Slovakia [antikvár]

The book I am presenting desires to become, in a modest way, a pictorial apotlieosis of Slovakia, the coiintry I love dearly. In this book, lyrical and artistic emphasis prevails, as it results from the nature of my work In the field of folk song and folk art. Therefore I portray, in the first place, the agricultural people and their extraordinary and high-class culture expressed through plastic arts. Consequently, I offer an important place to the Slovak folklore. From among the costumes I choose to show the best, feast-day costume — not only tor it's monumental character, but also for the fact that in it are reflected, in the most expressive manner, the results of a long period of artistic development. In their costumes, the Slovak people have demonstrated such powerful creativo artistic capability, such high degree of traditional feeling for the beauty of form, harmony of colours and masterly technique, of which it is difficult to find analogy in national cultures the world over. For long centuries, the costume developed in its general form und received finishing touches in its details until it reached the formal purity and perfection as witnessed in it at the beginning of our century up to World War I. The war and its revolutionary consequences represent in Slovakia — the same as in many other countries with living national traditions — an epoch-making turning point. From then on, popular traditions give way to modern traffic of life introduced into the country by its industrialization. In consequence of this, certain costumes shown in this book cease to exist at present, or-else, belong already to the past history. Slovakia is a land of ancient culture of which the foundations were laid by the work of Cyrill and Method, the Slavonic apostles come from the civilized East; more than a thousand years ago, they connected Slovakia with the development of European civilization. Even the most pretentious lover of treasures and monuments of conscious artistic creation will find precious gems of art scattered about Slovak towns and villages: churches built and decorated through long centuries, impressive strongholds, proud castles of the plains, simple yeomen's mansions. Traces of the Roman rule are apparent in the country where the Slavonic element constructed, from the early Middle-Ages onward, in the styles of the Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic cultures, carved charming wooden objects of religious and everyday use, — where the Renaissance, and, to a smaller degree, the Baroque formed the architectural expression and carried it through the Classic period of Napoleonic „Empire" to its modern forms. At present, the ruins of many an old castle add a magnificent romantic background to the scenery, but in their hay-day, these same castles wrote their names in the history of the Slovak people in cruel hand. The Orava Castle — rock standing upon rock Woe betide the young man who comes under its lock Orava dark cellar, Orava dark jail Well succeeded to turn Janicek's face pale