring the German and Hungarian contributions to the region’s development.
Bibliography
- Ivan Chalupecký: The Germans of Spiš in the 18th century. In: Südostdeutsches Archiv 44/45 (2001), pp. 21–30.
- István Fazekas (ed.): Spiš – A Region of Cultural History in the 19th Century. The Life and Work of Johann Genersich (1761–1823). Vienna 2013 (Publications of Hungarian Historical Research in Vienna 5). URL: mek.oszk.hu/14000/14008/14008.pdf (accessed 24 September 2018).
- Ryszard Gładkiewicz, Martin Homza (eds.): Terra Scepusiensis. Stav bádania o dejiných Spiša – Terra Scepusiensis. Stan badań nad dziejami Spiszu [Terra Scepusiensis. The State of Research on the History of Spiš]. Levoča, Wrocław 2003.
- Susanne Hahne: A Carpathian German Youth. Memories of Kežmarok and Life in the ‘Zips’. Bad Schussenried 2004.
- Jörg Karl Hoensch: The People of Zips. An Overview. In: Gerhard Grimm, Krista Zach (eds.): The Germans in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. History, Economy, Law, Language. Vol. 1. Munich 1995 (Publications of the South-East German Cultural Association), pp. 143–157.
- Tünde Katona: Caritas and Memoria. A Leutschau foundation dedicated to promoting education in the Spiš region in the 16th century. Munich 2011 (Book series of the Commission for the History and Culture of Germans in South-Eastern Europe 41).
- Stanislava Kolková: Attempts at the (De-)Construction of Regional Identity in the Spiš Region between 1945 and 1948. In: Burkhard Olschowsky, Robert Traba, Matthias Weber (eds.): Region, State, Europe. Regional Identities under the Conditions of Dictatorship and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Munich 2014 (Publications of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe 50), pp. 125–145.
- Wynfried Kriegleder, Andrea Seidler, Jozef Tancer (eds.): German Language and Culture in the Spiš Region. Bremen 2007 (Press and History – New Contributions 24).
- Elena Mannová: ‘Slovak Nuremberg and Little Moscow. Symbolic Transformations of the Image of Levoča’. In: OS – Forum of Civil Society 10 (2006), Nos. 1–2, pp. 154–168.
- Jarmila Marcinková: ‘ ’ Regional History of Spiš. Košice 1994.
- Mária Papsonová: The Development of Orthography in Spiš, using the example of the Spiš Willkür. In: Anton Schwob (ed.): German Language and Literature in South-Eastern Europe – Archiving and Documentation. Papers from the Tübingen Symposium, 25–27 June 1992. Munich 1996 (Publications of the South-East German Cultural Association B 66; Institute of History and Regional Studies: Book Series 5), pp. 154–166.
- Ilpo Tapani Piirainen, Mária Papsonová (eds.): The Law of Spiš – Zips. Texts and Studies on Early New High German in Slovakia. Vol. 1 and 2. Oulu 1992 (Publications of the Institute for German Studies, University of Oulu 8).
- Ilpo Tapani Piirainen: German Settlers and German-Language Laws in the Economic Development of Slovakia. In: Gerhard Grimm, Krista Zach (eds.): The Germans in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. History, Economy, Law, Language. Vol. 2. Munich 1996 (Publications of the South-East German Cultural Association 73), pp. 133–151.
- Miroslav Pollák, Peter Švorc (eds.): Spišské exody v 20. storočí [The Spiš Exodus in the 20th Century]. Bratislava 2015.
- Peter Švorc (ed.): Spiš v kontinuite času: Proceedings of an International Academic Conference [Spiš in the Continuity of Time: Proceedings of an International Academic Conference]. Prešov et al. 1995.
- Peter Zmátlo: Cultural and Social Life in Spiš during the Interwar Period. Bratislava 2005.
Web links
- www.hdbg.de/integration/de/b/gross/h-karpatentext.htm (The House of Bavarian History on the Carpathian Germans, including, amongst other things, explanations regarding the Spiš Saxons)
- www.owep.de/artikel/551/slowakei-und-ihre-deutschen (Rudolf Grulich: Slovakia and ‘its’ Germans, in: Ost-West. European Perspectives 7 (2006), No. 6, pp. 298–302.)
- clovekaspolocnost.sk/sk/rocnik-10-rok-2007/2/studie-a-clanky/historia-nemeckeho-osidlenia-na-uzemi-slovenska-do-zaciatku-19-storocia/ (Mária Ďurkovská: História nemeckého osídlenia na území Slovenska do začiatku 19. storočia [The History of German Settlement in Slovakia up to the Beginning of the 19th Century], in: Človek a spoločnosť 10 (2007), No. 2)
- mantakisch.de/ (Private website on the Mantakian dialect in Spiš)
Notes
[1] Wojciech Sowa: On the Origin and Function of the Name ‘Zips’. In: Österreichische Namenforschung 35 (2007), Nos. 1–3, pp. 69–82.
[2] See Miloš Marek: Saxones nostri de Scepus: On certain questions regarding the arrival of the Saxon guests and their life in Spiš [Saxones nostri de Scepus: On certain questions regarding the arrival of the Saxon guests and their life in Spiš]. In: Ryszard Gładkiewicz, Martin Homza (eds.): Terra Scepusiensis, pp. 353–365.
[3] Jörg K. Hoensch: The Spiš People. In: Ibid.: *Studia Slovaca*. Studies on the History of the Slovaks and Slovakia. Festschrift for Jörg K. Hoensch (65th birthday). Edited by Hans Lemberg. Munich 2000 (Publications of the Collegium Carolinum 93), pp. 51–70, here p. 63.
[4] Jozef Sulaček: Sociálne premeny na Spiši v prvej polovici 20. storočia [Social Changes in Spiš in the First Half of the 20th Century]. In: Peter Švorc: Špiš v kontinuite času [The Spiš Region in the Continuity of Time]. Prešov, Bratislava, Vienna 1995, pp. 166–176.
[5] Zmátlo: Cultural and Social Life, pp. 34ff; Jozef Sulaček: The Tragic Fates of the Jewish Community in Spiš during the Second World War [The Tragic Fates of the Jewish Community in Spiš during the Second World War]. In: Ryszard Gładkiewicz, Martin Homza (eds.): Terra Scepusiensis, pp. 785–802, here p. 786, Table 1.
Citation
Stanislava Kolková: Spiš. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2019. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32595 (accessed 1 September 2020).
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