Poučenie z krízového vývoja v stredovekej scholastike alebo esej o nás stredovekároch

The author of this article notes that there are two groups of medievalists in Slovakia today – "the factographs" and " the annalists". One school usually doesn't recognize outcomes of the other and underrates them. According to the author this is not a correct concept for a historian, but it has attracted his attention as a phenomenon and therefore he examines dualistic and extreme perspectives of medieval historiography. The author finds two hostile groups of intellectuals even as early as in the early middle ages (on one hand the followers of Cyril and Metod and on the other the pro-western group). Then during the peak middle ages we can find two concepts of history (ethnic conception of Annonymus' gentis Hungarorum versus the territorial history of multilinguistic natio Hungarica). In the 18th century two different concepts of perception for the early middle ages (the arrival of the Hungarians and the decline of Great Moravia) emerged: on one hand the military conquer theory (by Michal Bencsik) and on the other the theory about the hospitable welcome by the Slavs (A. Magin). The growth of nationalism in the 19th century brought two extremely different groups of historians. The disparity between the Slovak and the Hungarian politics led historians of those times to stress different events. The unsuccessful Slovak politics in the second half of the 19th century was the main cause for the emergence of the retroprojective myth about the 1000 years of subjection of Slovaks in Hungary which serves even today as a reason for separation of the Slovak history from the history of Hungary. As a result of that we can still find works with maps which ends on Danube or Ipeľ and do not pay attention to the southern parts of historical districts. In the period of the first and the second Czechoslovak Republic (1918 – 1939) as well as for the Slovak Republic (1939 – 1945) historians tried to prove that the large part of the territory of today's Slovakia was settled by Slavic (id est Slovak) people even as early as in the early middle ages (by the end of the 13th century). They tried to prove the cultural character of "our ancestors", too (P. Ratkoš, J. Stanislav). Both tendencies continued in more sophisticated way during the period of socialism. After the first half of the 1930's the discussion ended and changed into a monologue. Historical cliché about the history of Slovaks as a "1000-years old nation of nameless workfolk" was added to the national historical mythology after 1948. Only after the November revolution in 1989 we can find (unforced) return to dualism (and later pluralism). Publications like Preface to the Mythology of the Slovak Nation by Peter Sýkora or Our Slovak Myths by a collective of authors ask questions about our national clichés and "historical highlights". The last scope which should be pluralized is the scope of methodology. Like Petrus Abelardus who answered by his sic et non in reaction to a dual problem of scholastics, Slovak historians have the legitimate right to follow both ways. Actually, different historical narratives can prove to be true: "factographic" as well as "annalistic".