Černová massacre

The Černová massacre (or Černová tragedy, Slovak: Černovská tragédia, Hungarian: Csernovai tragédia or Csernova Affair) was a shooting that happened in Csernova, Kingdom of Hungary (today Černová, part of Ružomberok, Slovakia) on 27 October 1907 in which 15 people were killed and many were wounded after gendarmes fired into a crowd of people gathering for the consecration of the local Catholic church. The shootings sparked protests in European and American press and turned world's attention to the treatment of minorities in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary.

On the initiative of Andrej Hlinka, the Slovak parish priest of nearby Ružomberok and a native of Černová, people of Černová decided to raise money for the construction of a new church. The locals raised 80,000 crowns and the collections received minor donations from the Slovak Americans as well. The construction started in April 1907 and by the autumn, the church was ready for consecration.

The locals wanted the church to be consecrated by Hlinka, however, he was at the time suspended by bishop Sándor Párvy and sentenced to two years of imprisonment due to his pro-Slovak agitation during the election campaign of 1906 and the subsequent conviction of incitement. The people of Černová thus demanded the consecration to be postponed until Hlinka would be able to perform the ceremony. The bishopric denied their request and two Magyar speaking priests were appointed in his stead. First Canon Anton Kurimsky and after his refusal, Dean Martin Pazurik of Likavka.

The ceremony was to take place on 27 October 1907. The official procession arrived at the village accompanied by a squad of 15 gendarmes. It was protested against by the locals, who attempted to block its way to the church to prevent Pazurik from consecrating. The demonstration was peaceful in nature although some accounts report stone-throwing at a member of the gendarme escort. In panic the gendarme leader sergeant Ján Ladiczky, an ethnic Slovak, ordered his squad to open fire into the crowd without prior warning killing 15 of the protesting villagers, seriously wounding 12 and lightly injuring 40.

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