The Legend of the Linden: A History of Slovakia

by Zuzana Palovic, Gabriela Bereghazyova

This book takes you on an emotional journey deep into the Slovak and Slavic inner world. Follow the trail that opens your eyes to the magical realm guarded by the Linden tree and its sacred heart-shaped leaf. It is a code that carries the story of the people born at the crossroads of worlds.

Genres: Nonfiction

234 pages, Paperback

Published November 30, 2020

Reviews

[Deah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful journey through Slovakia from a meaningful space of the Linden. I felt connected to my culture and the book allowed for an easily accessible way to get info. The other history books about Slovakia are a heavy dive and often have Slovakia as a footnote not the main focus. This was just what my ethnic heart needed

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those interested in Slovak history and character, this is a wonderful book.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief history of Slovakia well written. It is not a long read, being that there are many drawings, and photos that take up a lot of space.
Even though I have read about Slovakia, and had a trip once, I learned more about the history of my grandparents country.

[Sarina M · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75, I am going to Slovakia in a few weeks for Christmas because my Sister in Law is Slovakian, and was excited to get a bit of background of the country. The imagery is beautiful and as I was reading it was easy to see that the authors put a lot of love into this book.

Things I Learned:
- Lots and lots of this book is about how awesome/important/symbolic Linden Trees are to Slovaks, and they have heart shaped leaves. It was tied to femininity and a goddess Lada (who later was replaced by the Virgin Mary).
- A farmer plowed up a 23k year old carving of a lady with giant breasts called the Venus of Moravia.
- Slovakia is placed at a central location in Europe, and has thus been a target for various conquerors throughout its history.
- The Celts were there in the 5th Century
- Slovaks are descended from Slavs, who were tribal/egalitarian, and didn't have a written language so we don't have a lot of information about them. They had a vast region (lots of Eastern Europe and all of Russia). Slavic languages make up about 50% of the languages spoken in Europe now.
- Then they were conquered by the Romans
- Great Moravia was a Slavic kingdom around 833, but the Franks tried to gain power through this guy named Rastislav of Moravia, but that didn't work and Rastislav promoted Christianity, which enabled the Byzantines to take over. Two monks, Cyril and Methodius were brothers, and they developed a written language in order to spread Christianity to the pagan Slavic people.
- In the 9th Century, the Franks invaded, and changed the written language to the Latin Alphabet. Still, most of the other Slavic origin languages rejected this and developed the Cyrillic script, used by Russians, Bulgartians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Serbians, and Montenegrins.
- Then nomadic (probably asian) Magyars invaded (they became Hungarians) and ruled for 1000 years, but there was some overlap with other conquerors. In the beginning they were accommodating to the Slavic Culture. The Ottomans then invaded but the Hungarians got it back. Then the Habsburgs took over for six centuries. In the 19th Century the Austria-Hungary was established and tried to squash the native culture.
- Czechoslovakia emerged in an attempt to give the people their power back, but that was interupted by the Nazis and then the Russians.
- Slovakia became its own country Jan 1st, 1993

I have a few suggestions for how this book might be improved a bit:
- More dates and date ranges, as sometimes it was hard to tell what century I was in
- In the same vein, more maps, I love maps.
- Descriptions of the photos in the book with more context. There were some really cool images and paintings as the backdrop to pages, but most of the time there wasn't any more information given. I would have liked the name of the piece, the artist / photographer, and if relevant the context. I know a picture speaks a thousand words, but I still would like some words lol. I particularly was interested in which paintings were by Slovakian artists.
- Footnotes for more context. For example in addition to mentioning the Ottomans took over Slovakia for a bit, I would have loved a little footnote expanding "The Ottomans were an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. and were headquartered in modern day Turkey"
- There were many allusions to folklore and myths, so I would have loved for one or two to be included in the book, even in the appendices or intro or something.
- Take out a lot of the repetition and fluff, and put more text on each page. The style changes from page to page were a bit jarring, but then again it did give the book its own charm.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot, but this could be better! The formatting of this book is very inconsistent and stylistically jarring. Most of the text is too close to the margins, so reading is difficult.

I think the book would be improved with clearly written dates/timelines for more context and for ease of comprehension. Perhaps more maps and related images and less stock images:  Almost every page was a stretched image with little-to-no context. This was another formatting issue as it affected the text and my ability to read comfortably.  Footnotes and references would be appreciated, too!

There were many allusions to folklore and myths, so I would have loved for one or two to be included in the book. (Perhaps could have been in the Footnotes or in appendices?)

I'm grateful for being able to read about my family's country of origin, just wish the formatting is fixed in future editions!

[Sadie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided the perfect “bird’s-eye view” of Slovak history that I had hoped to find! It was certainly more artistic than specific (for example, the authors rarely mentioned any dates and only included the names of a few historic figures)—and I thought the conclusion was a bit preachy, which seemed a little out of place—but I ultimately really enjoyed this creative telling of Slovak history, and I learned a great deal.

So…I’d definitely recommend this book if you’re searching for a broad historical overview, packaged in a lovely, illustration-dense ‘easy read.’

[Jennifer Gilpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the rich history and traditions, beautiful pages. Thoroughly enjoyed and recommend it to others, anyone with any family history should add this treasure in their homes.