Conspiratorial Activities of Štefan Launer and Andrej Lanštják Against the Nation-forming Activities of Ľudovít Štúr in the Late 1840s

Marcela Gbúrová; Martin Šoman

doi:10.34135/sjps.250204

Authors

Marcela Gbúrová University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia
Martin Šoman University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34135/sjps.250204

Keywords:

Ľudovít Štúr, Štefan Launer, Andrej Lanštják, Disinformation, Language Reform, Civilisational modernisation of Slavic nations

Abstract

This paper focused on the disinformation activities of Štefan Launer and Andrej Lanštják against the nation-forming activities of Ľudovít Štúr and his associates in the late 1840s. The first part of the paper focuses on Štúr's programme of the relationship between "individuality” and "commonwealth" of language nation-forming modernisation in Slovakia and Launer's and Lanštják's idea of Czech as the most practical and natural language tool of the Slovaks. The second part of the study focuses on Štúr's and Launer's conception of the future ethno-modernisation path of the Slavic peoples. The third part is the dominant part of the study, in which the author analyses the polemics, criticisms, renegadeism, and some ways of conscious disinformation and subversive activities of Š. Launer and A. Lanštjak in relation to the nation-forming activities of Ľ. Štúr and his collaborators. Despite the negative activities of Š. Launer and A. Lanštjak, it turned out that the path of national identity development through a fundamental language reform, which was started by Štúr and his collaborators, was correct, because it maintained the collective ethnic awareness and cultural homogenisation of the Slovak population in a politically unfavourable time.

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