DOLNÝ KUBÍN

The town Dolny Kubin is small in the number of inhabitants, but great in its contribution to the cultural heritage of the Slovak nation.
This town has and extraordinary advantageous and attractive location. The European routes interconnecting the Baltic Sea with the Balkan Peninsula, Central Europe and the Apennines region lead through it.
Dolny Kubin is located in the northwest Slovakia. Its geographical coordinates are 49°12´25´´ of geographical latitude and 19°18´25´´ of geographical longitude, the altitude above the sea level is 468 m, but the settlement climbs over the altitude 550 m above the sea level.
The centre of the Orava Region is formed by the Orava Highlands (Oravska vrchovina) marked by its varied and articulated relief. Cliffs zone formed by resistant rocks in the shape of lime stone rockery protrude along the Orava River running through the centre of this territory. From geographical – botanical point of view the Dolny Kubin area belongs to the West Carpathians flora area, district West Beskids flora – Orava Magura (Oravska Magura), Orava Highlands (Oravska vrchovina) and district of high Carpathians – Choc Highlands (Chocske vrchy) and Small Fatra (Mala Fatra).
Dolny Kubin is formed both by its own cadastre territory and the cadastre territories of other former villages, forming today the part of the town – Velky Bysterec, Maly Bysterec, Benova Lehota, Zaskalie, Jelsava, Mokrad, Knazia, Medzihradne and Srnacie.
Several significant archaeological sites are found on the territory of this town. They are related to the younger bronze era when the people of the Lusatia Ashes Fields formed the population core; they arrived from the Central Slovakia region (mainly Liptov and Turiec) bringing their distinctive culture with them. Documents about the stay of the Slavic people here are known already from the 9C AD. Trniny upon Dolny Kubin was a site of a fortified settlement already in the Great Moravian period.
Kubin is mentioned for the first time in the records of January 6, 1314. The settlement was developing as a village of the subjects belonging to the Orava Castle. Later, it was either the property of the Hungarian king or of the strong oligarchs.
The milestone in the history of Dolny Kubin is the year 1632 when the director of the Orava compossessorate Gasper Illeshazy raised Dolny Kubin to a town for a yearly fee 400 guilders and this town was granted a privilege to organize the weekly markets on Sundays and two yearly fairs on the day of St Catherine and on Palm Sunday. The privilege ordered, under the treat of fine, the citizens of Dolny Kubin built only nice and neat houses, repaired the public hospital and the school. The sovereign Ferdinand II granted a new privilege in 1633, permitting Dolny Kubin to organize in addition to the two existing fairs additional two free yearly fairs.
Second half of the 17C was a very turbulent period for Dolny Kubin. Uprising of the Hungarian nobles and devastation by the Polish – Lithuanian armies left behind a lot of damage. In attempt of the town economy recovery, the director of the Orava compossessorate George Erdody granted a privilege of toll collection for the Dolny Kubin ford use.
The sovereign Charles VI granted the last privilege to the town in 1712. It confirmed all the existing privileges without any change and permitted one more fair on Sunday. At the same time the citizens of Dolny Kubin were freed of paying tolls both on land and on water.
The town started to change more considerably after 1683, when the seat’s general and particular congregations were taking place here and after it was decided that it becomes the seat of the comitat. In 1726 the Orava Compossessorate provided the lot for the comitat house development. It was constructed of local stone.
For the period a very broad-minded rebuilding of the whole Dolny Kubin commenced after the fire in 1834. The fire regulations were tightened up. Despite this, another fire burst out in Dolny Kubin already in 1834. The comitat office, the Orava compossessorate and the town agreed upon total rebuilding of the right side of the square. The new re-plotting of the building lots allowed for the development of houses in the municipal type and thus the straight-lined square was obtained. Dolny Kubin gradually acquired the municipal appearance.

