In 1952, Abbot Theodore Kojis (shown in the center of the photograph above) founded the Slovak Institute at St. Andrew Svorad Abbey in Cleveland. The Institute was primarily organized to be a Matica Slovenska abroad and provide a place for Slovak authors, historians and other intellectuals, who had fled communist Czechoslovakia, to continue their literary and cultural work here in America. Also shown in this photograph (from left to right) are the other five original members of the Institute: Fr. Andrew Pier (who later became the Institute's third Director), Dr. Karl Strmen, Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky (the Institute's first Director), Dr. Joseph Cincek (one of the four 1936 delegates to Cleveland), and Fr. Mikolas Sprinc. | Source: Slovak InstituteDownload Original File
