SLOVAK FOLK ART INDIGO BLUE PRINTING

Sigrid Piroch

Status today and concerns for the future.

To date nothing has appeared in print in the Americas on Slovak blue printing. In fact, even in Europe very little has been documented about these unique textiles, the blue print process, or the regions in which it was done. And yet Indigo blue printing is a technique over a thousand years old. It existed in Asia several centuries before Christ 1 and was used by the Gauls. It is thought to have been widespread in ancient Egypt. Plinius the Elder in 77 A.D. tells us of Indigo dyers who dyed resist-printed cloth in a tub - the color did not appear in the cloth until it was removed.2 Fragments of Indigo- dyed fabric with an apparent wax-applied pattern, possibly of Indian origin, have been found in first century Egyptian tombs.3

In the textiles of a country are expressed its ethnicity, its identity, its history. In Slovakia there are over two thousand villages. The patternings of the folk costumes and functional textiles differ significantly from region to region, often from village to village, and in some cases even from one social group to another within the same village. These articles of everyday life speak to us of the spiritual values of "the folk", of the hard work required for survival, of the need to bring Tjeauty into their lives in simple ways, and of the great joys and tragedies by which they measure their lives - holidays, birth, baptism, marriage, death. Tradition has perhaps been the most important element in their makeup, yet there is a certain "newness", a spontaneity about them. We see this in their patterns for weaving, embroidery, lacemaking, blue printing and in fact in all their folk art. This tells us something important about their artistic endeavors: individual creativity is encouraged in

ARS TEXTRINA 9 (1988), pp. 63-124

Slovakia and is responsive to changes within the culture. Ultimately it is in the development of the elements of the art object - its shap- ings, colors, placement, rhythm, proportion, interlacements - that it goes beyond tradition to achieve a beauty all its own. Art and function here are in perfect balance, one not more important than the other. Folk dress, whether work or holiday clothing, has been the most exciting and the most challenging of these options in Slovak life. It combines many functional pieces, each representing many centuries of skill-building... from the sowing of the flax to the spinning/weaving/dyeing/assembly/embellishment of each article. The typical blue print skirt with small patterns and tiny pleatings of a village girl from Vazec reminds us, as researchers, of the im- portance of viewing these textiles shaped and in motion, blending with its many other companion cloths. Ultimately we wish to see it being used as it was intended, and when it was intended, in the environment from which it has sprung.

But my enthusiasm for this subject is tempered by my concerns, knowing that this ancient art is rapidly dying out. Whereas just a half century ago blue printing was flourishing in Slovakia, today it is a highly-endangered art with only one known Indigo printer still at work using the traditional methods, and one nearby in Moravia. [I am fortunate to have slides showing the work of the father of this Moravian blue printer, now deceased, which document the process.] This, coupled on the one hand with the modernization of society and on the other with the continuation of certain social customs detrimental to the survival of existing textiles, makes it imperative for us to document and make available this information to interested professionals and folk historians. We must be responsive while there still is time to: (1) record its history; (2) preserve the knowledge of the skills necessary for its production; and (3) aid in the preservation of the textiles themselves. Josef Vydra, a Slovak researcher/author, wrote in 1954,

Even in these modern times, and despite Slovakia's highly developed textile industry, there is hardly a district in the country where you will not find artisan dyers working at their ancient craft and serving the people by their skill... . A single colour - Indigo -

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together with a hand-printing process has already for a thousand years provided so much artistic beauty and variety, such a fruitful field of artistic creation, that it is certain to survive, in various forms, for many a future generation.4

It is indeed sad that, just over thirty years later, we can negate his words and say we have witnessed the passing of an era. It is with regret that we realize that the common use of the national costume has disappeared and with it the need for the regular production of blue printing.

Around the turn of the century in Slovakia there was a shift to urban centers which resulted in the decline of folk dress being worn. [The men in particular, who found employment in the factories, quickly gave it up.] It is in the mountain regions, in the most isolated villages, that the folk dress among the women has survived the longest. It is in the "linen districts", strong in the tradition of growing flax and producing linen cloth, that blue printing has survived the longest. Folk groups are helping in some areas to preserve this rich cultural heritage by making, wearing and using folk dress. The Center for Folk Art Production under the Ministry of Culture, better known as U'L'UV, is sponsoring the work of Mr. Stanislav Trnka of Piichov, the only surviving Slovak blue printer today, and in so doing is helping to preserve his art. Or are they? Some say that state cooperatives, such as those in Hungary and the USSR, by gaining control of an aspect of traditional culture, can actually erode its preservation in an effort to reduce ethnic identity or "nationalism". [In the last century the Hungarians, then in control politically of Slovakia, at first encouraged the collection of Slovak textiles and then subsequently carried off those collections to museums in Hungary proper. They have never been returned.5] So this is a matter to be watched.

