Great Moravia is the first state that ruled this territory, and its centres were on the rivers — Nitra in the east of it, Mikulčice and Devín on the Morava and the Danube. Trnava is not named in any Great Moravian source, and no one should pretend otherwise. The nearest thing the region has is astonishing all the same: at Kopčany, out on the Morava floodplain, a tiny early-medieval church still stands, tied by archaeology to the great stronghold of Mikulčice on the far bank — one of the very few buildings anywhere that may have been standing when Cyril and Methodius were alive. So the ninth century happened here, in the fields and villages of the plain; it simply left its stone somewhere else.Veľká Morava je prvý štát, ktorý na tomto území vládol, a jej centrá ležali pri riekach — Nitra na východe, Mikulčice a Devín na Morave a Dunaji. Trnava sa v žiadnom veľkomoravskom prameni nespomína a netreba to zakrývať. Najbližšie, čo kraj má, je aj tak pozoruhodné: v Kopčanoch na moravskej nive dodnes stojí drobný ranostredoveký kostolík, ktorý archeológia spája s veľkým hradiskom v Mikulčiciach na druhom brehu — jedna z mála stavieb na svete, ktorá mohla stáť už za života Cyrila a Metoda. Deviate storočie sa teda odohralo aj tu, na poliach a v dedinách roviny; len svoj kameň nechalo inde.
