Mojmir I

Mojmir I
Mojmir I on a banknote of the Slovak state (1944).
Ruler of Moravia
Reign	820s/830s–846
Predecessor	Mojmar (?)
Successor	Rastislav
Died	846
House	House of Mojmir
Father	Mojmar (?)

Mojmir I, Moimir I or Moymir I (Latin: Moimarus, Moymarus, Czech and Slovak: Mojmír I.) was the first known ruler of the Moravian Slavs (820s/830s–846) and eponym of the House of Mojmir. In modern scholarship, the creation of the early medieval state known as Great Moravia is attributed either to his or to his successors' expansionist policy. He was deposed in 846 by Louis the German, king of East Francia.

From the 570s the Avars dominated the large area stretching from the Eastern Carpathians to the Eastern Alps in Central Europe. The local Slavic tribes were obliged to pay tribute for their overlords, but their resistance began already in the early 7th century. First those who inhabited the region of today's Vienna (Austria) threw off the yoke of the Avars in 623–624. They were led by a Frankish merchant named Samo whose reign would last for at least 35 years. However, when he died in some time between 658 and 669, his principality collapsed without trace.

Another century and a half passed before the Avars were finally defeated between 792 and 796 by Charlemagne, ruler of the Frankish Empire. In short time a series of Slavic principalities emerged in the regions on the Middle Danube. Among these polities, the Moravian principality showed up for the first time in 822 when the Moravians, according to the Royal Frankish Annals, brought tribute to Charlemagne's son, Emperor Louis the Pious.