From 1939 to 1945 Slovakia was recognized as an independent state. This represented the first home rule for the Slovaks since the Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century! x But this independence was short-lived, as the Soviets seized control at the end of World War II and remain in control to this day. Slovakia, or parts of it, have over

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the centuries been inhabited by a succession of peoples of vastly different cultures - the Celts, Teutons, Slavs, Romans - anthropologically all western types, and various Asiatic peoples - the Magyars, Gypsies, Turks and Mongols [or Tatars].

And what does all this have to do with textiles? Everything. It is precisely this fact, that Slovaks have been closely associated with these other ethnic groups for so many centuries, that we must keep in mind when we evaluate the blue print patterns and folk customs from the various regions. It has served both to preserve and to influence the textiles. A strong sense of Slovak identity continues to exist as seen in the very survival of their language. And until just recently within rural villages, this identity has been expressed through their folk art, in particular through the continuation of the traditions of folk dress. So we are unable to separate the textiles from their history because who has dominated their culture and the peoples who have lived in bordering countries have influenced what they created with their handspinning, handweaving, handprinting techniques. Slovakia today is bordered by Poland, Moravia, Hungary and the Ukraine. The cross-fertilization of ideas between these cultures is evident in the textiles from these areas.

Unfortunately, some current social practices in Slovakia discourage the survival of textiles and, with them, knowledge about them. It is sometimes still customary to bury the deceased in their finest clothing. A woman may set aside an outfit, years in advance, in which she plans to be buried. It may include a wedding shawl which was subsequently used as a christening shawl, then a churching shawl; now it will be a shroud! Sometimes an individual's possessions are burned upon his/her death. The only textiles which then survive are those given away beforehand. Old textiles may also be cut up into rags and rewoven into rag rugs on 2-shaft counterbalance looms. This both destroys the textiles and preserves them! They are cut up, but we can sometimes take them apart and recreate the textiles as they once were, that is, if the rug survives. This knowledge could, as with the knowledge of the professional Slovak weavers of the last century, be lost forever.

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Slovak handwovens, blue prints, and information about them are rarely seen in this country. Slovakia is primarily rural, a socialist state, and neither trade nor tourism is a big industry there. While this diminishes the influx of foreign ideas, perhaps thereby helping to preserve indiginous folkways, it also limits information and articles from getting out. Slovakia is little industrialized and until recently did not engage in cultural interchange. Fortunately, for both them and us, this is changing. The University of Pittsburgh was the first university in the United States to take advantage of the opportunity to develop cooperative agreements with institutions in the Slovak Socialist Republic, this based on signed cultural agreements between our countries in April of 1986. John Carroll University is also engaged in a similar exchange. Consequently we have been able to work closely together with the Matica Slovenska [Slovak Academy of Literature, Arts and Science] in Bratislava. We are thankful to them and to the many museums, libraries, institutions, private collectors and other universities both in America and in Europe who have assisted in our research.

Historical highlights of blue printing.

The evolution of blue printing has undergone an interesting cycle of popularity over the centuries. In its oldest form we have a negative hand print with the application of a resist on a fabric which, when dyed in Indigo, produces a white pattern on a dark background. This is similar to ikat and other dye methods in which part of the cloth is wrapped or otherwise protected from taking the dye. Archeological evidence of this type of blue printing continues up to the threshold of the Middle Ages, at which time we skip to the seventeenth century before it surfaces again. In the history of eastern Slovakia, coloring of handwovens can be separated into three periods: during the first period cloth was colored with area plants; during the second, Indigo was available for purchase from India and the professional dyer became prominent; and during the third, printed colors became popular. 6 Sometimes woad was substituted for the Indigo.

