SCARCE Explores Slovakia's Mining Heritage

The History of the Slovakian Mining Archive, Banská Štiavnica, and Schemnitz 

The archive in its current iteration was founded in 1950 as part of then-Czechoslovakian National Archives and has been an independent part of the Slovakian national archives since 2015. The collections were originally the working administrative records of the Habsburg mining administration which began operating the mines in the sixteenth century. The extensive mining records were analyzed, revised, revisited and re-ordered throughout their long lifespan of use in managing the “Hungarian” mining towns of what is now Central Slovakia. 

Even during the Communist era (when Czechoslovakia was a satellite state of the Soviet Union), Habsburg-era mining records were used to help guide further mineral prospecting: the documents from the Communist period which now form part of the historical collections include considerable historical context about their Habsburg pasts. After the end of Communist rule in Slovakia in 1989, and the separation of Slovakia from Czechia (then the Czech Republic) archival collections relating mining from the rest of Slovakia were brought to Banská Štiavnica’s mining archive. The archives themselves have long been a resource to be sustained and managed.

It took the better part of the week to grasp the complex administrative history of these archives. During the early modern period, Schemnitz was one of several Central European mining areas controlled by burghers of German descent, who had arrived during the so-called “Ostsiedlung” of the thirteenth century and become the leading mining investors and property owners of free mining towns (Bergstädte). After the Habsburg double wedding of 1515, a number of Hungarian and Bohemian mining towns, including Schemnitz, were given to Queen Maria of Habsburg (subsequently known as Maria of Hungary) as part of her dowry, following a Hungarian tradition established in 1424. Following the death of her husband Lajos II of Hungary, during the 1526 Battle of Mohacs against the Ottomans, the kingdom of Hungary was divided between Ottoman and Habsburg rule, and Mary’s brother Ferdinand I (who would be crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1556) became King of the northern part of Hungary (Lower Hungary), which included what is now Slovakia and its mining towns in 1548. It took some decades for the Habsburgs to gain control over the Hungarian mining administration. Ferdinand attempted to reform the administration throughout his rule but faced resistance from the Hungarian Diet and the towns themselves who had traditionally controlled their own mining privileges. Ferdinand’s successor Maximilian resumed the negotiations, and “Maximilian” mining laws were finally accepted in Schemnitz in the 1570s. 

The effects of these reforms were to subjugate the mining administration in Schemnitz to control from Vienna, and the flow of reporting and decision-making between Vienna and Schemnitz structures much of the archive. In turn, Schemnitz, as the most economically significant mining town in Lower Hungary, maintained administrative authority over other towns, the most important of which were Neusohl and Kremnitz. An important mining academy was created in Schemnitz in 1735, which was reformed and enlarged by order of Maria Theresa in the 1762, nearly contemporary to the Bergakademie at Freiburg in Saxony. As with the rest of the Hungarian mining administration, the Bergakademie switched from Austrian (and hence German speaking) administration to Hungarian administration in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1919 the academy was relocated to the newly created Hungarian nation after the creation of Czechoslovakia after the first World War. The evolution of the archive was definitively structured by these waves of political reorganization, resulting in a range of printed and manuscript finding aids in German, Hungarian, and Slovakian.  

Historical Mines and Mining History in Central Slovakia

In addition to mornings spent analyzing sources and secondary literature in the archives, the SCARCE team also visited several important historical sites in and around Banská Štiavnica. We had the opportunity to compare different approaches to contextualizing and communicating early modern mining history through the perspective of a preserved town and its archives in Banská Štiavnica, to a regional municipal museum in Banská Bystrica (Neusohl), and the private museum and tour led by an active mining company in Hodruša. 

In Banská Štiavnica, there are an abundance of well-preserved buildings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of which are connected to existing mining shafts and adits. There is also a wealth of interpretive material distributed around the outskirts of the town, much of which is integrated into well-signed hiking routes. Our delightful hotel was just around the corner from the Kammerhof, the administrative seat of the mining administration, which now houses a key part of Banská Štiavnica’s mining history museum.

Mineral resources were also a theme in the pictorial program of the museum’s “Green Room” dating from the late fifteenth century, which made extensive use of malachite for its pigment, a copper carbonate mineral that is found naturally sedimented in a water source near Banská Bystrica. Several other contemporary “green rooms” have survived in other elite residences from this period. The wall paintings included a number of saints with significance to miners, including St. George, St. Christopher (protector against sudden death) and the prophet Daniel, whose dreams and visions were linked to visionary discovery of precious minerals.

Lastly, in Hodruša we visited a part of the historic Rozália mine, which had been operated from the Middle Ages until 1950, only to be reopened in the early 1990s as a private mining company, which operates in an extension of the historic mine. The company purchased and renovated several historic buildings, and preserves its own collection of historical materials, including hand drawn maps, which they continue to use and update in conjunction with 3D models. Our guide emphasized the historical continuity between traditional handwork and artisanal skills and modern industrial technology. He described the work of three geologists and three surveyors employed by the company who entered the mines daily to determine where to exploit next, and the ironsmith who still works with the firm to sharpen and maintain metal tools. 

In spite of our best efforts to sustain our own mental and physical resources with ample helpings of bryndzové pirohy (Slovakian cheese dumplings), the SCARCE team was thoroughly exhausted after a week of prospecting and assaying different sites of mining history. We look forward to sharing future updates on the blog as team members disperse to pursue their own veins of research in the coming months!