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SUMMARY OF THE
SPRING
10th ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
Volume 10, No. 1, Spring 2002
Slovak
Heritage Live
A newsletter of the
Slovak Heritage and Cultural Society of British Columbia
published four times a year
Fall issue was published in April
2002 and it was mailed to
1500 recipients world wide.
Last supper from the altar in Spišská Sobota by master Pavol from Levoča
FROM THE EDITOR
Yes
you read right on the title page, this is the 10th Anniversary
issue. 10 years, 40 issues and 552 pages later we are still here. However
the ride has not been a smooth one. It has been rough many times as we
constantly struggle with lack of funds. It is partly due to the fact that
only few of you are renewing your memberships on time and most of you are
constantly late or just stay on for a free ride and not pay at all. Over
the years we have deleted hundreds of people form our mailing list for
failing to pay their dues. It would be so nice if our printer would print
the newsletter for free and binding company would collate it for free as
well and if the post office would deliver it for free, it would be so
nice, but it will never happen. The reality is that we are always short of
funds as there simple isn’t enough coming in to pay for printing,
collating and mail from the memberships that are coming in, mostly very
late and overdue. So if you think the newsletter is a worth while
investment, please invest in your heritage and renew on time, perhaps
early, perhaps for more than one year, perhaps you could enclose some mega
bucks donations, you know it wouldn’t hurt us at all. We will accept all
donations does not matter how ridiculously large they may be.
It would allow us the breath easier and I wouldn’t have to
finance every issue time and time again. If everyone paid their
memberships on time, we wouldn’t be having any problems at all...
Our web pages are doing fantastic,
getting around 150000 hits per month and the top twenty visiting countries
in January were: United States, Slovak Republic, Canada, Netherlands,
Great Britain, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Belgium, Japan, Hungary,
Australia, Austria, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Finland, Romania
and Brazil...
FROM THE MAIL BAG
Read the correspondence received from our members...
SLOVAK
CHAMELEON - CLAUDE BALÁŽ
Just
recently I received by mail two letters from the most famous of Slovak
Chameleons - a man of many coats and colors an official letter informing
me and our Slovak Heritage and Cultural Society of British Columbia that
he is now the official representative in the Slovak government for the
Slovaks living abroad. Third information came by email on the same thing.
They are wasting taxpayers’ money in big way as simple email would cost
them nothing and it would be enough. You ask who could this Claude Baláž
be? A man who has been making his living off Slovaks living abroad for the
last 20 years in various posts and positions, lastly as the head of House
of Foreign Slovaks where out of the total budget of 17 Million Crowns, 11
Million were spent on internal affairs and his office and only 2 Million
supposedly went to any projects or activities dealing with Slovaks living
abroad. But getting back to his letter, he referred to his new post as the
“unofficial small Foreign Affairs ministry for Slovaks living abroad.”...
SLOVAKS
IN CANADA EXHIBIT UPDATE
By Ondrej Mihal
With
the arrival of spring, those Slovak organizations that have been working
on the Exhibit, are at the end of their almost two years of effort in
preparations.
The Exhibit goes on display at the National Museum in Bratislava,
Slovakia on July 4, 2002, for 2 months.
It will encompass almost 120 years worth of history, literature,
organizational and religious activity of the Slovaks in Canada, starting
in the 1880’s and ending in the present day.
It is supported and financed by many of the Slovak organizations in
Canada, working together. This means that the exhibit will show a cross
section of Slovak Canadian life from every aspect of this society, from
the mines of British Columbia, to the farmers of the Prairies, Thunder Bay
in the north, to the Slovaks in Montreal…
ALL
SLOVAKIA’S FESTIVAL OF HELIGÓNKA PLAYERS
PODSTAVENKOVA HELIGÓNKA
The
first year all Slovakia’s festival became a reality on November 17, 2001
in the House of Culture in Brezno. The zero year of this festival to honor
and named after tragically passed away heligonkár from Brezno Milan
Podstavenka was initiated last year by his personal friend and colleague
Paul Berčík and his brother Peter, soloist of folklore group Mostár-Brezno
in play on accordion, mouth harmonika and well known as photographer.
Success of last year’s get together of heligonkár’s stimulated the
Berčík’s brothers so much that they didn’t give up their
ambition to organize additional year ion festival level with participants
from all around Slovakia. This year Ján Weis an ethnographer and also
heligonkár and director of the Museum in Brezno took part in organizing
and in dramaturgy...
ZBOROV
CASTLE
Zborov
castle is located in eastern part of Slovakia, north east of Bardejov
above town Zborov in the Šariš region. This royal castle is located on
the forested hill south of village Zborov at an elevation of 1422 feet. It
also used to be called Makovica. The castle was built shortly after 1317.
