Luther in Slovak

The Reformation in the territories of Upper Hungary (nowadays, Slovakia) began in the first half of the sixteenth century. The first Reformation synod in Prešov (1546) introduced revisions in teaching, liturgy, and church structure according to the Augsburg Confession and Melanchthon’s Loci Communes, even though the process of developing distinctive Lutheran church institutions was relatively slow and took another fifty years. Three early Lutheran Confessions (the Confessio Pentapolitana in 1549, the Confessio Montana in 1559, and the Confessio Scepusiana in 1569) originated predominantly from Germans living in this area. Nevertheless, Hungarians and Slovaks also had an important role in the process of confessionalization in this Central European region.

The Confessio Montana advocated changes in the celebration of Holy Communion, with hymns to be sung in the vernacular language.¹ This could mean a Slovak language as well as German. Nineteen years earlier, the so-called Šarišské články (1540) had already recommended preaching in the local language (Art. 2) and teaching and using Luther’s Small Catechism “translated into Slovak”² (Art 8). Thanks to extensive privileges granted to free cities and mining towns, city councils held “rights to determine matters that fell under the jurisdiction of the church which took place within the town limits. … Town councils were involved in choosing and paying for the services of Hungarian- or Slovakian-speaking pastors and preachers.”³ Indeed, in each of the free royal towns of Pentapolitana there was a preacher for each language group and each used its own church.⁴

From the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the territory of Slovakia used the Czech language, albeit with Slovakian trends. From the end of the sixteenth century, the Czech language of the Kralice Bible (1579–1594 dominated. A decision to create a Slovak literary language was made in 1843 by a young generation of Lutherans, namely, Štúr, Hurban, and Hodža.⁵ In this brief essay, we will survey translations of Martin Luther’s works into both the Czech (or Czechoslovak) language and also the literary Slovak language in the territories of present Slovakia.

The Small Catechism

The exact number of Slovak translations and editions of the Small Catechism is difficult to assess. Miloš Kovačka concluded that up to 2013 there were more than 300 printed versions of the Small Catechism in Czech and Slovak in various forms and variations. To this number can be added handwritten copies and unprinted translations.⁶ Indeed, the Reformation in Upper Hungary was paved by translations of Luther’s Small Catechism. Several important works map the history of the Small Catechism in Slovakia: a pioneer bibliographical study done by Ctiboh Zoch in 1861,⁷ the later work of Július Adamiš related to the 400th anniversary of the Small Catechism in 1929,⁸ and a synopsis written by Ján Petrík for the Lutheran World Federation in 1961.⁹

The oldest translation of the Small Catechism is the one mentioned in Šarišské články (1540), but there is no extant copy.¹⁰ Similarly, a possible Slovak printing from 1556 and a translation of Mikuláš Collaninus (before 1581) are no longer extant. The first printed version of the Small Catechism that is available is the so called Bardejov Catechism (1581) which is “the oldest known Slovak book printed in the area of present Slovakia.”¹¹ It is a translation into humanistic Czech with a number of Slovak words added in, probably by Severinus Sculteti. The translation is based on the second edition of Luther’s Small Catechism (1531) but a chapter on Confession was added. This was printed by David Gutgesell in Bardejov¹² with the title: Katechysmus, To gest: Kratičké obsazenj a wyklad předních Cžlánkůw Wírij a Náboženstwij Křest’anského D. Martina Luthera. The uniqueness of the Bardejov Catechism is strengthened by the fact that the next translation––a Slovak-Latin edition done by Ján Pruno and printed in 1585 in Hlohovec by V. Mančkovič¹³––is no longer extant and the next...