Every week The Slovak Spectator brings you a selection of three short stories from across Slovakia from which pessimism and negativity are absent.
Story by a Slovak in Australian magazine and the first translation into Hebrew
A short story by a Slovak writer will be published in the renowned Australian literary magazine Heat in mid-July.
Written by poet, translator and radio presenter Michal Tallo, the magazine will publish the English translation of a piece titled Dreams of This Unfamiliar Earth.
It is part of his new short-stories collection, Everything is Fine, Everywhere is Love, which will be published in July. It is full of stories about tired, nameless people somewhere between reality and feverish dreams, the Slovak Literary Centre reported.
An international literary journal, Heat focuses on innovative poetry, fiction, essays and hybrid literary forms. The magazine’s aim has always been to publish innovative Australian and international writers of the highest standard.
Michal Hvorecký (source: Sme)
Meanwhile, the first Slovak book will be published in Hebrew this summer, thanks to the support of the SLOLIA grant. Michal Hvorecký’s Troll, published in 2017, will be issued by the Israeli publishing house Pardes Publishing, which also plans to bring other Slovak books to their market in the future, according to the Slovak Literary Centre.
Small girl discovers a rare butterfly considered to be extinct
Pericallia matronula spotted in the Vihorlat Forest. (source: Rudolf Gabzdil)
A grandad and his granddaughter recently found a special butterfly species while strolling through the Vihorlat Forest nature reserve in eastern Slovakia.
“It was Pericallia matronula (a genus of tiger moths in the Erebidae family – ed. note),” said entomologist Rudolf Gabzdil, whose three-and-half years old granddaughter spotted it, as quoted by the Korzár regional newspaper. “It is considered extinct in several countries of central Europe; and in the east of central Europe and in eastern Europe, where it survives, its rare finds are considered exceptional.”
As he continued, his granddaughter spotted the butterfly mostly thanks to its typical yellow underwings.
The rare butterfly, protected by law in Slovakia whose social value has been settled at €230, was last seen in the Vihorlat mountains in 1960. There are some later records of its occurrence in the Bratislava surrounding, as well as in the national parks of Veľká Fatra and Slovak Paradise.
A Slovak owns hundreds of dolls from across the globe
Visitors to the village of Cerová in the Záhorie region in the westernmost part of Slovakia can found an exceptional museum in an old barn house.
Local Marek Šnelly opened an exhibition of costumed dolls in late June, the MY Záhorie regional newspaper reported. In his collection, which contains some 700 pieces and has already earned him the Slovak record in collecting dolls, one can found original Russian dolls from the 1970s or porcelain dolls from France, as well as retro dolls, dolls from Disney collections or even iconic horror dolls like Anabelle and Chucky. The oldest one comes from 1870.
At the beginning, Šnelly collected folk costumes, but later realised something was missing. He then started with collecting dolls.
“When I saw that the costumes look exactly like this on people, it all started to make sense to me,” he told MY Záhorie.
He then started visiting villages in Slovakia as well as abroad, persuading people to sell him dolls. He says he wants to preserve them for future generations.
Five feel-good stories published by The Slovak Spectator to read:
The travelling Ukrainian exhibition 'In the Eye of the Storm' makes a stop in Bratislava.
Martin Javor, whose ancestors lived in the USA, runs the museum of emigration. He opened it to save the cultural heritage of Slovaks in the USA.
About 80 locations in the Košice Region have been depicted in more than 50 Slovak and foreign films. You can now discover them at the Path of Filming Locations, opened at the end of June.
A new sports activity, substituting the movements of a horse, is becoming more and more popular in Slovakia. The horse is a plush head attached to a wooden pole called a "hobbík".
A postcard from the 1920s, depicting the village of Vyšný Slavkov in eastern Slovakia, is a good illustration of how Slovakia likely once looked completely different compared to today.
Political meme of the week
(source: Facebook/Rosie Naive Art)
Caption: “Dude, I’m extremely grateful to the voters of this coalition.” “But we can still rob them, right?”
Artist Rosie Babicová, whose works can be found on the internet and social networks under the name Rosie Naive Art, alludes to the recent decision of the Constitutional Court which deemed constitutional several changes to the Penal Code which, among other things, reduce punishments for corruption, shorten the statute of limitation for economic crimes and cancel the Special Prosecutor’s Office. The amendments were challenged by both former president Zuzana Čaputová and the opposition MPs.
You can send me your tips on good news stories about Slovakia or funny memes at: radka.minarechova@spectator.sk. Thank you!
