Važec is a long street village at the head of the Váh valley, with the Low Tatras at one shoulder and the High Tatras at the other. It was built almost entirely of timber, which made it famous and made it burn: on 17 July 1931 fire took nearly the whole village in a single afternoon. What survived is the stone — two churches and a cave full of bear bones — and several hundred pictures by a painter who moved here in 1923 and stayed until he died.Važec je dlhá ulicová dedina v hornom Považí, z jednej strany Nízke, z druhej Vysoké Tatry. Bol postavený takmer celý z dreva — a práve to ho urobilo slávnym aj horľavým: 17. júla 1931 zhorela za jediné popoludnie skoro celá obec. Zostal kameň — dva kostoly a jaskyňa plná medvedích kostí — a niekoľko stoviek obrazov maliara, ktorý sa sem roku 1923 prisťahoval a zostal tu do smrti.
Drag the bar, or pick a year, to see what was happening here then.Potiahnite lištu alebo vyberte rok a uvidíte, čo sa tu vtedy dialo.
The Mongol invasionVpád Mongolov
The Mongol invasion of 1241 wrecked the Kingdom of Hungary and changed the way it was run: Béla IV pushed his lords to build in stone and to put settlers back on emptied land. The head of the Váh valley was still forest. In 1269 it was granted, together with the neighbouring land of Štrba, to comes Bohumír — a royal officer — on condition that he settle it. Važec and Štrba are therefore twins: one grant, one landlord family, four kilometres apart. Nothing here was destroyed by the Mongols, because there was as yet almost nothing here to destroy. What the invasion did was make the kingdom want this valley inhabited.Mongolský vpád roku 1241 rozvrátil Uhorsko a zmenil aj spôsob, akým sa spravovalo: Belo IV. tlačil pánov, aby stavali z kameňa a aby na vyprázdnenú pôdu priviedli osadníkov. Horný koniec Považia bol vtedy ešte les. Roku 1269 ho spolu so susedným štrbským územím dostal komes Bohumír, kráľov úradník, s podmienkou, že ho osídli. Važec a Štrba sú teda dvojčatá: jedna listina, jeden zemepánsky rod, štyri kilometre od seba. Mongoli tu nič nezničili, lebo tu ešte takmer nič nebolo. Vpád spôsobil niečo iné — kráľovstvo odrazu chcelo mať túto dolinu obývanú.
The village is first named in a document of 1280, written Vasych; later hands write Wazych (1286), Z Wascze (1480), Wasewcz (1492) and Wažece (1773). In German it was Waagsdorf, the village on the Váh, and in Hungarian Vázsec. The Roman Catholic church is early Gothic and dates from the second half of the thirteenth century, which makes the building older than the first surviving mention of the village around it — a good reminder that a first mention dates a document, not a place. Bohumír's descendants split into three noble families, the Szentiványi, the Szmrecsányi and the Bán, and Važec belonged to all three at once, so the village had three landlords rather than one.Obec sa prvý raz spomína v listine z roku 1280 ako Vasych; neskoršie zápisy znejú Wazych (1286), Z Wascze (1480), Wasewcz (1492) či Wažece (1773). Po nemecky sa volala Waagsdorf, dedina na Váhu, po maďarsky Vázsec. Rímskokatolícky kostol je ranogotický a pochádza z druhej polovice 13. storočia — je teda starší než prvá zachovaná zmienka o dedine okolo neho, čo dobre pripomína, že prvá zmienka datuje listinu, nie obec. Bohumírovi potomkovia sa rozdelili na tri rody, Szentiványiovcov, Szmrecsányiovcov a Bánovcov, a Važec patril všetkým trom naraz — mal teda troch zemepánov, nie jedného.
