Publication Details

Abstract

The author presents in his study a survey of the fight of Slovak thinkers of enlightement against superstitions and prejudices of different kind: against national and religious enmity, against fatalism, conservatism, faith in authorities etc. He shows that Slovak thinkers of enlightement were joined by this fight into the general movement of European enlightement and that their fight bears many characteristic signs of the latter. A specific mark in the thinking of Slovak enlightement is its religious character — which is the fault of the feudal oppression of that time — , the striving of Slovak thinkers to purify Christian religion fighting against superstitions and prejudices of the survivals of heathen and jewish religion, these being — as they thought — the main sources of all superstitions. This, however, was only the general line of their fight, its actual contents have many progressive and materialistic elements. Slovak thinkers of enlightement — we must know — were fighting against superstitions and prejudices on the basis of sciences, especially on that of natural sciences, which in those times, in Slovakia at the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, were widely spread and propagated. Slovak thinkers of enlightement popularized sciences among people, strove to rid them of different prejudicial views hindering the development of their physical and mental capabilities, wanted to give them mental independence making them think of their own, to make them stand on their own feet, and to convince people that they themselves are the creators of earthly happiness, giving them optimism and showing them a clear perspective. The fight of Slovak thinkers of enlightement meant the accomplishing of the enlightement-programme born by the striving of Joseph II, several reforms of whose were a true expression of the progressive tendencies of the bourgeoisie of his countries. The fight of Slovak thinkers of enlightement against superstitions and prejudices in general played in social and scientific relations a progressive role and represents perhaps the brightest part of Slovak enlightement at all. These circumstances entitle us to call some thinkers of enlightement the pioneers of materialism in Slovakia.