I am mildly amused at the continuing confusion among friends about where I will be going for the Fulbright. Even our esteemed President Bush once mixed up Slovakia and Slovenia, as the Slovaks themselves wryly note on a helpful and good-humored web site: http://www.slovakia.org/sk-faq.htm
I will be going to Slovakia, now an independent nation-state and part of the former Czechoslovakia. I suggest that as a memory cue. The fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989 is called the "Velvet Revolution." The Czech Republic and Slovak Republic split into two separate nation-states in 1993 in what they call the "Velvet Divorce."
Slovenia is an independent nation-state in the Balkans, the first of the break-away republics from the former Yugoslavia. Slavonia is a province of Croatia, also part of the former Yugoslavia.
There will be a pop quiz later.
No comments:
Post a Comment