By SHANNON O. WELLS
James Stevko, a professional dancer and actor who lives in Jersey City across the Hudson River from the Big Apple, may be one of the Pitt Slovak Studies program’s less traditional students, but is among its most emphatic supporters.
He found the immersive language and culture program in the University’s Slavic Languages & Literatures department, related to Pitt’s Summer Language Institute, through his quest to obtain dual citizenship for the U.S. and Slovakia, where Stevko’s great-grandfather was raised in a small village.
“I grew up interested in heritage. For reasons unknown, I just always found it mysterious and interesting,” he said of “these other lands” he didn't know about. “So there's always been that intrigue.”
In the early stages of the COVID pandemic, Stevko became aware of a social media effort to lobby those with Slovakian roots in the U.S. to restore a dual-citizenship pathway that had been repealed decades ago.
“They started creating a bunch of Facebook groups to concentrate on Slovaks living abroad or people with Slovak roots, so that's really how this whole process came to me,” he said, noting that the dual-citizenship prohibition was repealed in early 2023. “I, of course, had been aware of my Slovak roots before that, and had been investigating.”
Armed with information about his family's history, including the name of his great-grandfather’s native village, Stevko came across a potentially easier — and fulfilling — pathway to dual citizenship.
“I don't want to jinx myself, but it was through those groups that I saw postings about the Summer Language Institute and the program they call ‘Slovak at Pitt,’ because they also offer a year-round (experience),” he said.
Once he realized an enriching way to fulfill the dual-citizenship “cultural awareness” requirement, Stevko had something of a eureka! moment.
“I thought this is a perfect opportunity for me,” he said. “I thought (it) was obviously a perfect choice because it's the only Slovak program in the U.S. and I've always loved languages and I've always wanted to study something intensely.”
And that’s what the SLI has strived to offer — in 10 languages, including Slovak — for the past 20 years. In the summer of 2022, Stevko studied Slovak for six weeks online, and another four at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.
“It's all summer long, six hours a day,” he said. “You're studying language, which you just can't find anywhere else (for) someone who's trying to learn a language and speak it, not just well, but preferably fluently — although that's going to take some time. It's so necessary to put in all those hours and get all the experience that I did.”
As each weekday wound down, the focus would shift to cultural experiences. “It did really add to the experience, because at the end of the day I am trying to learn about the country and the people and the history,” Stevko said. “And it also helps give context for the language, so we also had that included in the lesson plan.
“When we went to Slovakia, we did more things in person, like learn some Slovak music, folk tunes, pop music,” he added. “They had little parties where we had so much food and we danced with live music. It was enjoyable.”
Finding family
Renáta Kamenárová, teaching assistant professor and Slovak Studies director in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, said Stevko is among a cadre of Slovak language students who want to reconnect with family — including spouses — abroad, explore their ancestral roots, or perhaps for professional reasons.
The main difference is that many folks in that category are retired. “(We’ve had) a lot of people in like 55-plus or 60-plus, who started research about genealogy and their roots and going and traveling because they have more time,” she noted, “and it's not easy for someone … to work and have 10 weeks off from work, or even six weeks. (Stevko’s) story is unique because professionally he probably is more free in the summer.”
In addition to his familial inspiration and Pitt’s innovative offerings, Stevko credited a non-traditional career for accommodating his Slovak immersion.
“I consider myself very lucky to have been able to do this, partly due to the fact that I am a performer. Because I don't think there are many people who can just set aside 10 weeks and stop working,” he said, adding he sometimes has the option of being off between performances. “And that worked out in my favor. And yeah, I consider myself very lucky for that. If I had been in any other field, this potentially might not have been possible.”
In addition to his passion for Slovakian language and culture, Kamenárová said she appreciates Stevko’s unofficial public relations work on behalf of the program and the SLI.
“He's very outgoing,” she said, noting that Stevko contacted several Slovakian newspapers to set up interviews regarding his experiences with the Pitt program. “Now people are more aware. There are some Americans with Slovak roots trying to reconnect and find their family, because it's more important for Americans to find their roots and find out where their ancestors came from, than for Slovak people, because they live there …
“There people don't move as much,” she added, “so they know their family history at least several generations back, so the desire is not there.”
Stevko, she added, is a “young person with a great story. I mean, he’s a dancer from New York, so it's a popular or interesting story for people to get interested in more and learn more about those kinds of people trying to get the Slovak citizenship or the certificate of Slovak living abroad.”
Steel City connection
Kamenárová, who has taught Slovak as a second language for 20 years, finds inspiration in researching Pittsburgh’s rich Slovak heritage, which continues to be celebrated.
In June 2023, Radovan Javorčík, the Slovakian ambassador to the United States, visited Oakland to tour the Cathedral of Learning’s Czechoslovakia Room. Javorčík told the Pitt News that Pitt is the only American university to offer a dedicated Slovak studies program.
“Obviously, the Slovak faculty and Slovak program is the core of our presence here and in Pittsburgh,” he said. “It’s natural because Pittsburgh has so many immigrants (from Slovakia).”
The link between Pittsburgh and Slovakia was codified in 1918, when Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Czechoslovakia’s first president, visited the Steel City. He signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, a memorandum of understanding between Czech and Slovak expatriate communities in the U.S. at the Loyal Order of Moose Building on Penn Avenue, according to the Brookline Connection historical archive.
The Memorial Day holiday that year saw many Czech and Slovak ex-pats residing in Pittsburgh visiting downtown to celebrate Masaryk’s arrival. Nine years later, Masaryk wrote a letter to Pitt students that’s displayed in the Czechoslovakia Nationality Room, along with what Kamenárová called the “huge portrait” of Masaryk.
“I have been teaching Slovak as a second language for 20 years, focusing on language and teaching the language, but here it offers (an opportunity) to do some research on the history,” Kamenárová said. “I see as my mission because (Pittsburgh) and the history related to Pittsburgh is important for Slovak history itself.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.