Košice Archives • Peter Korchnak.

Where the Wind Blows

On May 29, 2018

In Central/Eastern Europe, Nonfiction, Travel

When I left my hometown, for university, I thought there were two kinds of people: those who fled and those who stayed. When I left for graduate school five years later, I was convinced there were those who left and those who were left behind. Both times I was wrong.

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Within Slovakia, Košice is famous for many things.

The beautiful historic core draws both accolades and jeers of envy; its crown jewel, St. Elizabeth’s Cathedral, Europe’s eastermost Gothic church, is finally scaffolding-free after nearly 30 years of renovations.

The East Slovak Ironworks, owned by U.S. Steel since 2000, led to a tripling of the city’s population since its construction in 1960.

A top-dog ice hockey team, the oldest marathon in Europe (second oldest in the world after Boston’s), and the slang, which injects into the Slovak many Hungarian, Romani, and Eastern Slovak dialect words, further bolster our intense local patriotism.

But the feature that defines my hometown for us, its residents, is invisible to the eye.

Husák’s Children

By Peter Korchnak

On September 1, 2015

In Central/Eastern Europe, Nonfiction

The Star 82 Review journal has included my essay, “Husák’s Children,” in the latest issue #3.3. The piece is the first chapter of Bubbles for a Spirit Level, a work in progress, in which I look back at my Young Pioneer oath, in 1985.

An aerial postcard of Liberators Square would have an X to mark me standing amidst four thousand forty-three second-graders in sky-blue shirts. I’d press the pen so hard the letter would show on the reverse.

Mamka tells a story of how I got lost in the Prior Department Store during a Christmas shopping trip. I searched for her among legs and coats and shelves and racks, bawling and confused. Surrounded by long rows of Sparks, at attention on a grid of yellow dots sprayed underfoot, I feel the opposite. My two best friends, Slavo Bojčík and Milan Dudrík are an arm’s length on either side of me. Comrade Teacher Polášková looks pretty in her blue skirt, white blouse, and new perm as she threads through my Class 2D making sure we’re all ready.

Continue reading at Star 82 Review →

Trainstationspotting - Kosice train station

Trainstationspotting around Central Europe

By Peter Korchnak

On December 13, 2013

In Central/Eastern Europe, Travel

This (photo)essay first appeared at Where Is Your Toothbrush?

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Most travelers love traveling by train, particularly around Europe. The railway’s ubiquity and popularity in Central Europe stems from its history: from 1840’s on, the Austro-Hungarian rulers built one of the world’s densest railway networks to accelerate economic and cultural integration across the Empire. There are plenty of other reasons to love train travel, and I have mine: my father worked for the railway, so not only did I grow up traveling by train, it’s in my DNA.

Train stations, where the magic of the railway begins and ends, get much less ink. Let me fix this with a confession: I love trainstationspotting, especially around Central Europe.

“In Slovakia, a Citizen’s Effort To Build a Holocaust Memorial to His City’s Missing Jews”

By Peter Korchnak

On October 16, 2013

In Central/Eastern Europe

The New York-based online publication Tablet Magazine today published my article “In Slovakia, a Citizen’s Effort To Build a Holocaust Memorial to His City’s Missing Jews.” This is what the magazine’s homepage looked like earlier today:

Before the Holocaust, one in five residents of Košice, Slovakia’s second-largest city, was Jewish. In May and June 1944, Košice served as a transit hub for Jews being sent to their deaths at Auschwitz; only about 400 Jews returned to Košice after 1945. Today, approximately 250 active Jews now live in Košice—0.1 percent of the city’s population. Nevertheless, as in other Central and Eastern European cities, interest in Jewish culture has increased in recent years; the Zvonárska Street Synagogue, which served for decades as a library warehouse after the war, was recently converted into an exhibition gallery, and in the summer tour guides offer Jewish Košice walks.

Continue reading at Tablet →

Words. Design. Art.

Tag: Košice

Where the Wind Blows

Husák’s Children

Trainstationspotting around Central Europe

“In Slovakia, a Citizen’s Effort To Build a Holocaust Memorial to His City’s Missing Jews”