Devín as the National Symbol

Devín associated with Great Moravia, Rastislav and Svatopluk the Princes and Cyril and Methodius the apostles has a symbolic place in the Slovak collective memory. It played an important role in the national-emancipation movement in the 19th century when several walks of Slovak patriots on the castle occurred between 1836 and 1848. The walk dated of 24 April 1836, during which Ľudovít Štúr gave his ceremonial speech, is well remembered. In the 60s of the 19th century, patriots from the Napred patriotic society picked up the threads of the Štúr movement.

A new impulse for the tradition of the walks was the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918; there was a memorial plaque installed on the castle on the centenary of the walk of the Štúr movement members in 1936. The importance of Devín as a Slovak and Slavic symbol survived even World War II and the establishment of the Slovak Republic in 1993.

Devín has also found its way to the works of poets and writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The tradition of Great Moravia and Cyril and Methodius had already been thematized by Ján Kollár in his work Slávy dcera (1832) or Ján Hollý in his epics Svatopluk (1833) and Cirillo-Metodiada (1835). In the Svatopluk epic, the Devín castle is described as a seat of Princes of Great Moravia, a place of great historical events as well as a scene of Slavic fights for independence.