During the intervening centuries positive hand prints were used by the middle classes as substitutes for expensive ornate textiles, such as

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embroidered brocades - everything from coffin covers to tourna- ment emblems to, most obviously, clothing. Recipes and methods evolved over time. Vine-black was used: wooden patterns made by wood carvers were smoked over burning linseed and then applied to dampened cloth, usually unbleached linen for skirts. [These were called "dymki" by the eastern Slavs - "dym" being Slovak for smoke.] Oil dyes were enlisted which, since they were not washable, were used for such things as covers for church and curtains in poorer churches. By the twelfth century there were only two shops, both in western Slovakia, using the positive method, one of which [SaStin] was still block printing in 1841! This method involves dis- solving black soot or red clay in oil. 7 The mixture was transfered to the cloth by putting it on a wooden block and hitting the block with a wooden mallet or by rolling it on with a wooden cylinder.8 Slovak positive prints were printed with red and black oil dye. However, the fabric was often coarse, thick and inelastic. By the sixteenth century Prague and Kutna Hora were the main centers of cloth printing in Bohemia. Ultimately, the refinements in cloth printing led to nothing less than the invention of the printing press!

Then, in 1680, something remarkable happened which changed the fashions for most of Europe from that time on.9 A delegation from Siam arrived at the French court of Louis XIV and brought along, among other things, magnificent Indigo-printed fabrics. Blue print became immediately popular, and in no time edicts abounded to protect the cotton trade against Indian calico, even under penalty of death. 10 The Dutch were the first, then the Germans, to use this new method of cold Indigo dyeing which was "fast", did not run, did not stain, gave delicate hues and a fine lustre. For centuries, the world had awaited the "perfected process" and now it was in place. In the first three years in Augsburg alone eight dye establishments were set up. 11 The Guild system eventually over the next several centuries, though painfully, allowed blue printing to be an exception to their control and thus permitted it to become all the more available and popular among the peoples.

This method of cloth decoration probably arrived in Slovakia from Germany. The oldest extant blue print cloths in Slovakia are dated

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1783 from Kremnica and 1784 from DobSina. Originally blue print was chiefly used in town dress, but by the early nineteenth century it was being incoporated into folk dress, especially the dress worn in Vazec and Vemar.12

Brightly-colored calicoes came from workshops in Slovakia, as well as from Austria and Bohemia. In fact, by the end of the eighteenth century blue print had become so commonplace as to take over first place in national folk dress, the last major development in its historical character. It was the women of the well-to-do town families who first wore them, followed by the poorer country folk - in spite of initial attempts to prevent them. Beginning in western Slovakia, it was quickly spread throughout by house-to-house peddlars, linen merchants, waggoners and even raftsmen. It appeared in mountain villages, in the valleys and at markets where the people's choice of pattern guided the craftsman as well as the merchant. 13 The dyers crafts, together with the linen trade, spread throughout the flax-growing districts - particularly Orava, Liptov, SariS and SpiS. Here the Indigo printer centers sprung up, the regions in which cloth was spun for the drapers trade. Gradually there appeared in every small town and many larger villages, work- shops where women could bring their home-spun linen and hemp fabrics to choose designs from a pattern book that were locally popular at the time. 14 Early in the nineteenth century there were two hundred and fifty such workshops in Slovakia. 15

The popularity of blue printing attests to its usefulness as decoration in textiles for both household and folk dress. It was a natural way to express regional preferences yet supplement them with characteristic designs for specific villages. Not only does the light pattern on a dark surface give a more colorful effect, but it also needs washing less often, better resists the action of sweat and sun, and protects more against wear and tear. Flax harvests were so good at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth in the flax-growing districts that even individual weavers, working in their cottages, were able to supply the Indigo printers with enough cloth to export to other countries.

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Some collections today suggest that Moravian blue prints bear a closer relationship with earlier French, German and Austrian textiles, while Slovak blue printing reflects the influences from the more eastern parts of Europe - Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine. 16 However, we know that Slovak apprentices from the early to mid 1800s were required to apprentice abroad for three years before becoming Master Dyers themselves, while apprentices from Austria, Hungary and especially Germany came to Slovakia. 17 So there was much interchange amongst these countries and these trade contacts were long-lasting. The important thing to remember is that the Slovak dyers persistently clung to popular tradition and catered to the artistic taste of their people, thus helping to develop their distinct village costumes while yet preserving them.

The process.

Indigo printing was passed from father to son with all the secrets of the trade. They carefully guarded their dyers' books which contained cloth samples numbered to match the blocks they used. Since Indigo dyeing was seasonal, to supplement his work, the dyer was also a farmer. 18 Flax was harvested in late summer and spun in the fall/winter, cloth was woven in winter and bleached in the spring, then boiled to remove the sizing before being taken to the blue printer soon after. Many of these seasonal events were marked by church feasts, such as Easter.

