Travel planning


Slovakia Reading and Movie List

Literature on Slovakia

  • Letters from Slovakia, by David James, A humorous look at what life is like for an Englishman living in Slovakia.
  • Images Gone With Time: Photographic Reflections of Slovak Folk Life (1950-1965), by Igor Grossmann, a portrait of the everyday life of the Slovak village in the middle of our century.
  • Out of This Furnace, by Thomas Bell, this book vividly tells the story of Slovak immigrants and their children who lived, toiled, and died in America’s mill towns.
  • Danube by Italian scholar, Claudio Magris. Sometimes ponderous, in the style of Italian writers, it is worth a read before you depart.

Literature by Slovak Authors

  • The Demon of Conformity, by Dominik Tatarka. The fantastic story of a writer revealing the evil side of the socialist society and the “demonic“character of post-Stalin era in former Czechoslovakia.
  • Traditional Slovak Folktales, by Pavol Dobšinský. For those who want to know more about the world of magic and the fight between good and evil preserved from generation to generation in the villages of the Carpathian Mountains.

Movies About or Set in Slovakia That We Have Enjoyed

  • The Shop on Main Street – A haunting work about the intersecting of the political and personal, developed through the strange yet touching relationship of an elderly Jewish shop owner and a passive carpenter whom the Nazis appoint as her “Aryan controller.” Winner of the 1966 Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film.
  • Landscape – The microcosm of the small village is invaded by war, Fascists and Communists alternate at the rule, new forces destroy slowly the traditional way of life. Slowly, the series of short human stories connect together to make what we may call magic history.

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