Abstract
The collapse of the polity which Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos called 'Great Moravia' is undoubtedly one of the most noteworthy problems of Central European history of the Early Middle Ages i.a. also because it has no equivalent wide and far. How is it possible that the still recently prospering society could entirely disintegrate in a short timeframe? Through a structural analysis of the Great Moravian polity, the author attempts to show that the collapse at the beginning of the tenth century was closely tied to its fragile socioeconomic foundations and endeavours to offer an explanation for the subsequent resignation on the renewal of the 'Great Moravian project' as well.
At the end, the study asks the question of what level of complexity Great Moravia actually attained, to what extent its structure built on foreign models and what legacy it left in Central Europe.