I am most fortunate to have slides of Mr. Danzinger illustrating the process of blue printing. His son JiH is now carrying on the tradi- tion in Ole^nice, north of Brno in Moravia, since his father recently died. This family came from Germany two/three hundred years ago, and they have been blue printing in this tiny village ever since then. He has over four hundred molds.

In just the past two months I am delighted to have crossed paths, quite accidentally, with a researcher/lecturer at West Surrey College of Art and Design in Surrey, England. Linda Brassington is also a textile printer and dyer, an artist/craftsman who specializes in hand techniques of block printing and resist dyeing with Indigo. She has, I discovered, also been doing research on Indigo blue printing in

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Slovakia. [We seem to have the common distinction of being the first such in over thirty years to do so.] She has personally been able to document with photography the last living blue printer in Slovakia, Mr. Stanislav Trnka, and to work alongside him. It was through an exhibition which Ms. Brassington mounted last Fall, during which she was able to bring Mr. Trnka to England for a blue print workshop, that I discovered our similar interests. The exhibi- tion catalogue 19 includes much of her research these past several years, including on-site research in Slovakia, and brings us up to date on the current status of blue printing there. [Fortunately, too, this catalogue is still in print and available.] This exhibition may travel in France and we are requesting that it be brought to the United States as well. It is interesting that we have been asking many of the same questions and coming to many of the same conclusions. Both of us feel that East European blue printing is an area of real neglect in the English language and textile culture, with our publication of this information much overdue.

In 1954 the Vydra book20 included a recipe for pap and a general explanation of the blue print process. Modrotlac21 updates and cor- rects that information, including many more details which make it possible to duplicate the work. If one compares this to a recipe for pap used in Scheesel, Germany22 it is seen to be almost identical. If you wish to reproduce such textiles, I refer you to these sources for more complete details.

The general process is as follows: to ready the fabric for blue printing it is first boiled and starched. The next step is to make the "pap", a greenish paste composed of white painters clay, gum arabic, lead acetate, lead nitrate, copper sulphate, salve [melted oxen fat, lard or petroleum jelly] and alum.23 In Eastern Europe I have found references to the use of white potash added to both hot and cold vats, as well as iron sulphate, limestone, calcium sulfate and even fermentation from rye flour and beer yeast! 24 Next the pap is di- luted with water, boiled until grey, and put in a box frame called a "Pallia" where it is spread evenly with a brush. The pattern block is dipped in it, then pressed on the fabric laid out on the press table. The printed fabric is next attached to ceiling poles and left to dry.

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Indigo vats were originally wooden vats since they are suited to fermentation, but modern vats have replaced them. A blue printer may have several vats which he uses. Iron hooks are fitted above each vat. The cloth is fastened to them, then lowered by a rack mechanism for "vatting". The number of "pulls" refers to the number of dips in the cold Indigo vat called "kypa" - eight or more may be used. [Both hot and cold Indigo dye vats have been used since antiquity, with the cold giving more permanent color. Today a hot synthetic vat dye may be used at times as well.] The fabric is usually left in for thirty minutes for the first dip, then removed, for ten to thirty minutes, to oxidize. Then it may be reversed on the rack and reimmersed for a second dip, which may require the same timing or less. Further dips are also possible. It is then left to dry before the pap is washed out in a weak solution of sulphuric acid. In "the old days" an extra rinsing was given in the brook, the fabric was pulled to eliminate the wrinkles and dried. The final stage is mangling, by which the cloth is put under pressure [sometimes with heat] to give it a fine lustre. In the previous era huge mangles were erected to exert this pressure, drawn by horses. Earlier on, people rotated a similar smaller structure to achieve the same purpose. Today more modern contrivances are used.

In Slovakia the fabric might also have been glossed for additional lustre. It could have been treated with potato starch to darken the blue, then polished with a small, smooth stone. This made it tougher and shinier. Also, in Levice, the dyeing time in the Indigo vat was extended to as much as two days and, by additional steaming of the cloth, it acquired a special bronze lustre.25 Sometimes a wooden stick about two meters long was fastened to the ceiling with a glass ball at the base which was put into a groove, then waxed and rubbed over the linen with two workers pushing and pulling between them.26 Sometimes it was flattened with a mallet. But the most popular method was to turn it under pressure with the mangle.

Today textile mills in Slovakia produce a commercial blue print but it is typically smaller, less refined and of a different blue color and finish than those hand printed. It is, as you might guess, a poor substitute.

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Easter eggs and Tom Sawyer.

