Winnetou Who?
Posted by Margarete on Jun 22
Slovaks are utterly shocked when they learn that I had never heard of Winnetou until I moved to Slovakia.
How can that be?! How can it be that I’m not familiar with the Native American hero, the Apache Indian who with his friend Old Shatterhand helped keep the peace between Indians and white settlers? What about Winnetou’s famous horse, Iltschi, or Hatatitla, Old Shatterhand’s horse? Nope. Didn’t ring any bells.
Winnetou and his story are the creation of the German author Karl May. His books became extremely popular and fundamental reading for children all across Europe. In the 1960’s a series of Winnetou films were made, making the popularity of the characters even greater.
Jan Kocur – A Story of Slovak Pride, American Patriotism, & the Golden Age of the Slovak League of America
Art is not doing its job unless it gets an emotional response from you. I’ve heard that said once and if that is indeed the definition of art, then the sculpture to be officially revealed later this week in Brussels, done by a Czech artist in honor of the rotating Czech presidency, is a great success.
Exactly 40 years ago to the day, on August 21, 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in a concerted effort to put down 
There is a very interesting exhibit on display at the Slovak National Gallery called “How Did We Live?”. The exhibit has a collection of photographs from Slovakia in the 20th century and addresses the question of how Slovaks lived in the past 100 years. In addition to photographs and postcards there are more than 2000 items exhibited to help the visitor feel the “soul of the times”. The goal of the presentation is to take the visitor through a fascinating historical journey through Slovakia in the 20th century.
These last few years there’s been a lot of chatter about the film Bathory, the story of 
Sometimes you have to be a kid to find cartoons and animation amusing. And sometimes, creators have the ability to make something that entertains both children and adults. To me this is a rare talent.
I’ve always loved decorated Easter eggs. Usually at home in California my mom would buy one of those egg coloring kits where you dropped tablets into a glass of vinegar, or something like that, and once we colored the eggs a solid color, we’d put stickers on them or draw a design with crayons. That’s great fun for kids. But later on I learned that painting and decorating eggs could be an art form.
As an English teacher in Slovakia at the university level, I sometimes had the opportunity to work with students on their thesis work or projects. By chance I worked in the Department of Architecture at the Technical University in Bratislava. Though usually my input to students never went beyond the assistance of academic writing, I appreciated that I was none the less exposed to a range of works regarding architecture.
