Tag Archives: world: slovakia

Slovakia and the United Kingdom: the first 30 years, by Pavol Demeš

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

The British ambassador to Czecho-Slovakia, David Brighty, became the Ambassador to both Republics after the dissolution of the state. From Prague, he also covered Slovakia (as a non-resident ambassador) until a fully-fledged Embassy was built in Bratislava, and in 1994 he handed over the baton to the first head of the British diplomatic mission in Slovakia, Michael Bates. At first he was Chargé d’affaires before becoming Ambassador (1994 — 1995). Bates was suceeded in 1995 by Ambassador Peter Harborne, who served in Slovakia until 1998

I was in Bratislava two weeks ago (as previously noted) and met up with my old friend Pavol Demeš, who among other things was the foreign minister of Slovakia just before its break-up with the Czechs. He has now produced this commemoration of the UK-Slovakia relationship for the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, and you can download it for free here.

A lot of it is simply recapitulation of diplomatic routine – exchanges of ambassadors, state visits – but it’s good to hear the voice of genuine enthusiasm for external engagement that comes through loud and clear. The book is in parallel Slovak and English texts, with photographs in the middle, one of which features Pavol himself in his ministerial years. (He’s on the left in the group photo.)

Pavol is a keen photographer himself, but has included only a couple of his own photos. I particularly like this one, taken on the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994 on the royal yacht Britannia, of someone who was normally very much on her guard when in the public eye.

For myself, it was interesting to be reminded of the past roles of a lot of my Slovak political contacts – leaving aside the living, I knew Eduard Kukan as a Member of the European parliament and a Balkanist, but he had a distinguished career in domestic politics and diplomacy as well.

A book for specialists only, I think, but very nicely done.

Public art in Bratislava, especially Colin Spofforth

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I’m just back from a few days in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. I’m afraid that Bratislava will never be my favourite Central European capital, but it does have some lovely public art. I was particularly charmed by the bronze sculptures by British artist Colin Spofforth in the Eurovea shopping centre by the Danube, which illustrate a children’s story called The Six White Mice. I didn’t manage to see all eleven sculptures, and I didn’t know the story, but I felt that the sculptures did a lovely job of humanising what would otherwise be a somewhat heartless retail space.

A couple of other statues in the town caught my eye. One was a depiction of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who we also saw in Prague in January. This is in front of the Slovak National Museum, in Masaryk Square. The statue is a recent (2010) copy by Czech sculptor Jaroslav Matějíček made from an original by Ladislav Šaloun which was commissioned by Zemska Bank. It’s not clear where the original now is. The signature was made by Matějíček. It’s interesting that Masaryk is seen as one of the good guys in Slovakia too.

The other one that grabbed me was the monument to Ľudovít Štúr in the square that is named after him, about 250 metres from Masaryk. I confess that I had not heard of Ľudovít Štúr before; he was the leading figure of the Slovak national revival, probably the single person who did most to establish the Slovak language, and died aged 40 in 1856 as the result of a gunshot wound, accidentally self-inflicted while hunting.

The monument was erected in 1972 (so four years after 1968, think about that) and is by Tibor Bártfay who also did most of the other public sculptures in Bratislava. Bártfay was from Nitra, now in Slovakia, but was a Hungarian speaker, so it’s interesting that he was chosen to honour Štúr and his colleagues. The monument has Štúr with resplecndent beard in front, and three of his followers behind, somewhat in his shadow. I don’t find it beautiful but it is striking.

On a previous visit to Bratislava in 2018 I photographed a strange monument beside the river.

It turned out on further research to be a one-third scale model of a giant marble Maria Theresa memorial, which was originally on the site where the Ľudovít Štúr memorial is now. The Maria Theresa memorial (by János Fadrusz, another ethnic Hungarian from Slovakia) was destroyed by Czechoslovak legionnaires in 1921, but there is now a campaign to move Štúr and his colleagues to a location where they would look a bit less out of place, and to restore Maria Theresa to her previous position. I have to say that I have some sympathy with that.