What does blue printing have in common with Slovak Easter eggs? Our Slovak ancestors decorated eggs as far back as... well, some remnants of painted shells have been found in eleventh century graves. Eggs represent Spring, rebirth of nature, regeneration and fertility. Designs similar to our blue printed patterns are seen in the primitive folk art of Slovak Easter eggs, both with patterns applied with wax and later dyed as well as with those first dyed and then later scratched-carved. Both give a white pattern on a colored surface.

In some parts of Slovakia homes with dark exteriors, such as old- style log homes in Cicinany; are whitewashed outside in the Spring with traditional ornamentations, taking us back to ancient times with such symbols as birds, hearts, crosses and rani's horns. The dies for these are cut out of potatoes or sugar beets, and the effect of these striking bold white patterns against a dark background is reminiscent of blue printing.

In my research into and analysis of textiles I have seen from Slovakia in various museums and private collections, these blue print patterns have been produced! by several methods: (1) the tying of knots or the knotting of pebbles into cloth [as is typical of textiles from Piest'any] or the stitching up of the cloth, sometimes with ribbons, to prevent the dye from "taking" in the secured areas; (2) the application of white reserve [paste, clay or wax] by printing or with a brush [as is popular near Trnava]; and (3) by the application of chemicals which absorb the Indigo pigment, thus preventing the dye from "taking" there.

Although the most popular pattern is white on blue, different colors are used: yellow, orange, green and red are produced by using different reserves.27 These are not recent innovations, but date from the second half of the nineteenth century with early advances in chemistry. We have then, white and light blue against dark blue, light blue and dark blue and green against a medium blue, yellow against dark blue, yellow and green against dark blue, and so on. Chemicals, such as bichromate of potassium, can be added to the pap

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for these effects. The dyed cloth can be dipped more times, or dipped also in this chemical and acetate of lead. Slovak dyeing from some regions is known for its special dark blue hues, from medium blue to almost black, with a violet or reddish-bronze lustre. Besides the variations mentioned, is the difference in these special hues due to the water? The well-kept secrets of the dyers?

Over the centuries there were four types of molds used for blue printing, each requiring great skill and time to execute: wood; wood and metal; all-metal wires and strips; and copper ones for hand- printing machines.28 For a long while the cloth printer was also a pattern maker, with the blocks produced right in the villages. "This fact and the siting of the workshop made possible a close contact between the design and the manufacture of calico."29 Around the twelfth century they separated, however, the professional engravers producing first wooden and then later metal pattern blocks as well for printing - especially with ornamental styles like Rococo which needed a lighter touch. "The creation of ornaments was influenced chiefly by the semi-professional block cutters. Print blocks were made by the dyers themselves. Professional block cutters from Bohemia were also known to have contributed patterns. The wooden or copper blocks of the professional cutters differed from the blocks made by the dyers themselves."30

The type of block used and the purpose of the cloth both help to determine the design selected. Wooden blocks more commonly create a larger, bolder and more primitive design and are often used as borders. Sometimes blocks for printing borders are larger. Blocks of metal can produce finer work. But patterns for both vary considerably, ideas having been borrowed from essentially every popular source of fabric design in every recent period, from classical to modern.

These patterns range from the most simple - a series of small circles, for example, to very complex - such as imitations of woven damasks. A favorite were textiles mimicking handwoven block patterns, another, the tree of life. Country folk are in close contact with nature, and many of the patterns are taken from nature. Geometries, lace, plants/flowers/fruits/leaves and birds were all

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common motifs for designs and borders. These were printed on linen, hemp, or cotton - from both rough and handspun fabrics to very fine handspun or commercial. They were used in women's work clothes, for Sunday and festive dress, as well as for mourning clothes. Certainly the lace trims, embroidered details, and colored accents enrich them further. Very small prints are to be found in some pleated skirts, and regional ways of tacking them to produce various fanning effects enhance these little repeats. The uses for the textiles are just as varied: feather-bedding; pillow-slips; quiltcovers; tablecloths; jackets; tunics; aprons; skirts; blouses; shawls; headcloths; handkerchiefs; breeches; even underbreeches... just about anything for dress or home depending on the village and its customs, the amount of handwoven cloth produced, and the availability of blue printers. In the village of Vazec, under the Tatra mountains, almost everything worn and used is Indigo printed. Many other villages are also known for their use of these prints, especially villages in the counties of Spis and Liptov.

