Zalavár is a village in Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, located in the Zala

Zala

Zala is the name of an administrative county in Hungary. Itlies in south-western Hungary. It is named after the Zala River. It shares borders with Croatia and Slovenia and the Hungarian counties Vas, Veszprém and Somogy. The capital of Zala county is Zalaegerszeg. Its area is 3784 km²...

 county. It is located around 9 km (6 mi) southwest of the Lake Balaton

Lake Balaton

Lake Balaton is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of its foremost tourist destinations. As Hungary is landlocked , Lake Balaton is often affectionately called the "Hungarian Sea"...

.

Name

In Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

, it is known as Zalavár, in Slovak

Slovak language

Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...

 as Blatnohrad, in Croatian

Croatian language

Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...

: Blatnograd , in Serbian

Serbian language

Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

: Блатноград, and in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 as Moosburg. It was also known as Mosapurc and Kolon. Ján Kollár

Ján Kollár

Ján Kollár was a Slovak writer , archaeologist, scientist, politician, and main ideologist of Pan-Slavism.- Life :...

 called it Salavár in his travel book and described the state of the ruins in 1841.

History

In the 9th century, the city of Blatnograd/Blatnohrad, a fortified city built at the Zala river

Zala River

The Zala is a river in south-western Hungary. Its source is in the hills on the borders with Austria and Slovenia. Its length is 139 km and drains water from 2,622 square km...

, was a capital of the Slavic Balaton Principality

Balaton Principality

The Principality of Lower Pannonia was a Slavic principality located in the western part of the Pannonian plain, between the rivers Danube to its east The Principality of Lower Pannonia (also called Pannonia, Lower Pannonia, Pannonian Principality, Transdanubian Principality, Slavic Pannonian...

 ruled by prince Pribina

Pribina

Pribina was a Slavic prince whose adventurous career, recorded in the Conversion of the Bavarians and the Carantanians , illustrates the political volatility of the Franco–Slavic frontiers of his time...

 ("Privinae civitas, munimen, castrum in nemore et palude Salae" in a Salzburg

Salzburg

-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

 chronicle). During the reign of Pribina's son, prince Kocel

Kocel

Koceľ was the second Lord of Principality of Lower Pannonia centered in Blatnograd / Blatnohrad .-Early life:...

 (861-876), in the summer of 867, it provided short-term hospitality to brothers Cyril

Cyril

Cyril is a masculine given name. It is derived from the Greek name Κύριλλος meaning "Lordly, Masterful" which in turn derives from Greek κυριος "Lord"...

 and Methodius

Methodius

Methodius may refer to:*Methodius of Olympus , Christian bishop, church father, and martyr*Methodius I of Constantinople , patriarch of Constantinople*Saint Methodius , Byzantine Greek archbishop of Great Moravia and scholar...

 on their way from Great Moravia

Great Moravia

Great Moravia was a Slavic state that existed in Central Europe and lasted for nearly seventy years in the 9th century whose creators were the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. It was a vassal state of the Germanic Frankish kingdom and paid an annual tribute to it. There is some controversy as...

 to the pope in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 to justify the use of the Slavonic language as a liturgical language. They and their disciples turned Blatnograd into one of the centers that spread the knowledge of the new Slavonic script (Glagolitic alphabet

Glagolitic alphabet

The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...

) and literature, educating numerous future missionaries in their native language.