Slovakia Gymnasium History Curriculum - First Year

This curriculum outlines the topics covered in the first year of Gymnasium History in Slovakia, drawing from various Slovakian gymnasium curricula. The curriculum emphasizes a chronological and synchronous approach to world and national history, focusing on key events, individuals, and societal structures. Students are encouraged to develop critical thinking skills, historical analysis, and an understanding of the relationship between past, present, and future.

1. Introduction to Historical Study (6 hours)

• Historical sources and their types
• Auxiliary sciences of history
• Different interpretations of history
• Notable world and Slovak historians

2. Glimpses of Prehistory (4 hours)

• Paleolithic Era (anthropogenesis, hominization)
• Neolithic Era (Neolithic Revolution)
• Transition from Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) cultures to civilization

3. Ancient Civilizations (8 hours)

• Egypt as an example of the first unified state
• Civilizational legacy of the oldest states (Mesopotamia, India, China) for European society and culture

4. The World of Antiquity and its Legacy (24 hours)

• Ancient Greece:
• Settlement and Greek colonization
• The polis and its various forms and types
• Development of Athenian democracy from Solon to Pericles
• Encounter of Greek and Oriental cultures - Hellenism
• Ancient Rome:
• From city-state to empire
• Roman Republic compared to the Greek polis (political system, social structure, institutions)
• Principate and Dominate (social and economic crisis of the late empire)
• Life in antiquity (work, family, law, science, art)
• The phenomenon of Christianity in Roman society
• The process of Romanization with examples from Slovakia

5. Early Middle Ages (12 hours)

• Europe in the Early Middle Ages:
• Changes in Europe as a result of the movement of Germanic and Slavic peoples
• Emergence of new kingdoms and cultural spheres (Frankish Empire, Byzantium, Islam)
• Formation of new economic foundations (feudal system, social structure)
• Christianity in early medieval society (development of the Church as an institution and its role)
• From Carolingian Renaissance to Romanesque culture
• The Crusades
• Slavs in Central Europe and the Beginnings of Slovak History:
• Samo's Empire
• Pribina's Principality
• Emergence of Great Moravia (political, economic, and cultural development)
• Christianization, Cyril and Methodius mission
• Decline of Great Moravia

6. High Middle Ages (12 hours)

• Europe in the High Middle Ages:
• Emergence of centralized monarchies in Europe
• Society of the High Middle Ages, its social structure
• Medieval cities, universities
• Crisis of the Church, attempts at internal reform (Francis of Assisi, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus)
• Turkish expansion, the fall of Constantinople (1453)
• Gothic culture
• The Hungarian State until 1526:
• Emergence of the multi-ethnic Hungarian state
• Duchy of Nitra and its specific position within the forming Hungarian state
• Social structure of the early medieval Hungarian state (state administration, institutions, church, education, monasteries)
• Political and economic rise of Hungary
• Emergence and development of medieval cities
• Mining and mining towns in Slovakia
• Craft production and trade