SUMMARY OF THE
FALL ISSUE
Volume 11, No. 3, Fall 2003
Slovak
Heritage Live
A quarterly newsletter
published by Vladimir Linder
Fall issue was published in
October and mailed to 1200 recipients world wide.
My long time friend Frater
Gabriel
being ordained by Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph
Schoenborn
at the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth in Košice
FROM THE EDITOR
I
sure hope that all of you had a great summer and those that visited
Slovakia were able to connect with their long lost relatives. If you like
you can write story for the newsletter. You can email it or snail mail it
including pictures, which will be returned after scanning. It you are
mailing your story it should be typewritten. As you are starting to read
this fall issue I am in Slovakia again doing Genealogical research. If you
need anything you can contact me by email at: vlinder49@hotmail.com or you
can call me on my cell: 011-421-907-297-508. I will return November 20th
and publish the winter issue shortly after my arrival...
FROM THE
MAIL BAG
Dear
Vladimir,
We
want to renew our subscription to Slovak Heritage Live. Please let us know
how much we owe since our last payment. We will drop a check in the mail
as soon as we hear from you.
We
appreciate immensely the articles and other information in your
newsletter. We are planning another trip to Slovakia this summer and are
finding that your newsletter and web site are our main sources of
information.
Appreciatively,
Jeffrey
and Cindy Uecker
954
Northeast Delsey Road
Hillsboro
OR 97124 USA
Dear Mr. Linder,
Enclosed
is money order for 2 years subscription to your newsletter. I am
interested if there is anything of interest in Púchov, Považská
Bystrica
area that is worth seeing if one goes there for a visit.
Anne
Podolinsky
3894 Little Ireland Rd.
RR7 Alvinston, Ontario, N0N 1A0
MY
SUMMER 2003 TRIP TO
SLOVAKIA
I had
enough airline points to get a free ticket again through my Visa
account and I chose to fly with KLM Airlines.
I left
Vancouver on Tuesday, June 17 and arrived in Amsterdam next day early in
the morning. The flight was great as usual; the only thing I didn’t
like was the long wait in Amsterdam for over six hours for my connecting
flight to Vienna. So in the future I will try to avoid flying through
Amsterdam. In Vienna I was picked by my friend Andrew Dula and
soon we were on the way to Bratislava. In the evening I rested and
next morning I arranged for my car pick up from ADVANTAGE CAR
RENTAL. As usual everything went very smooth and I got Škoda Felicia,
which I rented on previous occasion. Car is a plain Jane, but it
is fine, considering the savings I enjoy as to oppose renting from a
multi national car rental company franchise. I went to Liptovská
Teplička where I will have a photo exhibit during their
8th year of Folklore Festival Under Káľová Hoľa.
Saturday early morning I was on the way to Košice, where my Friend FRATER
GABRIEL was going to be ordained Dominican Deacon in the Cathedral of
St. Elizabeth by his Excellency Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christophe
Schonborn. This was a very solemn and memorable occasion. Frater Gabriel
has written a story about the Ordination ceremony. I returned to Liptovská
Teplička in the afternoon and in the evening I went up the hill with
my friends to participate in singing and dancing around fires on St.
John’s day that was on Sunday. As the village church is blessed to St.
John and he is the patron of the village, on Sunday there was an open-air
service at the amphitheatre above the village, that I attended. Monday I
went to Svit, visiting my friends from the folklore group JÁNOŠÍK and
then I returned to Liptovská Teplička after buying some steaks
at Poprad’s TESCO and I did pepper steaks on brandy,
baked potatoes, fried mushrooms and steamed corn and we had a pretty
good bottle of red wine with it...
DOMINICAN’S
PRIEST’S AND DEACON’S ORDINATION
Ordination
is in itself a happy occasion. The one in Košice in the Cathedral of St.
Elizabeth was in several ways extraordinary. Over 1000 believers from all
over Slovakia, Dominicans from seven countries (Slovakia, Czech Republic,
Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Poland), representatives of Diocese
clergy, reverend sisters Dominicans and other congregation nuns got
together for this occasion. The most important guest was the ordinate,
also a Dominican, Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn.
During almost two and half-hour liturgy in Latin language he ordained from
the Dominican order three brothers to priests and eight to deacons. In the
homily that was in German language and simultaneously translated to Slovak
language, Father Cardinal emphasized the need of announcing God’s mercy
as the fundamental element of pastoral activity of newly ordained. Other
important guests attending the ceremony were Greek Catholic Bishop and
Exarcha-Vladyka Milan Chautúr, assistant of magister of the Dominican
order for Middle and Eastern Europe Rajmund Klepanec from Rome, Provincial
of Czech province of Dominicans Alvarez Kobeda from Prague, provincial of
Slovak province of Dominicans Konštanc Adam and many more. Choir of St.
