NEWS

On October 2, 2022, FOS held a webinar on Jozef Tiso’s Leadership of the Slovak State During World War II and the “Jewish Question.” The featured speaker was Madeline Vadkerty, program coordinator at the Holocaust Documentation Center in Bratislava.  J. Luke Ryder, historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, moderated the webinar.  Before moving to Bratislava, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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,” […]

Friends of Slovakia invited former Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda to present the 2018 Czech and Slovak Freedom Lecture at the Woodrow  Wilson  Center. The lecture was entitled “Miracles in the Heart of Europe.” The transcript of the former Prime Minister’s optimistic and visionary presentation is below. FOS hopes you will enjoy it as much […]

The 2014 Scholars were welcomed to Washington with an informal reception on June 15. Hosted by Board member Scott Thayer and his wife Nena amidst their gardens and ponds, the reception also benefited from unseasonably comfortable weather. The Scholars celebrated the end of their first week of classes while enjoying Slovak beer and international nibbles […]

Czech Ambassador to Great Britain Michael Žantovský will deliver the 2013 Annual Czech and Slovak Freedom Lecture. Amb. Žantovský was formerly Czech ambassador to the United States (1992-1997). The lecture will be hosted by the Wilson Center for International Scholars from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. An invitation will be forthcoming. The event is sponsored by […]

Friends of Slovakia was able to sponsor five very deserving Slovak Scholars to attend one of the Fund for American Studies (TFAS) summer institutes in Washington, DC at George Mason University. To honor these students and introduce them to FOS members and the embassy staff, Amb. Peter Kmec and FOS co-hosted a luncheon at the […]

By Monika Izáková, IEIA 2012, President TFAS Slovakia, and the 2012 FOS Scholar I’ve always wanted to know and see as much as possible as well as experience and discover how things work in practice. Thanks to successful studies and several internships in government, I did pretty well in achieving this dream of mine. However, […]