History of Slovaks in America (part II) /Historie Slovaku v Americe (cast 2.)

(FOR PART I CLICK HERE)

Do you know, what the first official Slovak organization in the US was? It was  Jednota (or The First Catholic Slovak Union of America), founded in Cleveland as early as 1890. Early after that The National Slovak Society (Narodni slovensky spolok) was founded in Pittsburgh. This time the organization was nondenominational and it still exists today. Its founder, Peter Rovnianek, had such a patriotic spirit that he also established a new Slovak community in Arkansas (about 300 people) and gave it a clever name – the Slovaktown (it looks like the town doesn’t exist anymore, however, since I tried to google it and I got only the ‘historical’ map of the place).

The year 1896 was a an important year for the Slovaks as the Slovak Gymnastic Union “Sokol” was founded in Chicago. In the same year came to America reverend Jozef Murgas, a native of a Slovak town of Tajov. He was forced to emigrate  to the US due to constant conflicts with the bishop’s secretary. As a ‘punishment’ he was asigned a remote Slovak parish in the city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Jozef  wasn’t just an ordinary man though; he was also an amazing writer, artist and a great scientist. During his lifetime he acquired 12 U.S patents and is known to be a pioneer founder of radiotelegraphy (long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters). He was smart enough to substitute the “dot” of the Morse cod with a higher tone and the “comma” with a lower tone. Even Thomas Edison paid remarkable attention to his experiments!  No wonder that they called him the Renaissance man (or the Radio man)! After the creation of Czechoslovakia homesick Jozef returned to Slovakia in 1920. Not finding enough scientific understanding from the University of education in Prague, he sulkily returned back to the US 4 months later where he also died in 1924.

CZ: Vite, jak se jmenovala prvni oficialni slovenska organizace v USA? Byla to Jednota (neboli The First Catholic Slovak Union of America), zalozna v Clevelandu v roce 1890. Brzy pote se zrodil take Narodni slovensky spolok, tentokrate v Pittsburghu a dokonce i existuje dodnes. Jeji zakladatel, Peter Rovnianek, byl takovy patriot, ze za svuj zivot stihl postavit novou slovenskou komunitu ve state Arkansas (asi 300 lidi) s velmi vhodnym nazvem  “Slovaktown” (bohuzel uz asi ale neexistuje, ponevadz jsem na google maps nasla pouze mapu historickou).O 6 let pozdeji se  zrodil v Chikagu take svetoznamy Sokol.

Rok 1896 nebyl znamy jen diky Sokolu, ale take diky reverendovi Jozefu Murgasovi, ktery se pristehoval do Ameriky v ten samy rok. Diky  neustalym potyckam se svym bisopem byl chudak Jozef ‘vyhosten’ do odlehle slovenske farnosti ve Wilkes-Barre v Pensylvanii. Murgas nebyl ale jen tak nekdo: nejenze to byl pan duchovni, ale take to byl nadany spisovatel, malir a vedec! Behem sveho zivota dokazal obdrzet 12 US patentu a je znam jako jeden z pioniru radiotelegrafie. Napadlo ho totiz nahradit Morseovu tecku nizkym tonem a carku tonem vysokym. Dokonce i Tomas Edison rad pozoroval vyvoj jeho experimentu! Neni tedy divu, ze jeho prezdivka byla ‘Renessance man’ nebo take ‘Radio man’. Pouhe 2 roky od vytvoreni Ceskoslovenska se Murgas vesele vratil na rodne Slovensko, kde bohuzel nenasel podporu jakou si predstavoval, a proto se vratil zpet do Wilkes-Barre, kde take 4 roky pote zemrel.

Source: http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/imsk/slovakia.html