NEWS

On her 70th birthday, Friends of Slovakia’s Board Member Cecilia Rokusek, President and CEO of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, IA, was recognized for her excellent work and personal dedication, including as the Honorary Consul in Florida, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic Miroslav Wlachovský on June 27, […]

Written by Dr. Elizabeth Guran, FOS Board Member The Ukraine War and its impact on democratic societies was the topic of the final Student Summit sponsored by Friends of Slovakia and its partners at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Over 60 students from Matej Bel University, […]

This report was prepared by Dr. Elizabeth Guran, chair of the FOS Committee on Academic Exchanges. The Friends of Slovakia (FOS) International Student Summits are off and running! Two successful virtual summits were held in 2021 and a third summit will occur in April 2022. All three events address the theme, “Challenges of Democracy.” The […]

Current and former directors of Friends of Slovakia, along with spouses and special guests, celebrated the 20th anniversary of FOS on November 17, 2021, at a dinner at the Slovak Embassy in Washington, D.C. hosted by Ambassador Radovan Javorčík. Earlier in the day, Beata Balogová, editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily SME, delivered the 2021 Czech […]

FOS is thrilled to announce the launch of an exciting new program that aims to foster understanding, engagement, and friendship between university students from the United States and Slovakia. This unique initiative has been developed by the FOS Student Exchange Committee led by Dr. Elizabeth Guran (committee chair), and supported by other committee members including […]

“In our self-absorption over contemporary assaults on our freedom — political and medical — we in the United States seem to have entirely overlooked this seminal event which continues to shape our lives today. We should never forget the core lessons from that time — the importance of allies who share our values and the […]

November 2019 marked the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent events that brought freedom from communist domination to many countries of the former “Soviet-bloc.”  In Czechoslovakia, public demonstrations, spearheaded by student movements, sparked the relatively peaceful downfall of the communist government and began the country’s “return to the West,” […]

This year, 2019, represents the 100th anniversary of the death of one of the most important figures in the history of Slovakia, Milan Rastislav Štefánik.  On May 4, the anniversary was commemorated with a talk by researcher Kevin J. McNamara of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who discussed “Six Events that Made Milan Stefanik a […]

2018 marks a special anniversary year for Slovakia, with celebrations commemorating the events of 100, 50, and 25 years ago. On January 19, the Slovak Embassy in Washington, D.C. kicked off the year’s celebrations with a special reception held in the ornate Members’ Room of the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill. The focus of […]

Slovak Ambassador Peter Kmec welcomed the five 2017 Friends of Slovakia Slovak Scholars to the Embassy together with program supporters including FOS Chairman Joe Senko and President of The Fund for American Studies Roger Ream. TFAS runs this intensive two-month summer program at George Mason University. The FOS Scholars also have internships with local organizations […]