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Upper Hungary (Felvidék (literally: "Upland")), is the area that was historically the northern part of theKingdom of Hungary, now mostly present-daySlovakia.[2][3][4][5] The region has also been calledFelső-Magyarország (literally: "Upper Hungary";Slovak:Horné Uhorsko).
During theHabsburg–Ottoman wars, Upper Hungary meant only the northeastern parts of the Hungarian Kingdom. The northwestern regions (present-day western and central Slovakia) belonged toLower Hungary. Sometime during the 18th or 19th century, Upper Hungary began to imply the whole northern regions of the kingdom. The population of Upper Hungary was mixed and mainly consisted ofSlovaks,Hungarians,Germans,Ashkenazi Jews andRuthenians. The first complex demographic data are from the 18th century, in which Slovaks constituted the majority population in Upper Hungary.[6] Slovaks called this territory "Slovensko" (Slovakia), which term appears in written documents from the 15th century, but it was not precisely defined[7] and the region inhabited by Slovaks held no distinct legal, constitutional, or political status within Upper Hungary.[8]
Historically there are different meanings:
After World War I, the meaning ofFelvidék in Hungarian (Felső-Magyarország was not used anymore) was restricted to theSlovak andCarpathian Ruthenian parts ofCzechoslovakia. Today the termFelvidék is sometimes used in Hungary when speaking about Slovakia, and it is exclusively (and anachronistically) used in Hungarian historical literature when speaking about the Middle Ages, i.e., before the name actually came into existence. The three counties of the region that remained in Hungary after World War I, however, are never called Upper Hungary today, onlyNorthern Hungary (Észak-Magyarország). Any use of the wordFelvidék to denote all of modern Slovakia is considered offensive by Slovaks,[11] and inappropriate by some Hungarians,[12] but it is now commonly used by the sizeable Hungarian minority in the southern border-zone of Slovakia[13] to identify the Hungarian-majority areas where they live.[14][15] Some of them call themselvesfelvidéki magyarok, i.e. the "Upland Hungarians." The wordfelvidék is also used as a component of the toponymBalaton-felvidék, describing the hilly area north ofLake Balaton, with no connection to the historical Upper Hungary.[16]
The termUpper Hungary often occurs in publications on history as a somewhat-anachronistic translation of other, earlier (thenLatin) designations denoting approximately the same territory. Some of the other terms werePartesDanubii septentrionales (Territories to the north of theDanube) orPartesregni superiores (Upper parts of theKingdom). The actual name "Upper Hungary" arose later from the latter phrase.
In the 15th century, the "Somorja (Šamorín), Nagyszombat (Trnava), Galgóc (Hlohovec), Nyitra (Nitra), Léva (Levice), Losonc (Lučenec), Rimaszombat (Rimavská Sobota), Rozsnyó (Rožňava), Jászó (Jasov), Kassa (Košice), Gálszécs (Sečovce), Nagymihály (Michalovce)" line was the northern "boundary" of the Hungarian ethnic area.[17]
ThePrincipality of Nitra emerged in the 8th century and developed into an independent Slavic state; although the polity may have lost its independence when it was still at the stage of development.[18][19] In the early 9th century, the polity was situated on the north-western territories of present-daySlovakia.
The term emerged approximately after the conquest of today's Hungary by theOttomans in the 16th century whenFelső-Magyarország (German:Oberungarn; Slovak:Horné Uhorsko) referred to present-day eastern Slovakia and the adjacent territories of today'sHungary andUkraine that were not occupied by theOttoman Empire. That territory formed a separate military district (the "Captaincy of Upper Hungary" (1564–1686) headquartered in Kassa/Kaschau/Košice) withinRoyal Hungary. At that time, present-daywestern Slovakia, and sometimes also the remaining territories of Royal Hungary to the south of it, were called Lower Hungary (Hungarian:Alsó-Magyarország; German:Niederungarn; Slovak:Dolné Uhorsko).
It was briefly aseparate vassal state of theOttoman Empire underImre Thököly in the 1680s.
This usage occurs in many texts up to around 1800 – for example, the renowned mining school of Schemnitz/Selmecbánya/Banská Štiavnica in present-day central Slovakia was founded in "Lower" Hungary (not in "Upper" Hungary) in the 18th century and Pozsony (today'sBratislava) was also referred to as being in "Lower" Hungary in the late 18th century.
From the 18th century (in many texts however only after around 1800) until 1920, the territory of theKingdom of Hungary north of theTisza and theDanube, which comprised present-daySlovakia,Carpathian Ruthenia, and approximately theNorthern Hungary region (Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén,Heves, andNógrád Counties), was informally called either "Upper Hungary" or "Upland" (Felső-Magyarország orFelvidék). Although not strictly defined, the nameFelvidék became commonplace to the point that at least one publication concerning the area used it as its title.[20] Other nations used the terms "Upper Hungary" (for the northern part of the Kingdom), "Slovakia" (only for the territory predominantly inhabited by theSlovaks), and "Ruthenia" (the territory predominantly inhabited by the Ruthenians) in parallel. The Slovaks themselves called the territories of the Kingdom of Hungary to the south of SlovakiaDolná zem ("Lower Land").
In the course of the creation ofCzechoslovakia at the end of World War I, Czechoslovakia originally demanded that all of Upper Hungary be added to Czechoslovak territory (i.e. including the territory between theTisza River and present-daySlovakia). The claim for its acquisition, however, was not based on the whole area having a single common name, "Upper Hungary", but on the presence of a Slovak minority in the region.
In 1720 of the 63 largest towns on the territory of present-day Slovakia with at least 100 taxpaying households 40 had Slovak majority, 14 German and 9 Hungarian majority.[21]
The first ethnic data of whole Hungarian Kingdom by county was published in 1842. According to this survey the total population of the counties in Upper Hungary exceeded 2.4 million, with the following ethnic distribution: 59.5%Slovaks, 22%Magyars, 8.3%Ruthenians, 6.7%Germans and 3.6%Jews.[22]
Upper Hungary included the counties ofPozsony,Nyitra,Bars,Hont,Trencsén,Turóc,Árva,Liptó,Zólyom,Gömör és Kis-Hont,Szespes,Abaúj-Torna,Sáros andZemplén.[6] In the lastcensus of 1910 in the Kingdom of Hungary, which was based on native language, Slovak speakers were a majority in many of these counties.[23]
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