To me the most intriguing aspect of research into the elusive blue printing is the even more elusive double print by which blue printing is produced on both sides of the same fabric, sometimes in very different patterns and sometimes in similar patterns and sometimes - though rarely - in the exact same pattern. Linen and hemp, and later cotton, fabrics were used for the blue printing process but linen has the advantage of making a heavier fabric 31 It requires special knowledge and skill to produce high-quality double prints where one side does not show through to the other. To our knowledge this type of blue printing is no longer being done anywhere. And I have no source yet as to how the double-print method was done. We have found examples of it often in Slovakia, and occasionally in Poland and the Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

Folk art and the professionals.

There is a Slovak saying which translates: "Go over the hill and find another costume". And so it was that villages next to one another often varied their costumes, patterns, trims and when they were worn - especially where geographic barriers isolated them and communication was very limited.32

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It is interesting to me that it was not the professional metal engravers but the folk wood-engravers and dyers who produced the most fitting and most definite designs for blue printing, those .best reflecting local tradition. These they produced in response to the requests of those who brought them their handwoven cloth for blue printing, the fruit of a whole year of intensive work. Designs, colors and layout were chosen only after great thought had been devoted to the matter. The professional craftsmen made very different patterns, admittedly very intricate ones and requiring great skill. But it was not only that the technique was different, it was also in the ornamenting of the blocks, the design they created.

Folk art, therefore, intensified its development in such creative work as was embodied in the national costume, ifor here both the wearer and the maker could decide how the materials should be used in corder to achieve;the desired effect in keeping with the surroundings where they lived. Only the national costume could answer these requirements so admirably, for it, more than anything else, depended solely on man's taste, from the choice of materials right up to the artistic work it involved and the place it occupied in the life of the people.33

Vydra tells us, it wastthe folk dyers who carved their own patterns, who by their imagination came fits nearest to popular forms of artistic expression and left behind them a valuable heritage of national folklore. The composition and execution of these ornaments, though made from simple dies and primitive in character, place them among the oldest and the most beautiful of their kind.34 These handcarved blocks retain a certain purity of style by their simplicity. He points out:

The age-old origin of the '.designs and their use in Slovak national dress and household textiles leads us to the conclusion that the credit for the style and artistic merit of indigo prints 'belongs rather to Slovak countrywomen and to the artisan dyers than to the influence of professional pattern-makers. Slovak indigo prints, by virtue of their artistic values and characteristic style, do not merely form an interesting

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branch of Slovak popular craft, but take their place among those artistic products of the people which set an example to be followed for a long time to come.35

The folk artist was the person closest to the process and reflected most completely the interests of the people. Slovak dyers and printers lived amidst the people. Their designs reflected the Slovak character and the highest artistic expectations of "the folk". By the beginning of this century they were established essentially in every small town. So it is no little surprise to us to find that the work of highest artistic merit has come from these roots. Here the folk artist wins "hands down" over the professionals.

Now that blue printing has finally reached the Americas with this introduction and accessible references, I am in hopes that others will become as enraptured with it as most of Europe has been for many centuries. I look forward to that.

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Endnotes

1Josef Vydra, "Indigo Blue Print in Slovak Folk Art", Artia, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1954, p. 9.

*Ibid., p. 10.3Catherine L. Thompson, Batik - wax writing on cloth, Needlework

News Vol. 10 No.2 (Spring 1987) Graphicom Publ. Inc. KY, p. 7. 4Vydra, op. cit., p. 7. 5Stephen J. Palickar, "Slovakian Culture in the Light of

History/Ancient, Medieval and Modern", The Hampshire Press,Inc., Cambridge, MA, 1954, p. 235.

6Dmitrij Zelenin, "Russische [Ostslavische] Volkskunde", Reinhold Trautmann and Max Vasmer, AND "Grundrib der Slavischen Philogie und Kulturgeschichte", Walter de Gruyter and Co., Berlin und Leipzig, 1927, p. 185.

7Pavol Michalides, "Vy'tvarna kutura Vykroby", Slovenske pedagogicke nakladatel'stvo, Bratislava, 1984, p. 168.

*Ibid., p. 188.'Vladimir Hajko, Editor-in-chief, "Encyklopedia Slovenska",

Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej Akademie Vied, Bratislava, 1979, Vol. Ill, p. 609.

10Vydra, op. cit., pp. 14 and 18. 11 Vydra, op. cit., p. 17. 12Hajko, op. cit., p. 61.13Jozef Markov, "The Slovak National Dress Through the

Centuries", Artia, London, 1956, p. 17.14Linda Brassington, "Modrotlac) - Indigo Country Cloths and

Artefacts from Czechoslovakia", West Surrey College of Art and Design, Surrey, England, 1987, p. 14.

