Tucked into the hills of the Liptov region, the open-air museum of Pribylina offers a glimpse into what the lives of the majority of Slovaks looked like up until the early-twentieth century. This agrarian lifestyle still lives in the memory of many people here. My host-father, only in his forties, remembers childhood visits with his grandparents who lived in an old cottage and took him on rides in their horse-drawn sledge. They had spent their lives laboring alongside their village, sustaining each other by working the earth. It amazes me to think that people just a couple generations past had life experiences more similar to people 500 or more years ago than to today’s world.
Pribylina is unique. Uncharacteristic for its size, the village boasts both an impressively large stone church and an imposing manor house. The latter was originally inhabited by the Paris family in the 1300s (no seeming relation to the city), but saw multiple Hungarian owners through the centuries. It served as the luxury residence for yeomen, the owners of a swath of land and all the agriculture and other production which took place on it. From this small estate, the Paris family and their successors directed and profited from the labor of Pribylina’s residents. Their influence stretched even further, however, as the Paris family worked with the lord of the Liptov region, acting as the reigning secular force in the area.
Pribylina’s historic importance to the region extinguishes any wonder at why it was chosen to become a site of cultural preservation. When the Liptovská Mara dam was completed in the 1975, a number of villages were inundated under rising waters. Residents of the Liptov region concerned with protecting their heritage moved important architectural monuments to other locations in the region, like the church of Svätý Kríž, which I wrote about in a previous post. Pribylina was chosen to be the new home for several of the homes and public buildings under protection.
In addition, the open-air museum at Pribylina features a collection from Tatra’s first railway system. The section of rail around the village is no longer used, but it was once a very important one for industry and transport in the Western Tatras. I visited the village and the train museum with my host family and my most brother and his friend insisted I take photos of them with the trains.
Pribylina is the opposite of Vlkolinec, another village I recently visited. The latter is wonderful for the fact that, despite its age, it has been continually inhabited and still serves its residents well today. Pribylina, on the other hand, is a relic from the past, frozen in a century long ago. The magic of its dirt roads, flanked on either side by clean, white-walled cottages, left me dreaming of the quaint provincial life. The museum pulls no punches in letting visitors know just how hard an such an existence could be, but it was impossible for me to look at the homes and the surrounding countryside and not long in some part for that simple life.
Signed,
Andrew
