The author devoted her study to íhe process that lead to the conclusion that certaln types offood can be considered an ethic feature of a nation. As an example she chose the Slovák nationalfood, Bryndz halušky (a type of roundpasta dumpling with goats cheese). In the first part she explains the origin and genesis of the basic ingredients for this food and its sociál and geographic correlation. Another part is devoted to an evaluation of relevant materiál from ethnographic, historical and cultural sources. She points out that the adjective Slovák or national was applied to a wide range offood and drink in the 19th and beginning of the ťwentieth century and that Bryndz halušky were first labelled the
Slovák national dish by Czech author B. Němcová, Later the author devotes attention to the self-identijication of Slovaks after the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 from a point ofview limited to national cuisine. She explains why the nationalfood ofSlovakia,
as one of its ethnic symbols, has its origins in the culture and traditions of the Carpathian mountain region. Further examples are given from the area of Slovák national art. In concluding the study, the author States that the process, by which a food, originally
a regional speciality associated with a specific sociál group, came to be presented as a national food, is not unique in Europe. On the contrary it is quite common and in most cases dosely linked with the forming of the national consciousness.
Social memory embodied in symbolic stories, passed on within the society, take part in determination of the understanding of present time, because it lays normative claims to the society and shows a formative power. The structuration of time that we find in autobiographical stories reflects the understanding of history, and its present interpretation. The autobiographies don't employ only the individual time, but there appears also a social dimension of life. The individual „breaking points“ that emerge in the embodiement of the past not only divide quantitatively the differently experienced time periods, but they also indicate the existence of diffferent „communities of shared memory“. The text deals with the situation in the village Stonava in the Czech part of Ciezsyn Silesia. Just here we find the highest number of Polish victims of the Czechoslovak-Polish armed conflict of January 1919 that died in one village. The remembrance of this event or its forgetting, as well as placing these events to the broader interpretative frame, serves as a device to understand the structuration of the inhabitants of Stonava based on different foundation than simply the national identification or political preferences.