In the 19C Dolny Kubin was more and more getting into the awareness of the Slovaks. Several personalities influencing the development of the Slovak culture and education and playing a special role in the Slovak National Movement were born here or worked here. Without any doubt it was Janko Matuska, the author of the Slovak National Anthem lyric, the greatest Slovak poet Pavol Orszagh Hviezdoslav, Vavrinec Caplovic the well-known lover and collector of books, physician and writer Ladislav Nadasi Jege, Andrej Radlinsky – a priest and outstanding person in national movement and a number of other noted personalities.
The Society of the Caplovic´s Library in Dolny Kubin developed a noted activity at the beginning of the second half of the 19C. It was concentrated not only on the use of the extensive library, but first of all, on the development of the regional research of Orava, Turiec and Liptov, being very remarkable at the time.
The leading representatives of the Slovak intelligentsia established the society called Matica Slovenska. Dolny Kubin actively contributed to its work. The intensive national life did not calm down even in the period of strong hungarianizing of the Slovaks. Slovak amateurish theatre performances were organized here as well as the amateurish Slovak singers group performed here.
The town continued to play the role of the Orava region cultural centre also after 1918. The Orava industry, a shareholders´ company, was a major company here. This company owned a sawmill, a mill and after 1919 an electric power station too. Construction of the water mains in the town started in 1931, as well as the, embankments of the river Orava were adapted and the square and streets were paved. The insufficient number of flats requested a construction of an 8-flats county house at the beginning of 1930s. The military barracks in Dolny Kubin changed their appearance in the second half of 1920s with the construction of the new brickwork buildings.
The more extensive building activities continued after 1945. New flats, public buildings and industrial factories were developed.
Period after 1960 became the significant period for Dolny Kubin. It resulted from the new territorial organization, when out of three counties in Orava – Namestovo, Trstena and Dolny Kubin just one was created with its seat in Dolny Kubin. After many years, Dolny Kubin again became the seat of all of Orava. In 1972 Dolny Kubin became the seat of district importance. In the given town-planning area it had 11,740 inhabitants and in its conurbation had 29,847 inhabitants. In those times Dolny Kubin counted among the towns with the lowest average age of its inhabitants.
The new period came for Dolny Kubin after 1989. The changed social – political conditions were reflected in this town too.
After the complex residential construction damping on the end of 1980s the town authorities concentrated their attention on the servicing facilities and the technical infrastructure development, as well as the activities directed both to the environmental improvement for the citizens and the pointing up of the Orava region centre character.
The ecumenical centre – the Roman Catholic church was implemented in the central part of the dwelling quarter Brezovec.
Adaptations on the Orava river stream were executed to improve the sport and leisure time activities of the citizens, as well as, the possibilities for the winter leisure activities were extended.

HISTORICAL MONUMENTS AND MEMORIAL PLACES IN THE TOWN

The oldest preserved records on the building and of arts monuments date back to the 14C. The development of the first gothic church in Dolny Kubin, enlarged in 1627 and in 1725 adapted in baroque style relate to this century too. The square in Dolny Kubin is its basic town-planning medieval monument. Although it developed gradually and in the medieval times its extent and appearance were not like today. By the 17C it was characterised with its wooden houses. The wooden houses construction continued later on too, but the municipal privileges of the 17C, markets, fairs, tolls and the Orava Comitat transfer from Velicna to Dolny Kubin after 1683 necessitated the stone houses development, first of all, in the centre of the square. Some of them, rebuilt, remained preserved until today.
The county house was constructed in the last third of the 17C, in 1758 interconnected it with the neighbouring house it was enlarged and later another floor was added and the facade was changed into its today looks of the three storey building with an arcade yard. Its function is pointed up by the 18C relief polychrome sandstone comitat coat-of-arms located between the first and the second floor on the new-baroque facade from 1896.
The construction activities on the end of the 18C and the beginning of the 19C called for the activities of craftsmen, especially bricklayers in Dolny Kubin too. This period showed building activities also in the present suburbs of Dolny Kubin. In the closest one – Zaskalie, the two - storey stone building from the first half of the 18C located next to the houses No 16 and 17 remained preserved. In the nearby Mokrad, the new owner Abaffy rebuilt in baroque style a chapel and built it in into the renaissance manor house and in Knaza a brick baroque church was built on the hill above the village instead of an older wooden church.
A latter, already in empire style, is the manor house from the first third of the 19C in Maly Bysterc. It is a single storey building with a central porticus having a balcony with a stone balustrade. A number of 19C folk houses remained preserved in Dolny Kubin until recently. Remarkable is the renovated dyer´s house in Kohutov Public Gardens (Kohutov sad) where the worker in the fields of culture T.H.Florin used to live.
A Roman-Catholic parish church was built in 1880s on the foundations of the first church in Dolny Kubin. The workshop Slovak Arts (Slovenske umenie) painted up and restored its interior in 1939. The drawings by Edmund Maszanyi date back to the same year. The epitaph of Job Zmeskal and his wife, born Szent-Ivanyi, is from 1622 and the painting of St Catherine is from 1764.
The Lutheran church was built between 1893 and 1894 on the site of a church destroyed by fire. Anton Bodnar painted the church up in 1934 according to the design made by Jan Hala.
The number of buildings in monumental and functional architecture was increased in 1888 by a building for the commercial school and in 1906 by a building for the Caplovic Library.
And not to forget to mention the memorial to Hviezdoslav placed in front of the Caplovic Library building. Frano Stefunko created the statue. In addition to the statue, four stone ashlars with relief decoration, inscriptions and texts are placed on the simple base. Opposite is the house, where the poet lived and worked for more than twenty years until his death, after he moved here from Namestovo.
A number of memorial plaques are dedicated to the victims of the wars. From other plaques we learn, that noted personalities of the Slovak cultural life were born here or worked here.
As well as the National Cemetery in Martin, the cemetery in Dolny Kubin is gradually becoming a national one within the regional frames. The meaning of several of the personalities buried here crossed over the narrow regional frames and they are of the nation-wide importance. The cemetery was acquiring its today character gradually. It started to become well-known since 1866, after the body of Leopold Bruck was buried here, in 1877 it was Janko Matuska, later Baltazar Demien, Samuel Novak and especially after 1921, when the body of the greatest Slovak poet Pavol Orszagh Hviezdoslav found its rest here. In the following years the bodies of other Orava personalities, writers, organizers of the cultural life in Orava were buried here.

