Eastern Slovakia: ‘Tanks, Icons and Andy Warhol’, an Innovation in Cultural Heritage Interpretation project, Easter 2009

Nine intensive days spent in Eastern Slovakia, with such a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide as Krajina’s director, Miroslav Knežho, could not possibly fail to instill into we exchange participants a deep appreciation of the region’s potential. It also brought home clearly the challenges facing those involved in promoting Slovakia’s heritage, whether natural, cultural or historic. This is basically why I applied to take part in the tour: I wanted to observe first-hand how Slovakia approached heritage and how it perceived the challenges facing heritage interpretation.   

Excursions to various parts of Eastern Slovakia, each trip with a definite theme, allowed us to absorb what gave each area its own special – and occasionally unique – sense of place. It enabled us to view the natural and built landscape through the eyes of an outsider, someone able to consider options and constraints with a fresh eye. It also provided endless opportunities to compare – or more often contrast – the Slovakian approach with the Scottish (or in my case Pennine) way of managing and interpreting heritage.

Scotland arguably has among the best access legislation in Europe and, since the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act 2000, the upland expanses of the north of England allow the adventurous to extend their personal horizons and to experience wildlife (in its widest sense) at close quarters. We are used to being able to more or less wander at will in the uplands. In Slovakia it is markedly different. There, footpaths are waymarked in accordance with the standard continental style with red and white paint symbols on trees and rocks, and signposts indicating how long the next stage of a route might take. Walking (hiking, if you prefer) has a long history in Britain, associated with the ideal of freedom, but in Slovakia it is not an activity that the average rural inhabitant would engage with. Many Slovakians do walk but not to the extent found in our own country.

Yet, Eastern Slovakia is full of delightful upland landscapes, much covered in deciduous woodland, other parts under agriculture; the scenery is not dramatic but would surely have appealed to Wordsworth; the woods are have much to offer the naturalist with mammals large and small, bird life aplenty, flower and tree species galore, not to mention fungi.

Here, ruins have long been perceived as exciting and romantic, somewhere to head to for a day out – castles, abbeys, old houses, folk museums all connect us to a past that we tend to find irresistible. We like the old and it is a major element of our heritage industry. Not so in Slovakia. The past, the old and the inefficient are rather too close for comfort, and remind people of what was often a forgettable, and regrettable, history. Castles abound but many are forlorn and neglected, traditional farmhouses are abandoned in favour of concrete houses with mod cons. Churches, however, are treasured and they are a magnificent resource in both spiritual and heritage terms. Greek Catholic and Orthodox churches in particular are as attractive and full of treasures as any medieval church in our own country.

Another aspect of Slovakia struck me, too. Everywhere you go there are gardens – not replete with manicured lawns and clipped hedges but full of vegetables, useful spaces with their own beauty but also designed to put ‘real’ food on the table.
On a totally different level, I was also deeply moved by a visit to Death Valley near Svidnik. Here over 30,000 people ─ Slovak and Russian troops fighting their German opponents and too many local innocent villagers ─ lost their lives in less than one week in 1944. There are no massive war cemeteries with rows of white headstones and no lawns that can reduce people to tears, but rather a scattering of military hardware across the valley, tanks sitting incongruously in the middle of a ploughed field or peeping out menacingly from the forest. To me this was far more moving than a cemetery. Those tanks have been left where they ground to a halt during that battle; who knows how many men frazzled within them or were driven mad by endless noise and heat, or how many foot soldiers died alongside them. It is a dramatic piece of military theatre, a hideously realistic example of battlefield archaeology, and a massive monument to man’s stupidity in waging war. I have never seen anything like it.   
 
So, do we have anything to offer those employed in interpreting Eastern Slovakia’s potential? Are there any lessons for us to bring back home?
Let’s take the first point. There is real potential to develop and promote the region’s heritage, be it the Tokaj vineyards and historic underground wine cellars, medieval castles, historic wooden churches, the small towns with their unspoilt medieval cores as at Veloca, the magnificent Andy Warhol museum in Medzilaborce, the equally impressive open-air folk museum at Svidnik, and Death Valley.
 
 
 Promotion is lacking, the brown tourist signs we are so familiar with are few and far between, the open-air museum has one small sign that does not grab the attention, and visitor numbers are minute compared with similar attractions in our country. Heritage routes could be devised, promotion stepped up, interpretation facilities installed, tourist accommodation provided … but perhaps that leads me back to the second question raised.

It is, in a sense, refreshing not to see brown signs everywhere: do they not clutter up the countryside and take away much of the spirit of adventure when exploring new areas? Refreshing, too, not to see interpretation panels everywhere: do they not leave too little to the visitor’s imagination and sense of discovery, and detract from the wilderness of place?

There has to be a balance between interpretation and self-discovery, between over-promotion and lack of promotion. Eastern Slovakia has much to offer the visitor (from the ‘West’, from neighbouring countries and from its own cities; by coach, car or on foot) and there are ways in which we could advise them, if asked, and the local economy would surely benefit from managed tourism, but we should learn some lessons, too. There is much to be said for a low-key, low impact approach, for managing our heritage rather than exploiting it and loving it to death, to use an old cliché.  Exchanges such as ours are valuable exercises but, perhaps, only if something concrete emerges to each party’s benefit.

Within the Yorkshire Dales National Park there is already an active programme of activities, organised by the Park Authority, the National Trust and village communities, but there are some ideas that have not been considered yet that we saw in Slovakia – perhaps these could add another dimension to the ‘visitor experience’ of the Dales, and indeed to Scotland. There are already such attractions as safari trails aimed at children, felt making and painting aimed at children and parents, and scarecrow festivals. There may well be mileage in adopting and adapting what we saw in Slovakia, for example laying out an Easter Egg trail with a (chocolate egg) prize at the end, something that might be appropriate for the Park to set up; or more informal, themed short walks culminating in a picnic to involve village communities and to bring their often disparate residents together. It may be a pessimistic view, but it often strikes me how little community spirit there is, even in small village communities in the Dales, and how keen is the need to bring people from different backgrounds closer together. There are (young) Slovaks working within the Dales and, to my knowledge, there has been no attempt to include them in the local community: to share experiences and attitudes and viewpoints can only be too both parties’ benefit.

I can also see opportunities within the Dales where there is already a programme to bring in members of ethnic minority communities from urban centres in West Yorkshire to experience what an upland area can offer them. They see the landscape and the ‘official’ attractions: perhaps there should be the opportunity for them to observe and partake in traditional activities and customs in the ways we saw in Eastern Slovakia. This would benefit these often excluded visitors and would certainly add to the life-experience of local villagers.

The tour was organised by Libby Urquhart, of ARCH Network, and was funded by the Leonardo da Vinci programme.

David Johnson works in heritage research and interpretation, in a freelance capacity, in the Yorkshire Dales.