A quaint historical town in central Slovakia now offers, in addition to its traditional outdoor architectural wonders, a museum dedicated to the world’s longest love poem – complete with a bank for lovers to deposit tokens of their affection.
The poem in question is Marína, penned by Andrej Sládkovič (1820-1872), is nearly 3,000 lines long, and celebrates a young woman of that name. The two fell in love at 14, but under family pressure she married someone else. Sládkovič became a Lutheran pastor, for the last 16 years of his life in Radvaň nad Hronom, which is today a section of Banská Bystrica, one of Slovakia’s most important towns. I lived in the Radvaň neighborhood just a block from where he used to preach.
Sládkovič completed the poem in 1844; two years later it was published in Pest (back then Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, itself part of the Austrian Empire). When I left Slovakia in 1992 after two years there – I was to return for another four years – I was given a copy as a parting gift. This was a 1991 edition from Bratislava with illustrations by a modern artist. The author, an important Romantic and founder of the Slovak national movement, compares his love for his darling with that of love for homeland.
The town with the House of Marína, is Banská Štiavnica – the first part of the name, like that of Banská Bystrica, is derived from the word for ‘mine.’ Indeed, it was such an important mining center that in the late-18th century that it was the third largest town in the Kingdom of Hungary, after Pozsony/Bratislava and Debrecen. Under Empress Maria Theresa, academies of mining and forestry were opened there. Today it has only a population of 10,000, but it is a significant tourist draw, having been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.
I visited in the spring of 1996 as part of a group of Soros Foundation English teachers gathering from various parts of the country we’d been assigned to. The “Love Bank” was created much later, and I must confess I’ve not been back to see it. Bucket list!
You can read more about the attraction in this BBC article. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43043291
The poem in question is Marína, penned by Andrej Sládkovič (1820-1872), is nearly 3,000 lines long, and celebrates a young woman of that name. The two fell in love at 14, but under family pressure she married someone else. Sládkovič became a Lutheran pastor, for the last 16 years of his life in Radvaň nad Hronom, which is today a section of Banská Bystrica, one of Slovakia’s most important towns. I lived in the Radvaň neighborhood just a block from where he used to preach.
Sládkovič completed the poem in 1844; two years later it was published in Pest (back then Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, itself part of the Austrian Empire). When I left Slovakia in 1992 after two years there – I was to return for another four years – I was given a copy as a parting gift. This was a 1991 edition from Bratislava with illustrations by a modern artist. The author, an important Romantic and founder of the Slovak national movement, compares his love for his darling with that of love for homeland.
The town with the House of Marína, is Banská Štiavnica – the first part of the name, like that of Banská Bystrica, is derived from the word for ‘mine.’ Indeed, it was such an important mining center that in the late-18th century that it was the third largest town in the Kingdom of Hungary, after Pozsony/Bratislava and Debrecen. Under Empress Maria Theresa, academies of mining and forestry were opened there. Today it has only a population of 10,000, but it is a significant tourist draw, having been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.
I visited in the spring of 1996 as part of a group of Soros Foundation English teachers gathering from various parts of the country we’d been assigned to. The “Love Bank” was created much later, and I must confess I’ve not been back to see it. Bucket list!
You can read more about the attraction in this BBC article. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43043291
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