The Ottoman wars that shaped southern Slovakia never reached this valley — the frontier fortresses were well over a hundred kilometres away — but the kingdom's wars were paid for everywhere, in taxes and in levies. What the records show here instead is growth. By 1600 Važec had a manor farm (a majer, the landlord's own home farm worked by the villagers' labour) and 72 houses with roughly 900 people, which for an upland village is a substantial place. Across Liptov most parishes turned Lutheran during the Reformation of this century, and Važec kept both confessions side by side afterwards — which is why, three hundred years later, it would build a second church.Osmanské vojny, ktoré formovali južné Slovensko, sa do tejto doliny nikdy nedostali — pohraničné pevnosti boli hodne vyše sto kilometrov ďaleko — no kráľovstvo si svoje vojny platilo všade, daňami a odvodmi. Záznamy odtiaľto ukazujú niečo iné: rast. Roku 1600 mal Važec majer (panský dvor, ktorý obrábali poddaní) a 72 domov s približne 900 obyvateľmi, čo je na hornatú dedinu poriadna obec. V Liptove prešla väčšina farností počas reformácie tohto storočia k evanjelikom a vo Važci potom obe konfesie žili vedľa seba — a práve preto tu o tristo rokov neskôr postavili druhý kostol.
The tax lists count 63 taxpayers in 1715 and only 48 in 1720: the mark of the famine years of 1715–17, which emptied villages all over Liptov. Recovery took two generations — by 1784 Važec had 153 houses and 1,489 people. They lived on cattle and sheep, on felling and selling timber, on carpentry and shingle-making, on carting, and on rafting: logs lashed into rafts and floated down the Váh to the lowland towns, steered by men who knew every bend. The Catholic church was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1738.Daňové súpisy hovoria o 63 poplatníkoch roku 1715 a už len o 48 roku 1720 — je to stopa hladných rokov 1715 – 1717, ktoré vyprázdnili dediny po celom Liptove. Obnova trvala dve generácie: roku 1784 mal Važec 153 domov a 1 489 obyvateľov. Žili z dobytka a oviec, z rúbania a predaja dreva, z tesárstva a šindliarstva, z furmanky a z pltníctva — z klád zviazaných do pltí a splavovaných Váhom do nížinných miest, ktoré viedli chlapi poznajúci každú zákrutu. Katolícky kostol barokovo prestavali roku 1738.
By 1828 Važec had 197 houses and 2,093 inhabitants, and nearly every one of those houses was a log building under a shingle roof, standing close to its neighbour along one long street. That is exactly what later made the village famous to painters and photographers — and exactly what made it dangerous. The revolution of 1848 ended serfdom: Važec's people no longer owed labour to the Szentiványi and their relatives. It did not make the land any better. In an upland village the practical result of emancipation was a generation looking for wages — in the forest, on the river, and very soon on a railway.Roku 1828 mal Važec 197 domov a 2 093 obyvateľov a takmer každý z tých domov bol zrub pod šindľovou strechou, tesne pri susedovi, pozdĺž jednej dlhej ulice. Práve to neskôr priťahovalo maliarov a fotografov — a práve to bolo nebezpečné. Revolúcia roku 1848 zrušila poddanstvo: Važčania už neodrábali Szentiványiovcom a ich príbuzným. Pôda tým lepšia nebola. V horskej dedine znamenalo zrušenie poddanstva v praxi generáciu, ktorá hľadá zárobok — v lese, na rieke a onedlho na železnici.
The Košice–Bohumín railway was driven up this valley and over the Štrba saddle in 1871, and Važec got a station of its own. The village's economy turned over inside a decade. Timber that had gone down the Váh on rafts now went out by wagon, and rafting faded within a generation; railway work became a normal trade for a Važec man, as it still is. The same line brought the first outsiders who came to look at the village rather than to buy something from it — and what they came to look at was a whole settlement built of wood, laid out along one street, with two great mountain ranges facing each other over it.Roku 1871 prerazila dolinou a cez štrbské sedlo Košicko-bohumínska železnica a Važec dostal vlastnú stanicu. Hospodárstvo obce sa za desaťročie obrátilo naruby. Drevo, ktoré predtým išlo po Váhu na pltiach, sa teraz vozilo vagónmi a pltníctvo do jednej generácie zaniklo; práca na železnici sa stala pre Važčana bežným remeslom a je ňou dodnes. Tá istá trať priviezla aj prvých cudzích, ktorí sa neprišli nič kúpiť, ale pozerať — a pozerať prišli na celú dedinu z dreva, postavenú pozdĺž jednej ulice, s dvoma veľkými pohoriami oproti sebe nad ňou.
