Cyril a Metod v kultúre dolnozemských Slovákov

Abstract

ČUKAN, Jaroslav -MICHALÍK, Boris. Cyril and Methodius in the Culture of Lowland Slovaks. The Thessalonian brothers are known among Slovak and Slavonic people as translators of the Scriptures into a language comprehensible to the people in the Great Moravian Empire and to other Slavs. Their evangelical mission and the creation of a language of worship has a Christian, cultural-emancipatory, ethno-identifying and at the same time ethno-differentiating character in the connection with Slavs as well as in relation to nations from other language groups or families. Slovakia adequately respects these personalities and their merits: St Cyril and Methodius Day celebrated on 5th July is dedicated to them, and this day is also the Day of Foreign Slovaks. These missionaries are thus in the centre of a contextual circle: Slavs -Slovaks in Slovakia and abroad -Cyril and Methodius -ethno-cultural identity. In researching individual components of cultural potential of the Lowland Slovaks, in the last three decades we have found much evidence to show how these personalities became part of the cultural of the Lowland Slovaks: as part of the church history, Christian theory and cultural history; memorial days in Christian calendars; providing the names for parishes and churches; the object of school teaching; Slavic and Slovak reciprocity; specific ways of commemorating the Thessalonian brothers through the visual arts, institutional celebrations and forgiveness as specific ecclesiastical, social and cultural events at the level of local and Christian communities and institutions; roads in the footsteps of Cyril and Methodius leading to Slovakia and to Nitra and deepening the companionship with the mother nation. The aim of the paper is to point out the interdisciplinary contexts of the study of their reflections in the Slovaks living in Lowland.