Svatopluk I or Svätopluk I, also known as Svatopluk the Great (Medieval Latin: Zuentepulc(us), Zuentibald, Sventopulch(us), Zvataplug; Old Church Slavic: Свѧтопълкъ and transliterated Svętopъłkъ; Polish: Świętopełk; Greek: Σφενδοπλόκος, Sphendoplókos), was a ruler of Great Moravia, which attained its maximum territorial expansion during his reign (870–871, 871–894).
Svatopluk's career started in the 860s, when he governed a principality within Moravia, the location of which is still a matter of debate among historians, under the suzerainty of his uncle, Rastislav. In 870 Svatopluk dethroned Rastislav, who was a vassal of Louis the German, and betrayed him to the Franks. Within a year, however, the Franks also imprisoned Svatopluk. After the Moravians rebelled against the Franks, Svatopluk was released and led the rebels to victory over the invaders. Although he was obliged to pay tribute to East Francia under the peace treaty concluded at Forchheim (Germany) in 874, he was able to expand his territories outside the Franks' sphere of interest in the following years. His forces even invaded the March of Pannonia within East Francia in 882.
Svatopluk established a good relationship with the popes, and he and his people were formally taken under the protection of the Holy See in 880. Pope Stephen V even addressed him as "King" in a letter written in 885. Svatopluk seems to have wanted to appease the German clergy who opposed the conducting of the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, and he expelled the disciples of Methodius from Moravia in 886, after their teacher's death.
Svatopluk's state was a loose assemblage of principalities and also included conquered territories.
Not long after his death Svatopluk's realm of Great Moravia collapsed in the midst of a power struggle between his sons and the intensifying Hungarian raids.
Svatopluk, whose empire encompassed parts of the territory of modern Czech Republic (Moravia and Bohemia), Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, has occasionally been presented as a "Slovak King" in Slovak literary works since the 18th century, the period of the Slovak national awakening.
Early years
The Annals of Fulda refer to Svatopluk as a nephew of Rastislav, the second known ruler of Great Moravia. Svatopluk was most probably born around 840. His father's name was Svetimir, according to the late 12th-century Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, a medieval historical work long dismissed as a collection of fact and fiction. According to the unproven later Moravian tradition of Tomáš Pešina z Čechorodu (17th century), who fulfilled the family tree of the House of Mojmír, Svatopluk was the son of a certain Bogislav. According to Simon of Kéza his father was Morot, a Prince of Poland who had subdued Bractari and occupied Crișana before retiring to Veszprém.
Svatopluk seems to have risen to power in Great Moravia in the early 860s. The Life of Methodius relates that Svatopluk and his uncle jointly asked the Byzantine Emperor Michael III to send missionaries who were familiar with the Slavic tongue to Moravia. Michael III chose two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, who were fluent in the dialect of Slavic spoken in the environs of Thessaloniki (Greece). They arrived in Moravia in 863, and immediately set to work teaching and preaching. Their translation of liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic was approved by Pope Hadrian II in 867.
Beginning of his reign
By the time Svatopluk first appeared in a Frankish sources (the Annals of Fulda) in 869, he was ruler of his own "realm" (regnum, implying autonomous or semi-autonomous land) within Great Moravia. This is generally accepted to be the Duchy of Nitra. His court was at "Rastislav's old city" (urbs antique Rastizi), which may have been either at Staré Město whose name literally means "old city" in Czech, or at Nitra (today in Slovakia), but it has also been identified with Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia).
Svatopluk's "realm" was invaded and plundered in 869 by Bavarian troops led by Carloman, the eldest son of Louis the German, King of East Francia. At the same time Franconian and Alamannian troops attacked Rastislav's territories under the leadership of the same King's youngest son, Charles the Fat. Although the two armies soon returned, Svatopluk entered into clandestine negotiations with Carloman, and agreed to commend himself and his principality to Carloman.