Europe · The early medieval west
Great Moravia
833–907
Great Moravia (Latin Moravia Magna) was the first major West Slavic state, centered on the Morava river valley in modern Moravia, western Slovakia, and adjacent regions. It was founded around 833 when Mojmír I (r. c. 833–846), founder of the Mojmír dynasty, unified the Moravian principality with the Principality of Nitra by expelling its ruler Pribina.
- Existed
- 833–907
- Shown on the map
- AD 814–910
- Peak area
- 282k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Great Moravia (Latin Moravia Magna) was the first major West Slavic state, centered on the Morava river valley in modern Moravia, western Slovakia, and adjacent regions. It was founded around 833 when Mojmír I (r. c. 833–846), founder of the Mojmír dynasty, unified the Moravian principality with the Principality of Nitra by expelling its ruler Pribina. The borders of the state cannot be exactly determined.
History
Under Rastislav (r. 846–870), Moravia flourished and sought independence from East Frankish and Bavarian ecclesiastical control. In 862/863 Rastislav, having been refused by Rome, asked the Byzantine emperor Michael III to send teachers; the mission of Saints Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius arrived in 863, creating the Glagolitic alphabet — the first alphabet designed for a Slavic language — and translating scripture and liturgy into Old Church Slavonic. Rastislav was betrayed to the Franks and deposed by his nephew Svatopluk I (r. 870/871–894), under whom Moravia reached its greatest territorial extent, at times including Bohemia, much of Slovakia, and parts of modern Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, and Ukraine. After Methodius's death (885), Svatopluk expelled his disciples, who carried the Slavonic tradition to Bulgaria, where Glagolitic was eventually succeeded by the Cyrillic alphabet (which borrowed some Glagolitic letters).
Decline and legacy
After Svatopluk's death, his sons Mojmír II (r. 894–906?) and Svatopluk II quarreled; Bohemia seceded (895), and the state was fatally weakened by internal division and by the arriving Magyars. Great Moravia collapsed under Magyar assault; its exact end is unknown but occurred between 902 and 907 (Mojmír II probably died in battle against the Magyars around 906). Historiographical note: Even the location of the Moravian heartland ("core Moravia") has been debated (a minority "southern Moravia" thesis places it on the southern Morava/Danube).
Common questions
- What was Great Moravia?
- Great Moravia (Latin Moravia Magna) was the first major West Slavic state, centered on the Morava river valley in modern Moravia, western Slovakia, and adjacent regions. It was founded around 833 when Mojmír I (r. c. 833–846), founder of the Mojmír dynasty, unified the Moravian principality with the Principality of Nitra by expelling its ruler Pribina.
- When did Great Moravia exist?
- Great Moravia existed 833–907. On this map it is drawn AD 814–910.
- How large was Great Moravia?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Great Moravia covered about 282,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- Who ruled Great Moravia?
- Under Rastislav (r. 846–870), Moravia flourished and sought independence from East Frankish and Bavarian ecclesiastical control. In 862/863 Rastislav, having been refused by Rome, asked the Byzantine emperor Michael III to send teachers; the mission of Saints Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius arrived in 863, creating the Glagolitic alphabet — the first alphabet designed for a Slavic language — and translating scripture and liturgy into Old Church Slavonic.
- How did Great Moravia end?
- After Svatopluk's death, his sons Mojmír II (r. 894–906?) and Svatopluk II quarreled; Bohemia seceded (895), and the state was fatally weakened by internal division and by the arriving Magyars. Great Moravia collapsed under Magyar assault; its exact end is unknown but occurred between 902 and 907 (Mojmír II probably died in battle against the Magyars around 906).
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and the World History Encyclopedia, while flagging entries built on thin or contested evidence — Samo's Empire on a single Fredegar passage, Venice's 697 founding date as legendary, the Pacta conventa as a probable forgery. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Great Moravia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moravia
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
See Great Moravia in its world
Open the atlas at AD 862 and every neighbour, rival and successor is on screen with it — then drag the slider and watch what happens next.
Open the map at AD 862 →