Masarykova univerzita v Brne, Filozofická fakulta, Ústav evropské etnologie

Abstract

The present study deals with the mutual influence of urban and traditional clothing on the examples of so-called Slovak shirts. The emergence of these shirts is related to the efforts to create a ‘national garment' in the second half of the 20th century, through which the Slovak intelligentsia demonstrated their political and cultural convictions and nation-building aspirations. The credit for their spread goes to the exhibition of embroidery in Martin, organised by Živena in 1887, and later to the Národopisná výstava českoslovanká in 1895. Soon after their spread among the Slovak intelligentsia, embroidered shirts embodied the clothing of nationally conscious craftsmen and peasants. This happened first in Turiec, but soon afterwards we can find embroidered shirts all over Slovakia. In the regions of Hont, Novohrad, Gemer, Myjava and Turiec, they became an organic part of men's traditional clothing. The present work will attempt to describe the process of the emergence and establishment of Slovak shirts, both in urban and rural environments. It describes the individual variants of these shirts in their specific forms in which they have been domesticated in different regions of Slovakia. This topic has received almost no attention in literature, so the study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the history of clothing in Slovakia.