Svatopluk I

Svatopluk I (c. 840 - c. 894), also known as Svatopluk the Great, was a Prince of Nitra who later became the Duke of Moravia and the first King of Great Moravia. During his rule, Great Moravia attained its maximum territorial expansion.

In 870 Svatopluk dethroned Rastislav, his uncle, who was a vassal of Louis the German, and betrayed him to the Franks. Within a year, however, the Franks also imprisoned Svatopluk. After the Moravians rebelled against the Franks, Svatopluk was released and led the rebels to victory over the invaders. Although he was obliged to pay tribute to East Francia under the peace treaty concluded at Forchheim in 874, he was able to expand his territories outside the Franks' sphere of interest in the following years. His forces even invaded the March of Pannonia within East Francia in 882.

Svatopluk established a good relationship with the popes, and he and his people were formally taken under the protection of the Holy See in 880. Pope Stephen V even addressed him as "King" in a letter written in 885. Svatopluk seems to have wanted to appease the German clergy who opposed the conducting of the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, and he expelled the disciples of Methodius from Moravia in 886, after their teacher's death.

His death on the eve of the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin almost led to the total disintegration of Great Moravia.