"Like the Taliban", they are destroying monuments from before 1918 in Slovakia. Since 1992, 37 percent of historical buildings or parts of buildings and monuments have disappeared, art historian Jozef Lenhart told Hospodárske Noviny.
"This has not happened anywhere else in the civilized world. Perhaps we can only compare it with the Taliban, who purposefully destroyed historical monuments. Even the Second World War did not cause the kind of damage that has happened since 1992," he said. He said that the reason for this was that after the Hungarian nobility left the territory of today's Slovakia in 1918, their estates and buildings went to the church. And after the system change, they went to those who "had no connection" to these monuments.
Excerpt from the conversation:
"Why didn't they have an attachment to the monuments?" "Because it wasn't part of their family history, it wasn't their heritage. Castles were naturally the home of generations of nobles, they lived there from an early age and grew up among the portraits of their ancestors. The new owners did not need history. Moreover, it was about the hated Hungarian nobility, and they had to be dealt with once and for all."
Did its historical value mean nothing to them?” "Nothing," said Lenhart, who said that the new owners of the old buildings "rebuilt it without conscience and built a profitable distillery, for example, despite the objections of the historic preservation office at the time."
Source: Körkép.sk
Front page image: Illustration / Remains of Gesztete Putnoky Castle/ Photo: induljelegyuton.hu
