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HistoryHistory

History

European ethnographers have been documenting Slovak folklore for the last 150 years. A lot of peoper has done enourmous amount of work in preserving Slovak heritage.
 
For example, Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, who has written a lot of books and also recorded over 200 wax cylinders of Slovak Folklore. Well known name which played an important part in Slovak Folklore history is Czech Karol Plicka.
 
He was taken by the beauty of the Slovak folklore and in 1924 he starts working for Matica Slovenska in Martin as a collector of Slovak folk songs. Here during his travels and research through the villages and small settlements, he recorded over 25,000 song melodies and more than 40,000 texts of old folk songs, fairy tales and other expressions of folklore of Slovakia. Slowly he mapped Slovak folk songs almost in the whole area of Slovakia. His collection of folk songs continued for 15 years and the archives of Matica Slovenska gained some 20,000 pictures with folklore theme. In 1926 he started to record the folk traditions with the help of a movie camera and in 1928 he made his first movie "After Slovak people," followed by "Through the mountains and valleys" that was in 1929 awarded a Gold medal at the International exposition of photographic art in Florence and an honorable mention at the first film festival in Venice, Italy. The climax of his movie production is a sound film "The Earth is singing."
 
In 1938 he establishes the first Czechoslovakia's film school in Bratislava. He also published numerous books with folklore theme. One of his first books and greatest achievement of his photographic career was book called "Slovensko" published in 1937. Plicka's imposing photographic accomplishment is a celebration of earth, respectful admiration of spirit of history, confession of love towards mankind-creator and follower of the spiritual traditions.