Horná Lehota

ON THIS postcard, consisting of two pictures dating back to 1937, we can see a village in the Horehronie region, Horná Lehota. In the Middle Ages it was probably best known for its nearby goldfields. As there were not too many jobs in the region, many people made a living from peddling lace and tinker-made goods. Carrying their wares, they travelled around the whole of Greater Hungary, but also around the Balkans, Lombardy and Russia.

ON THIS postcard, consisting of two pictures dating back to 1937, we can see a village in the Horehronie region, Horná Lehota. In the Middle Ages it was probably best known for its nearby goldfields. As there were not too many jobs in the region, many people made a living from peddling lace and tinker-made goods. Carrying their wares, they travelled around the whole of Greater Hungary, but also around the Balkans, Lombardy and Russia.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Horná Lehota was affected, like other villages in the region, by a large wave of emigration, especially to the USA. The following decades were also marked by migration for work, and many Horehronie inhabitants found success in America. Those who returned after many years were called “Amerikáni”: “Americans”.

Not all of those who returned managed to enjoy and spend their dollars. People who were for example in the USA for the whole of the 1930s and then returned home shortly before World War II, often bought land with their hard-earned and well-deserved money. But they were only allowed to work on it for a brief period of time: in 1948 the communist regime confiscated and nationalised everything.

On the left side of the card is the former Protestant (Evangelical) parsonage in which the famous Slovak writer Samo Chalupka was born in 1812.

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