K POČIATKOM ZÁUJMU O HISTORICKÝ A ETNICKÝ VÝVIN DOLNOZEMSKÝCH SLOVÁKOV

This article draws attention to the initial interest for the history and the way of life of the Slovak migrants settled down in the so-called Lower Lands (Great Hungarian Plain) situated on the territory of the present day Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Croatia after the Ottoman Turks had been expelled from the Habsburg Empire (1711). The paper focuses on the works written by Slovak scholars in the 18th and 19th century (Matej Markovic, Andrej Skolka, Samuel Tesedik, Daniel Zajac, Ludovit Haan, Michal Zilinsky, etc.). Authentic reports of the mentioned authors provide invaluable information on the process of adaptation, social convergence, interethnic contacts, mutual cultural influences, linguistic and cultural innovations and many other changes in the life of Slovak migrants that were determined by the different environmental, social, cultural, and ethnic conditions of their new homeland. The dynamics of cultural and linguistic changes has been analysed from the perspective of contemporary theoretical and methodological approaches in the study of ethnic minorities and Slovaks living abroad.