15 Michalides, op. cit., p. 168. I6lbid.,p. 11. 17Vydra, op. cit., p. 23. Wbid., p. 32. 19Brassington, op. cit.

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20Vydra, op. cit., p. 34. 21Brassington, op. cit., p. 35.22Stephen Blumrich, Indigo resist printing in Scheesel, Germany,

Surface Design Journal, (Summer 1984), p. 20.23Vydra, op. cit., p. 34 and Brassington, op. cit., p. 35 and Zelenin,

op. cit., p. 188.24Zelenin, op. cit., p. 187. 25Vydra, op. cit., p. 45. 26Zelenin, op. cit., p. 188. 275Hajko, op. cit., p. 610. 286Blumrich, op. cit., p. 20. 297Brassington, op. cit., p. 14. 3°Hajko, op. cit., p. 610. 31 Blumrich, op. cit., p. 20. 32Markov, op. cit., p. 23. nibid., pp. 24-25. 34Vydra, p. 28.

id., p. 46.

Historical referencex Slovakia first emerged as a political unit in the middle of the seventh century under the rule of Samo, a Slavic chief who united what is roughly now Czechoslovakia. His rule lasted thirty-five years, and with his death in 658 the state he had created dissolved. Slovakia was re-established as a political unit under the Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century. In the tenth century Great Moravia collapsed, and Slovakia was taken by the Hungarians who retained control over it until the end of World War I when it became part of Czechoslovakia.

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Selective blue print bibliography

Blumrich, Stephen, Indigo Resist Printing in Scheesel, Germany, Surface Design Journal, (Summer 1984), pp. 18-24.

Brassington, Linda, Modrotlac - Indigo country cloths and artefacts from Czechoslovakia, Catalogue of Exhibition/Workshop, West Surrey College of Art and Design, Surrey, England, (1987).

Clark, Hazel, "Textile Printing", Shire Publications Ltd., United Kingdom, Shire Album No. 135, 1985.

Hajko, Vladimir, Editor-in-chief, "Encyklopedia Slovenska", Vol. Ill, Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej Akademie Vied, Bratislava, 1979.

Hipp, Veronica Ratica, "Easter Egg Decorating Techniques of Czechoslovakia", self-published, Strongsville, OH, 1988.

Jirik, Frantisek, "Latkach Potisknutych", Prague, 1911.Otto, Domonkos, "A Magyarorszagi kekfestes", published by

Corvina, Budapest, Hungary, 1981.Sterckshof, "Textieldruk, Evolutie en Techniek", Provincial Museum

voor Kunstambachten, 2100 Deurne, Germany, June to October, 1978.

Thompson, Catherine L., Batik - wax writing on cloth, Needlework News, published by Graphicom Publishers, Inc., KY, Vol. 10, No. 2, (Spring 1987), pp. 7-8.

Vydra, Josef, "Indigo Blue Print in Slovak Folk Art", Artia, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1954.

Zelenin, Dmitrij, "Russische (Ostslavische) Volkskunde", Reinhold Trautmann and Max Vasmer, AND "Grundrib der slavischen Philogie und Kulturgeschichte", Walter de Gruyter and Co., Berlin und Leipzig, 1927 [double-book].

For more extensive bibliographical references on Slovak blue printing, check the West Surrey Exhibition Catalogue and the Vydra book listed above.

80

Selective general bibliography on Slovak textiles

Bratislavske Gobeliny, "Bratislava Tapestries", L'udovit Medvecky, Vydal Slavin, Vy'davatel'stvo Narodne"ho Vyboru, Hlavneho Mesta SSR Bratislavy, 1971.

Chlupova, Anna, "Slovenska 1'udova vyswka", Bratislava, Slovakia, 1975.

Folk art in Slovakia, published by the Government Committee for Tourism of the Slovak Socialist Republic in the Publishing House of the Advertising Firm, ERPO/Bratislave, and printed by TSNP/Martin, (1982).

"Folk Dress [L'Udovy Odev]", text and photocards published from the Collections of the Slovak National Museum Institute of Ethnography, Martin, Slovakia, 1982.

Husa, Vaclav; Josef Petran; Alena Petranova, "Traditional Crafts and Skills", Hamlyn, London, 1967.

