Hungary, and, under the conduct
of Giskra von Brandeis, were hired by the queen Elizabeth against the
rival Polish-Hungarian monarch Vladislaus, afterwards king of Bohemia.
The Bohemian soldiers were accompanied by their wives and children,
and settled finally in different parts of Hungary, Other Taboritic
colonists followed them, and amalgamated gradually with the Slovaks,
among whom they principally established themselves. It is probable,
that at this time the Slovaks became familiar with the Bohemian as a
literary language; which from its kindred genius and its similarity of
forms was perfectly intelligible, and must have been highly acceptable
to them. When the doctrines of the German Reformers penetrated into
Hungary, they found the Slovaks already so well prepared, that those
doctrines were at once spread among the people by numerous books
written by Slovakian clergymen in the Bohemian language. The Bible and
the liturgical books were written and printed in Bohemian; and many
Bohemians and Moravians came into Hungary as preachers and teachers.
Thus the dominion of the Bohemian language over the pulpit, and, since
_all_ the Slovakian writers of this period were clergymen, in the
republic of letters also, was established among the Slovaks without
struggle. There is nothing known of any catholic Slovakish writers
at this period; if there were any, they probably followed the beaten
track, and wrote also in Bohemian or in Latin. But the produce of the
literary cultivation of the Slovaks during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, is at most but small: for the times appear to
have been too heavy, and men's minds too much oppressed, for a free
development of their powers. The civil wars, the devastations of the
Turks, the religious controversies, and after the battle at the White
Mountain, religious oppression and persecution, chased the peaceful
muses from Pannonia, and put the genius of the people in chains. All
the productions of these two centuries, with a few exceptions, are
confined to theology, and are mostly sermons, catechisms, devotional
exercises, or religious hymns. Schaffarik observes, that from these
latter there speaks a melancholy gloomy spirit, crying for divine aid
and deliverance.[59] Among the clergymen who during the first half of
the eighteenth century exerted themselves for the diffusion of
biblical knowledge, were Matth. Bel and D. Krman, who prepared a new
edition of the Bible; G. Ambrosius a