Between 1889 and 1892 the Evangelical congregation built a church of its own, put up by the Slovak builder Blažej Bulla; the tower was added in 1907 to a design by Milan Michal Harminc, the most prolific Slovak architect of his generation. Both men matter beyond Važec. This was the period when Slovak architects and builders were raising churches, schools and national institutions inside a state that did not recognise a Slovak nation at all, and the buildings themselves were a kind of argument. Both of Važec's churches are stone, and both still stand — which the timber village around them does not.V rokoch 1889 – 1892 si evanjelický cirkevný zbor postavil vlastný kostol; staval ho slovenský staviteľ Blažej Bulla. Vežu pridali roku 1907 podľa návrhu Milana Michala Harminca, najplodnejšieho slovenského architekta svojej generácie. Obaja znamenajú viac než len Važec. Bol to čas, keď slovenskí architekti a stavitelia dvíhali kostoly, školy a národné ustanovizne v štáte, ktorý slovenský národ vôbec neuznával — a tie stavby boli samy osebe argumentom. Oba važecké kostoly sú kamenné a oba stoja dodnes. Drevená dedina okolo nich nie.
In 1922 Ondrej Húska and František Havránek found a cave in the limestone under the northern edge of the village. Its sediments held the bones of cave bears — Ursus spelaeus, a large bear that died out at the end of the last ice age and used caves like this one to hibernate in and to die in. It was opened to visitors six years later, in 1928. In August 1923 a Czech painter, Ján (Jan) Hála, came to Važec and never left: he lived here until his death in 1959 and made hundreds of drawings, oils and illustrations of the village, its people and its work. In 1925 he painted the interior of the Evangelical church with figures of Jan Hus and Martin Luther, and in 1926 he made three altar paintings for it.Roku 1922 našli Ondrej Húska a František Havránek vo vápenci pod severným okrajom dediny jaskyňu. V jej nánosoch boli kosti jaskynných medveďov — Ursus spelaeus, veľkého medveďa, ktorý vyhynul na konci poslednej doby ľadovej a v takýchto jaskyniach zimoval aj hynul. O šesť rokov neskôr, roku 1928, ju sprístupnili verejnosti. V auguste 1923 prišiel do Važca český maliar Ján (Jan) Hála — a už neodišiel: žil tu až do svojej smrti roku 1959 a vytvoril stovky kresieb, olejomalieb a ilustrácií dediny, jej ľudí a ich práce. Roku 1925 vymaľoval interiér evanjelického kostola s postavami Jána Husa a Martina Luthera a roku 1926 preň namaľoval tri oltárne obrazy.
On 17 July 1931 fire broke out in Važec and took almost the whole village. A street of log houses under shingle roofs, standing wall to wall, does not burn house by house — it burns as one thing, and there is no stopping it once the roofs catch. What was rebuilt afterwards was built of stone and brick, so the Važec that painters and photographers had been coming to see simply ceased to exist in an afternoon. Ján Hála had been living in it for eight years; he went on painting it afterwards from his own earlier drawings. It is the plainest illustration in this part of Slovakia of why so few timber villages survived long enough to be protected.17. júla 1931 vypukol vo Važci požiar a zobral takmer celú dedinu. Ulica zrubov pod šindľom, dom vedľa domu, nehorí po jednom — horí ako jedna vec a keď raz chytia strechy, niet ako to zastaviť. To, čo postavili potom, bolo z kameňa a tehly, takže Važec, ktorý sem chodili maliari a fotografi obzerať, za jedno popoludnie jednoducho prestal existovať. Ján Hála v ňom vtedy žil ôsmy rok; maľoval ho aj potom, podľa vlastných starších kresieb. Je to najnázornejší príklad v tomto kúte Slovenska, prečo sa tak málo drevených dedín dožilo pamiatkovej ochrany.
