FROM OUR SLOVAK CORRESPONDENT

Dear friends!

The editor and publisher of the Slovak Heritage Live Newsletter, is a frequent visitor of the folk festivals in Slovakia. At one of these festivals we met each other. What put us together were a folk songs, music and dance. When he suggested to me to write for your magazine (it's also mine, because I read it regularly), I felt very excited and pleased. I have the same feeling at this moment when I am putting the first lines down. First let me introduce myself. My name is Dana Hodulova, I come from Detva. It's a small town in central Slovakia. More precisely, the heart of the town is the old village that is surrounded by a large neighborhood. Small houses are scattered over the surrounding hills and we call this surrounding LAZY. Detva is popular for its folk festival that takes place here in July of every year and is visited by many Slovaks living abroad. Our Slovak folklore is beautiful mainly because it's very colorful. Each "corner" of Slovakia has its own custom and traditions. We have such a large number of folk groups and folk bands that we can't even count them. They know us in many European and American countries.

I am an active folk musician. I was a member of folk music "Valaska" that was mentioned in some previous issues of your newsletter. We played together during our studies at the University of Matej Bel in Banska Bystrica, but after graduating we had to split-each to another corner of Slovakia. Most of the former members of Valaska still play in other folk music bands.

I am now a university teacher at the University of Matej Bel in Banska Bystrica, I teach English. My dear teacher Valeria Bohmova who is now somewhere in Canada, among you, maybe remembers me. I'd like to send her my best regards and say thanks to her, because it was she who helped me to understand and love the English language so much, that it became my profession.

Dear friends, after this long introduction, I'd like to bring up some topics that I'll be offering you. They concern national traditions and customs from different regions of central Slovakia. In some articles I'll use material from my final thesis, where I collected and described old traditions of the village of Budca (close to the town Zvolen), in others I'll let you know more about traditions that, in some villages, remained until the present time. I'll also introduce some folk bands and folk groups and I'd love to add some beautiful Slovak folk songs.

I hope you'll enjoy them.
Yours Dana

Contact:
Dana Hodulova
A. Bernolaka 2
962 12 Detva
Slovakia

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Published in the Slovak Heritage Live newsletter Volume 3, No. 2, Summer 1995
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 1995 
3804 Yale Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article and photographs may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or redistributed by any means including electronic, without the express written permission of Vladimir Linder. All rights reserved.