Dušan Mikolaj
At the end of the 1930s, Karol Guleja came to the village of Dlhé Pole as a young teacher. At that time Dlhé Pole was one of the most significant areas in former Drotária – a region with more than fifty villages across the Podjavorina and Kysuce sub-regions, a cradle of wire craft masters. It did not take too long to Karol Guleja to grasp the significance and meaning of wire craft. He met, and talked with, a number of legendary craftsmen involved in wire craft, finding, in their houses, masterpieces made of wire, testimonies to these masters’ life and work outside our lands, their distinct clothing, as well as things brought from abroad, including foreign banknotes. These all document successes and skills of the craftsmen who made use of their knowledge and skills far beyond Slovakia’s borders. Helped by other enthusiasts, he gathered a great number of artefacts and so, on 5th July 1940, it was possible, on the premises of newly opened school in Dlhé Pole, to launch an exhibition devoted to wire art and relevant ethnographic resources. Exactly two years after that, these artefacts became the basis for the Wire Art Museum and form, up to the present day, an integral part of today’s collections of the Považie Museum.