Changes of the biblical Czech verses in the old Hungarian printed books until 1801

Abstract

The complete collection of biblical Czech verses from 17th-century printed books in Hungary has recently been published (Kovács Eszter, Cseh és szlovák verses emlékek a régi magyarországi nyomtatványokban (17. század), Esztergom, 2022). It contains descriptions of 2,335 biblical Czech verses. The project should be continued in two phases, first covering the period 1701–1760 and then 1761–1801. A full survey of the 18th-century material has not yet been completed, but the corpus processed so far (nearly 2,000 items) already provides an opportunity for an overview. The first half of the century witnessed a significant increase in the number of Czech-language publications compared with the previous period, and although evangelical dominance was maintained, the number of Catholic publications also grew. In the mid-18th century, the first Reformed Slovak publications in the Eastern Slovak dialect were printed in Debrecen. At this point, Czech influence began to recede. The majority of the new hymns were written or translated by Slovak authors. In addition to Czech and German connections, the Hungarian and – presumably also – the Polish hymn traditions were important factors. The third period, 1761–1801, is the shortest yet the most productive. Small booklets, usually containing only one or a few hymns, became widespread. There was also an increase in the number of non-denominational secular works. The biblical Czech language continued to be used, and even remained dominant, but more and more publications appeared in various dialects of Slovak.