The Slovak National Uprising began on 29 August 1944. Važec people supplied and hid partisans, among them the brigade Za slobodu Slovanov — “For the Freedom of the Slavs” — and in September 1944 partisans ambushed a German unit near the village; after the war Važec was decorated for its part. The front reached the village on 29 January 1945 and Važec was liberated that day. Then the advance stopped. Liptovský Mikuláš, forty kilometres down the same valley, was not taken until 4 April 1945, so for more than two months Važec lay immediately behind a front line that would not move.Slovenské národné povstanie sa začalo 29. augusta 1944. Važčania zásobovali a ukrývali partizánov, medzi nimi brigádu Za slobodu Slovanov, a v septembri 1944 partizáni pri obci prepadli nemeckú jednotku; po vojne dostal Važec za svoj podiel vyznamenanie. Front prišiel k dedine 29. januára 1945 a v ten deň bol Važec oslobodený. Potom sa postup zastavil. Liptovský Mikuláš, štyridsať kilometrov dolu tou istou dolinou, padol až 4. apríla 1945 — Važec teda vyše dvoch mesiacov ležal tesne za frontovou líniou, ktorá sa nehýbala.
The village that came out of the 1930s and the war was physically a new one: stone and brick, wider plots, no shingle. Farming was collectivised into a cooperative after 1948, as it was everywhere in the country, and the men who did not stay on the land worked on the railway or in the factories of Poprad and Liptovský Mikuláš. Važecká jaskyňa was properly and permanently opened in 1954 and declared a protected natural formation in 1968. It is 530 metres long, 230 of them on the visitors' route, and the temperature underground stays near 7 °C the whole year round.Dedina, ktorá vyšla z tridsiatych rokov a z vojny, bola fyzicky nová: kameň a tehla, širšie parcely, žiadny šindeľ. Po roku 1948 zobralo polia družstvo, tak ako všade v krajine, a kto nezostal na pôde, robil na železnici alebo v popradských a liptovskomikulášskych fabrikách. Važeckú jaskyňu definitívne sprístupnili roku 1954 a roku 1968 ju vyhlásili za chránený prírodný výtvor. Meria 530 metrov, z toho 230 tvorí prehliadkovú trasu, a teplota pod zemou sa po celý rok drží okolo 7 °C.
Važec today is an ordinary working village on a busy corridor, with its own station on the main line and a state-run show cave at its northern edge. There is no protected street of folk architecture here, and it is honest to say why: it burned. What the village does still have is its position — one long street on a high open valley floor with the Low Tatras at one end of the view and the High Tatras at the other — two stone churches, a cave with the bones of animals that died out ten thousand years ago, and several hundred pictures by Ján Hála that record in detail a place which no longer exists. That is a real inheritance. It is simply a different one from a village that still has its houses.Važec je dnes obyčajná pracujúca dedina na rušnom koridore, s vlastnou stanicou na hlavnej trati a so štátnou sprístupnenou jaskyňou na severnom okraji. Chránená ulica ľudovej architektúry tu nie je a treba povedať prečo: zhorela. Čo obci zostalo, je poloha — jedna dlhá ulica na vysokom otvorenom dne doliny, na jednom konci výhľadu Nízke, na druhom Vysoké Tatry — dva kamenné kostoly, jaskyňa s kosťami zvierat, ktoré vyhynuli pred desiatimi tisícmi rokov, a niekoľko stoviek obrazov Jána Hálu, ktoré do detailu zaznamenávajú miesto, čo už neexistuje. Je to skutočné dedičstvo. Len iné než to, ktoré má dedina, čo si domy udržala.
Sources consulted while researching this page. Follow them to read further — and to check us.Zdroje, z ktorých sme pri príprave tejto stránky vychádzali. Kliknite a čítajte ďalej — aj si nás overte.
Sixteen videos for this chapter.Šestnásť videí k tejto kapitole.