The Foreigner's Guide to Living in Slovakia

Fellow blogger Captain Oddsocks recently published a post about the fact that the most famous Czechs in history are of German descent, such as Sigmund Freud, Oskar Schindler, and Franz Kafka. At the end of his post he asked, “If someone asked you to name five famous Czechs, which names would spring first to your mind?” Some people responded with famous Czech sport players like Jaromír Jágr or Martina Navrátilová, others named Tomáš Baťa – founder of the Baťa shoe company, Václav Havel – playwright and politician, Alfons Mucha – Art-Nouveau painter, Antonín Dvořák – composer, and Ivana Trump – socialite.

I thought about this question too, and also thought about who are the most famous Slovaks?

The first names to jump out at me are famous Americans of Slovak descent such as Paul Newman, who just recently passed away and whose mother was from Humenne, Andy Warhol, whose both parents were Rusyns from eastern Slovakia around Michalovce, and Euene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon and whose father was a Slovak (last name originally Čerňan). Then there is John Herz, who founded the Herz Rental Car Agency. He was a Slovak born in Vrútky and immigrated to the US when he was 5.

One not-so-well-known American inventor of Slovak descent was John Dopyera. He invented the resonator guitar. “The what?”, you may ask. It’s a special guitar that resonates sound and was part of the early development of the electric guitar. The story of John Dopyera is actually pretty interesting. His father was a famous musician and creator of violins in Slovakia and had a very musical family. Today there is a festival every year in Trnava, Slovakia called Dobrofest that pays tribute to John Dopyera and his contributions.

Famous Slovaks today who were born and raised in Slovakia are Peter Dvorský, the world famous tenor opera singer, and Peter Šťastný, legendary National Hockey League (NHL) hockey player and today a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for Slovakia. With Peter Dvorský, Pavarotti referred to him on more than one occasion as “my legitimate successor”. You can’t get higher praise than that. Peter Šťastný became famous during his time playing NHL hockey in the 1980s and is a national legend in Slovakia. He has served as a MEP for Slovakia since 2004.

Over the past fifteen years or so, plenty of Slovak ice hockey players have made names for themselves in the NHL. From this standpoint, there are many famous Slovaks. Wikipedia has a list of famous Slovak hockey players if you want to see how many names you may recognize.

What other famous Slovaks have I missed?

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