Cecilia who sung through parts of the service from J.S. Bach and W.A.
Mozart, also assisted in deep spiritual experience of this occasion...
Mons.
ThDr. Jozef Kapala, Holy Father’s prelate (1901-1985)
DIPLOMAT,
SLOVAK EXILE WORKER, PUBLICIST,TRANSLATOR
By:
Mons, Doc. ThDr. ICLic. František Dlugoš, PhD
CHILDHOOD
AND STUDIES
Mons.
ThDr. Jozef Kapala was born May 24, 1901 in Wilmington, Dellaware, USA.
His parents were from Orava. Father Anton Kapala, born in Trstená,
mother Zuzana nee Priemazová from Zuberec, where they returned from USA
when Jozef was a child. Father was a worker in Habovka’s
wood mill. He passed away as 44 years old and the family remained in
poverty. Talented boy with the help of good people started to go to
school. He studied at primary school in Zuberec, Orava region. Jozef
Kapala had three wishes from his youth, to become an altar boy,
seminarian, and a priest. That is why after four years of studies ant
Trstená
Gymnasium, he left in 1917 to Nitra to study at small seminary. After the
end of first world war he continued his studies at the seminary in Ružomberok.
During the 1920/21 school year the Spiš’s seminarists-septimans
and octavians were sent to small seminary in Banská Bystrica, where they
were accepted with truly brotherly love. It was here where in 1921 he
graduated and after the graduation he decided to study theology...
THE
SLOVAK FOLK MAJOLICA
Folk-art
industrial cooperative society Modra
Modra has been well known for its unique majolica pottering along
with its wine production since the 14th century. All the majolica
masterpieces are handmade developing the traditions of East Europe,
especially the oldest potters called Habans. During the 17th century they
developed their pottery to the one that has been known currently.
Some decades later Slovak national pottering integrated the Haban
technique and developed a valued peculiar folk art form in itself.
A repertoire of decorations was gradually exceeded from the pictures
of simple natural motives (flora, fauna) to more complicated expressions
of rural daily routine (figures, architecture, tools, implements).
Modra as free royal city belonged to the most important and the largest
cities in Slovakia during the 16th and 17th centuries. The crafts were
well organized in guilds and highly developed. The guild of the potters in
Modra was established in 1636. It was recorded in saved old documents. In
1828 there were 55 masters potters in Modra. Potters’ fraternity existed
in Modra in 1870-1880. Utility ceramics ware, unsurpassed in quality and
unique in decoration has been handmade for several centuries and still it
is in demand on the market.
After quashing the guilds in 1872 particular workshops and craft
partnerships came to existence. New rivals-earthenware, porcelain and iron
products appeared at the end of the 18th century and brought decay of the
pottering and its workshops.
The City Council established a ceramic-industrial training
institution in Modra in 1883 to save the pottery craft. The training
institution adopted some functions of the guild-its organization of the
trainees, their work duties along with an organization of the production.
It was quashed in 1888. Ceramic production continued in a rented
workshop of a master Jozef Mičko and reached a high quality
thank to journeymen who enriched the ceramics ware in decorations and
shapes...
POLKA
TIMES
THEN
AND NOW
By
James C. Gajniak: jimcarl@theoldpro.net
Edited
by: Dorothy Loyd: www.dorothyloyd.com
Of
all the different musical styles, none stirs me more than the polka. For
over sixty years, I have enjoyed the high energy, non-stop rhythm, and
excitement of the polka, while watching dancers as they sway to and fro to
the rollicking sounds. This article is not about the history of this
music, but it’s about what the polka has meant to me.
It is because of my Slovak heritage that I am thankful for this music.
Even now my father, Ignatius F. Gajniak, regularly listens to Dick Zavodny
on the radio. My father’s twin brother, Aloysius Gajniak, tunes in to
Eddie Blazonczak’s Versatones and Eddie Kurosa broadcast live from
Chicago’s “Baby Doll Club.” My Uncle Al has collected hundreds of
polka tapes-and has given some of them to me.
Looking
back, I attribute my first interest in the polka to all four of my Slovak
grandparents, and especially to my Aunt Anne Gajniak-Cook of Chicago and
to my Uncle Joseph Mikel in Michigan...
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