Lewis, Frank, "Czechoslovak Textiles", F. Lewis Publishers, Ltd., Leigh-On-Sea, England, 1962.

Love woven into tapestries, "Panorama of Slovakia", 4/5/1976, pp. 28-29.

Linchan, Edward J., Czechoslovakia - the dream and the reality, National Geographic Vol. 133 No. 2 (2/1968), pp. 151-193.

"L'udovy Textil", Etnograficky listav Slovenskeho Narodneho Muzea v. Marline, Slovakia, no date (recent).

Markov, Jozef, "The Slovak National Dress Through the Centuries", Artia, Prague, 1956.

Markov^, Ema, Slovenske Preberane Tkaniny 15.-19. Storotia, "Slovensky Narodopis", Cislo 2, Rocnik XII, Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej Adakemie Vied Bratislava, 1968. [Slovak Ethnography from the Journal of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Vol. XVI, 1968, No. 2; published quarterly by the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Mg. Editors: Dr. Bozena Filova and Dr. Viera Nosalova, Bratislava, Klemensovd 27, Czechoslovakia, in Slovak.]

Markova, Emilia, "Slovenske 1'udove" tkaniny", [Slovak Folk Art - Weaving and Textile Craft], Bratislava, VEDA, 1976.

Michalides, Pavol, "Vytvama kulnira Vyroby", Slovenske pedagogick6 nakladatel'stvo, Bratislava, 1984.

81

Momatiuk, Yva and John Eastcott, Slovakia's spirit of survival, National Geographic Vol. 171 No. 1, (Jan. 1987), pp. 120-146.

NosaTovd, Viera, "Slovensky L'udovy Odev", published by Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, Martin, 1982.

Ortutay, Gyula and Ivan Balassa, "Hungarian Ethnography and Folklore", Corvina Kiado, 1979.

Palickar, Stephen J., "Slovakian Culture in the Light of History/Ancient, Medieval and Modern", The Hampshire Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA, 1954.

Podolak, J£n, Editor [with eight author-contributors: Apathy, Stefan, etc.], "Horehronie - Kultiira a sposob zivota 1'udu", Vydavatel'stvo SAV/Slovenskej Akademie Vied, Bratislava, 1969.

Vdclavik, Antonin, and Jaroslav Orel, "Textile Folk Art", Spring Books, London, no date (not recent).

Vaclavik, Antonin, "Podunajska dedina v Ceskoslovensku", of the village Danubian, published by Vydavatel'ske dru^stvo, Bratislava, 1924.

Urbancova, Viera, "Slovenska Etnografia v. 19 Stor6ci", Matica Slovensk£, 1987.

82

CreditsSpecial recognition is due the following institutions and individuals who made this research and translation possible:

Extensive Slovak translations: Joe Armata/Pittsburgh, PAGerman translations: Luise Ziegler/Freeland, WAHungarian translations: Lazlo Bozvary/South Bend, IN

The Cleveland Public Library/Cleveland, OH Special Collections

Danville Academy/Danville, PA Jankola Library

Sister M. Martina Tybor, Director

John Carroll University/Cleveland, OH Department of Classical and Modern Languages

Gerald J. Sabo, PhDDarina Urbankova, PhD

The Textile Museum/Washington, D.C. Arthur D. Jenkins Library

Slovak Catholic Cultural Center/Oak Forest, IL Sister M. Methodia, OSB

The Slovak Heritage Society/Liverpool, NYThe Cincebox-Baine Collection of Textiles/Rochester, NY

Helene CinceboxHelen Baine

The Slovak Library/Oxford, MI Sister Gabriel Wbjtko, OP

The Slovak Museum and Archives at Jednota Estates/Middletown, PA Edward A. Tuleya, PhD, Curator and Archivist

The Slovak Social RepublicInternational Relations, Ministry of Education Matica Slovenska, Bratislava, Slovakia

83

Slovak Studies Association/Internationally-basedThe American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies

University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA Anthropology Department

Sally Staruch, PhD Candidate

University of Pittsburgh/Pittsburgh, PAFaculty of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Oscar E. Swan, ChairmanChristine Metil, Administrative Assistant

West Surrey College of Art and Design/Surrey, England School of Textiles

Linda Brassington, Researcher/Lecturer

WSKG Public Television and Radio/Binghamton, NY Pat Argue, Grants Coordinator "Threads to the Past" video documentary

Sigrid Piroch R.D. No. 4, Box 234 Meadville.PA 16335 U.S.A.814 - 336-5250

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