Századok – 2012

KÖZLEMÉNYEK - Körmendi Tamás: Szlavónia korai hovatartozása II/369

388 KÖRMENDI TAMÁS WHERE DID SLAVONIA BELONG TO IN THE 10TH AND 11TH CENTURIES? by Tamás Körmendi (Summary) After the Hungaro-Croatian compromise of 1868, the scholars of the two associated countries pursued a sharp debate, not always limited to strictly professional arguments, about the question of whether before the expedition led by king Ladislas (1077-1095) to Croatia in 1091, Slavonia in its late medieval sense belonged to Hungary or Croatia. The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy put an end to this discourse, before the problem could have been settled definitively. Hungarian and Croatian historians have ever since strongly diverged in their opinions with regard to the status of the area between the river Drava and the Gvozd mountains in the 10th and 11th centuries. It is virtually a commonplace in even today's Croatian historiography that prior to 1091 Slavonia belonged to maritime Croatia. Since, however, none of the sources traditionally cited by Croatian historians in this respect has stood the trial of critical examination, there is in fact no solid basis for the opinion which maintains that the authority of maritime Croatia extended over Slavonia in the middle of the 11th century. On the other hand, inquiries into contemporary administration have left few doubts that the authority of the kings of Hungary in some form incorporated the region beyond the Drava already before 1091. The available information (mostly concerning the Slavonian castle ispánságok in the 13th century) seem to attest that before the middle of the 11th century it was only the area north of the river Sava which was subjected to effective Hungarian control. The part of Slavonia which lay south of the Sava seem to have belonged to the defensive border belt {gyepű) then, and Hungarian authority over it was reinforced only later (perhaps under Saint Ladislas, but in any case before 1091).