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  • The Slovak Catholic Sokol Story: Recalling a Century of Fraternal Progress
  • Raymond J. Kupke
The Slovak Catholic Sokol Story: Recalling a Century of Fraternal Progress. Compiled and edited by Daniel F. Tanzone. (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovak Catholic Sokol. 2006. Pp. 181.)

In the late nineteenth century the Sokol movement arose among several ethnic minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Focusing on gymnastics and athletics in the Olympic model and utilizing the falcon (sokol) as a symbol, the movement sought to promote physical strength, moral integrity, and national consciousness in youth, preparing them to play a constructive role in society. As various Slavic peoples emigrated to the United States, the Sokol movement came with them. Catholic Slovaks, frustrated by the failure of the movement to [End Page 997] incorporate, or even acknowledge, a religious component in its programs, organized the Slovak Roman and Greek Catholic Gymnastic Union Sokol in Passaic, New Jersey on July 4, 1905. The group shortened its named to Slovak Catholic Sokol in 1933.

This book, issued to commemorate the centennial of the Slovak Catholic Sokol, is an effective chronicle and celebration of an ethnic fraternal group's century of existence. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 photographs, the volume faithfully reports, year by year, on the group's meetings, activities, dividends, contributions, prominent personalities, and connections to the wider Slovak world in America and Europe. The Slovak Catholic Sokol Story is less satisfying as a history. For example, there is little indication of the size or makeup of the organization. Membership is reported "at an all-time high of 51,684" in 1959 (p. 70). Thirty pages later, in 1987, it is reported that, "membership had fallen below 50,000 for the first time in its history" (p. 103). And that is the last mention of membership. We are given no idea whether the group is a vibrant survivor or a declining remnant of the age of American fraternalism. Likewise, there is little or no effort to place the group within the wider context of Slovak-American culture, fraternalism, Catholic youth ministry, or athletics. In too many cases, the reader has to rely on the photographs for a sense of where the group is today.

The Slovak Catholic Sokol Story will be of some interest to those concerned with the story of American ethnic fraternal groups, and, in particular, in the relationship of those groups with the newly-freed motherlands after the fall of Communism.

Raymond J. Kupke
Seton Hall University
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