MUSEUM OF P. O. HVIEZDOSLAV

The poet´s material hereditaments donated by his wife Ilona Orszaghova, born Novakova, to the Caplovic library became the basis for the museum founding. Despite the effort used, the regular museum was not established until the nation-wide celebrations commemorating the 25th anniversary of the poet´s death (in 1946), when the issue of the museum was very concretely discussed. The museum was inaugurated in the rooms on the first floor of the Caplovic library building on November 13, 1954. Since then, several adaptations were made. Hundreds of thousands of visitors, mainly students visited the museum.

ORAVA GALLERY

It was established in 1965. First it was seated in Oravsky Podzamok, since 1970 it is in Dolny Kubin. In the first years of its existence it was organizing temporary exhibitions of the painters´ works of arts concentrated on familiarisation of the visitors with the Slovak painters´ works of the 19C and 20C. In 1971 a naive arts exhibition was established on the Slanica Island (Orava Dam) and in 1973 an exhibition of folklore stone works. In 1979 another detach exhibition of the Orava Gallery was created – the Gallery of Maria Medvecka in Tvrdosin. It offers the summary of the life and the works of art of this national artist painter. Creating favourable conditions for the activities of this institution, the former county house renovation completing was a significant milestone in the Orava Gallery activities.

CAPLOVIC LIBRARY

Regional allowance organization
Founder: Žilina Municipality
Regional gallery with a scope of action for the Žilina Municipality was established in 1965 and is based at the 17th century County Building, Hviezdoslavovo Square in Dolný Kubín, which is both management and exhibition center of the Gallery. With its collection of 7 472 pieces (as of 31 December 2006) of art works of eight art disciplines the Gallery belongs to the most significant public galleries in Slovakia.

One part of acquisition activities is focused on Slovak folk and naive art while the other part includes the Art of the 15th thru 19th centuries (Middle Age table paintings and plastic art, Baroque art, and icons) and 20th century professional art (mainly works by the Founders Generation, Generation 1909, interwar art, and the Galanda Group).
Besides permanent exhibitions in Dolný Kubín County Building (15th - 19th Century Art, Icons, 20th Century Slovak Art, Traditional Folk Art – Selection, Mária Medvecká – Orava Artist), the institution also organizes current short-term exhibitions in four exhibiting halls.
Besides Dolný Kubín, the Orava Gallery operates two more permanent exhibitions: Traditional Folk Art on Slanický Art Island at the Orava Dam and Mária Medvecká Gallery in Tvrdošín.

County Building – history

- Center of exhibition activities and management

A two-floor, brick and Baroque-style building built at the end of the 17th century with a central arcadian yard, which was a seat of Orava county in the past. The front side of the building is designed in Neo Baroque style of the year 1896. Between the first and the second floor, right above the main entrance, is a relief polychrome and sandstone coat of arms of the Orava county of the 18th century. Entrance into the building is through a two-wing semicircular gate followed by an underpass tunnel with a wagon vault that leads to a main courtyard and basement areas that were used as prison in the past. The building can be found at Hviezdoslavovo námestie as a part of Dolný Kubín historical center.