1867 The fire, and the towerPožiar a veža

In 1867 the Lutheran church burned down, and when the congregation rebuilt it they gave it the tower the tolerance rules had once forbidden. It is a small thing to look at and a large thing to understand: a village church with a tower is a congregation that no longer has to be discreet. The rest of the century was harder on this village than the fire was. Magyarisation policy pressed Slovak schooling and Slovak public life, the land could not feed the number of people being born on it, and going away for work — to the lowlands, to Budapest, to America — became normal across the Podpoľanie.V roku 1867 evanjelický kostol vyhorel a pri obnove mu zbor pristaval vežu, akú kedysi tolerančné pravidlá zakazovali. Na pohľad maličkosť, na pochopenie veľká vec: dedinský kostol s vežou je zbor, ktorý sa už nemusí krčiť. Zvyšok storočia bol pre dedinu tvrdší ako ten požiar. Maďarizácia tlačila na slovenské školstvo aj na slovenský verejný život, pôda neuživila toľko ľudí, koľko sa na nej rodilo, a odchod za prácou — na dolniaky, do Budapešti, do Ameriky — sa stal v Podpoľaní bežnou vecou.