Egy trencséni választás históriája. A pánszlávizmus vádja és a valóság
The History of an Election in Trencsén.The Charge of Pan-Slavism and the Truth

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the political quest of Eugen Gerometta (1819–1887), a Catholic priest in Nagybiccse in the county of Trencsén and through this – with a microhistorical approach – it attempts to describe the dilemmas of the Slovak intellectuals living in Reform Period Hungary. Through his grandfather, Gerometta was of Italian descent, but he was a priest with Slovak identity. Pursuing the development of education for and fostering the culture of the Slovak people, he played an important role in the Slovak national movement. Examples of this activity are his involvement in a society, called Tatrín, supporting the talented Slovak youth as well as his articles on the Slovak language and education or his fight against alcoholism widespread among Slovaks living in Upper Hungary. But unlike most Slovak intellectuals in Štúr’s circle, he had close connections with the reform nobility, and – according to a confidential report – he was one the four most active members of the opposition in the county of Trencsén in the second half of the 1840s. This explains why it was he in 1848 whom the comitatus commissioned to translate into Slovak and proclaim the April laws and why he was nominated in the Biccse constituency for the June elections. As a Slovak intellectual, Gerometta made attempts to become a member of the Hungarian Parliament to promote, within the existing political framework, the bettering of the status of the Slovaks. That is, he meant to leave the path followed by Štúr’s circle, who had been preparing armed resistance against Hungary for some time.

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