environment

This article aims to tell the 'pre-history' of the environmental movements in East-Central Europe with a special regard to Hungary and its primary industrial region, the Borsodi Basin in the Sajó river valley.

After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, the economy of Slovakia was affected by structural changes in industry that led to the dissolution of dozens of key businesses. Structural changes mostly affected the metallurgy and metalworking industry in Eastern and Central Slovakia. Viable industries included the cellulose and paper industry, building material industry, brown coal mining, magnesite and asbestos mining, the power industry, electrical and technical, rubber or printing industries.

After the expulsion of Ottomans from the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary and demarcating the so called Military Frontier region between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (1699-1718), approximately 40,000 Slovak families emigrated from Slovakia to the southern regions of Hungary over the course of the 18th century. Most of them moved to the area of the Great Hungarian Plain (Alföld), which extends over the current regions of Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Croatia.

This article is an introduction to the thematic issue of Forum Historiae 1/2017 on environmental history in the territory of Slovakia and East Central Europe in the period between the 18th and 20th centuries. Apart from introducing the studies published in the issue, informing on the environmental historical research in Slovakia, the authors propose a theoretical scheme for historical research of environment. They introduce a set of working definitions centering on the conceptual triad: nature, landscape, and environment.