Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/155

and to the lack of support and care, the abbey and school fell into ruins and save for a little pilgrimage church built there in 1858 remained so until recently.

It is now a pilgrimage place sacred to all Slovaks. On November 30th and for seven days after as likewise on July 17th, the day on which is commemorated the transfer of the relics of St. Benedict from Trenčín to Nitra, one can see multitudes of pilgrims, who come to the Skalka to pray to these two saints for aid,—and not in vain, for Sts. Andrew Svorad and Benedict have at all times been the powerful protectors and intercessors of their people.

Since the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic the whole of Slovakia has become the object of scientific research. At the present time systematic investigations are being carried out in the Lower Tatras and in the Liptov district. Professor Vitasek is studying the glaciomorphology of Liptov and M. Kral has discovered a series of large underground caves. Professor Domin is investigating the flora, while Professor Kettner, in company with Dr. Matejka, Dr. Kodym and Dr. Cyril Purkyne are at work in the geographical field. Several important archeological discoveries stand to Dr. Eisner’s credit. In addition to those mentioned, a large number of scientific workers are busy in Slovakia and so in a few years the Hungarian neglect of this task in the pre-War period will be made up for, at least partly.

The 60th anniversary of the birth of the Czech poet, Petr Bezruc, was celebrated in Czechoslovakia on the 15th of September. Mr. Paul Selver in his introduction to his “Modern Czech Poetry” says that no account of Czech poetry would be complete without a reference to Petr Bezruc. Bezruc is a regional poet whose subject matter is derived from the local conditions in the Teschin district, where the Czechs have, for years past, suffered socially and racially from the encroachments of the Germans and the Poles. In a variety of poetical forms, Bezruc intones variations on this single theme, and in his most characteristic passage he attains such a monumental utterance, such rhetorical and spontaneous vigor, that these verses have made their author’s name a household word throughout the country. Mr. Selver translates Bezruc’s “Kijov” as: