17 July 1931 The firePožiar

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.