It was a border King’s castle in the northern part of Hungarian-Polish
road north of Bardejov. At the beginning it wasn’t very large...
COURTYARD
OF CRAFTS
The Courtyard of Crafts (Dvor remesiel) is an organic part of ÚĽUV.
It is situated in the courtyard of ÚĽUV’s headquarters at Obchodná
64, in historical building, located directly in the center of Bratislava.
The courtyard is a former winegrower’s house, dating to the 17th-18th
century in a neighborhood that was previously called Schöndorf. It is now
a place of active tranquility in the town centre offering a rural
atmosphere. It was opened to the public on 1 July 1999...
TINKERS
CRAFT WORKSHOP
While
visiting my friend Martin Mešša who now works for UĽUV I wandered through the
Courtyard of Crafts. I was always intrigued with tinker’s craft
especially making things with wire. In a tidy tinker’s workshop I met
Martina Fintor, an absolvent of Fine Arts College in Bratislava. She
teaches wire crafts on daily basis to interested parties children and
adults. From her you will learn how to make wire baskets, hangers, kitchen
utensils, jewelry, Easter eggs, wire wrapping bottles and also my favorite
wrapping flat rocks and making hanging fish out of them. Martina is very
methodical and in about an hour I created my firs ever hanging wire fish.
Anything and everything you create, you can take home with you...
SHROVETIDE
FAŠIANGY
The term Shrovetide, signs the entire period lasting from the Three Kings
to Ash Wednesday, although the majority of custom expressions are
concentrated into the last days, which are called “bláznivé dni”
(crazy days), “ostatky, mjesopust and mjasnica.” The name itself is
derived from the German word “Vjrschang” and in its original language
signs the last days before Lent.
Shrovetide makes a transition between winter and spring. Customs, related
to it, do not create a unified whole, but they include more levels. We can
find in them genetic connection to the pan-European agrarian prosperity
ceremonies of the pre-spring period, with residuals of agrarian cult and
cult of ancestors, but also connections to the Middle Aged carnival town
culture, which followed up the buoyancy of Ancient festivals. The Middle
Aged town carnival elements affected in a later period, mainly the
craftsmanship festivals. Diversified forms of competitive games, which
remain a principle of the Knight’s tournaments, give evidence of that.
In Shrovetide customs of the peasant population of all Slavic nations, the
principle of fighting and competitive games occurs only seldom. In other
European cultures, elements of competitiveness between two groups,
represents one of basic expressions of symbols of the transitional period
between winter and spring...
SPRING
AND SUMMER TIME CUSTOMS
The
complex of spring and summer time customs, is defined in time by the
period from pre-Easter lent until the harvest festival and it is connected
to events like Death and Flower Sunday,
Easter
week, St. George’s day, The First of May, Whitsuntide, St. John’s day.
Spring time customs were focused on the positive influences of expected
changes in nature, then on ensuring prosperity before the beginning of
spring works and finally on protection of vegetation and ensuring the
expected harvest. They were in a different range connected to farming
works. They have a collective and also an individual character. The main
ceremonial subjects were represented by different forms of verdure, which
represents a principle of waking up nature and the life force, an egg
symbol of natural and life circle, and water symbol of purity and
health...
EASTER
In
spite of the fact that the Easter festival is the most important religious
festival of the year, consecrated to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it
has not achieved such a richness of custom forms as Christmas. Easter
customs belong among the transitional ceremonies.
The Easter festival included the whole range of acts, which had a direct
connection to peasant work, also ritual orders and prohibitions, which
limited people's behavior during the ceremonial time of festival, as well
as church ceremonies, which Christianity took over from older religious
rituals.
In
a church, catkins were blessed on the Flower Sunday, and they were stored
and given to sewing, used for medical treatment, placed onto fields, and
cattle during the first spring pasture were incensed with them. A special
power was ascribed to water. From the Green Thursday until the White
Sunday, there was frequent washing in a river before sunrise, hair making
under the willows, as well as watering horses. Blessed Big Friday’s
water was used to pour on the house, out buildings and farm animals. Water
was connected to the concept of new life. Success of ceremonies was
related to ritual purity of the performers and of the whole surroundings.
Insects were driven out of houses with rattles, which children used for
rattling around the village from the Green Thursday till the White Sunday,
when bells in churches were tied up...
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The Slovak Heritage Live Newsletter
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Cultural Society
of British Columbia
3804 Yale Street
Burnaby, BC,
Canada, V5C 1P6
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Copyright © Vladimir Linder 2002
3804 Yale
Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article and photographs may not be copied, reproduced,
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Linder. All rights
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