In search of …Velehrad, Capital of Great Moravia

All the sources I have read state that the Magyars attacked Velehrad so fiercely that no trace of the castle and settlement was left behind.  I find that hard to belief because even a fire leaves ashes.  There were also probably some stone fortifications at Velehrad, since it was a castle, and I am certain the Magyars did not stay behind after the battle, to tear up the building foundations or to grind the stones to dust.  Some traces of Velehrad must exist, although, by this time, probably several feet underground.

In looking at a location for Velehrad, I am making the assumption that Velehrad and Nitra were probably quite similar to each other in many respects, as well as similar to other castles, and fortifications of the same era.  Nitra, I believe had four characteristics that Velehrad shared:  (1)  it was built (like Devin) on or near the riverbank, so as to provide easy access to water and transportation,  (2)  it wall built on a hill or other rise in the landscape for tactical defense,  (3)  it was built at the end of a ridge of hills overlooking a fertile valley to provide easy access to food and other necessary supplies, as well as taxable income.  For Nitra, it is placed on a hilltop, next to the Nitra River, and overlooking the plans of the Nitra and Vah valleys.  I believe the principality of Nitrava probably covered these two river valleys down to the Danube.  Nitra was also set of some distance from the Danube so as to avoid constant interference from armies (like the Avars and Franks) that used the Danube for the transport of their armies.

Velehrad, I believe, held a similar in the Morava River Valley. The farming area that would support a fortress in the Morava Valley would be the Viennese basin in the Lower Morava.  The Viennese basin, however, has two peculiarities in comparison to the Nitra/Vah:  (1)  the lower Morava valley has not significant cities or towns, unlike the Nitra/Vah which hosts Bratislava, Esztergom, Nitra and Trnava, etc; the first city up the Morava is Brno, which is much further upstream than any of these cities, (2)  a large city has developed on the Danube in the Morava valley:  Vienna, however, the current city of Vienna did not develop until after the Great Moravian empire (the website for the city of Vienna dates the city to the 12th century, although it says there is a reference somewhere, dated 811, of a small settlement in the vicinity of Vienna);  the existence of Vienna would draw attention and resources away from other existing settlements in the area. 

Velehrad, like Nitra, will also be somewhat removed from the Danube itself.  According to my maps, there is one location that fits all the criteria discussed for Velehrad.  It is an area of Slovakia that seems sparsely inhabited and little noticed.  Just as the Morava river crosses the current Czech-Austrian border, there is a ridge of hills which parallels the Morava on the Slovak side.  This ridge of hills, coming from the north, ends right at the or near the east bank of the Morava.  The end of this ridge also overlooks the Viennese basin to the south and east, but is about the same distance from the mouth of the Morava at the Danube as Nitra is to the mouth of the Vah.

The site discribed fits all the criteria:  (1) it is on the banks of the Morava for water and transport, (2) it is on a hill for tactical defense, (3) it overlooks the Viennese basin for food and other supplies, (4) it is removed from the Danube itself and foreign interference.

Finally, the book I have on Hungarian history states that as a pacifier to Bavaria, Hungary ceded the Viennese basin for a buffer zone between itself and Bavaria (and the Holy Roman Empire).  It also states elsewhere that the lands that the Hungarians actually occupied and settled were those of Great Moravia (since it was the only country they actually destroyed leaving those areas without government).  The Hungarians raided all other neighboring countries, but did not settle in them as much.  These two facts would seem to imply that the Viennese basin was part of Great Moravia.  This is corroborated in the Atlas of World History from Oxfor University.

Finally, if this conclusion is correct, it would set the Mojmir and Nitrava principalities as neighbors in adjacent river valleys, and both very aware and concerned with the Frankish expansion down the Danube.  This description fits well with the known facts leading to the incorporation of Nitrava into Great Moravia as occurred in 835.