Village Chronicle
Chronicle of the village of Bystričany – a valuable historical document
Among the most important archival documents in the village of Bystričany is the village chronicle. The mission of the chronicle is to preserve and protect the cultural, historical and social heritage of the village, preserving essential information of general importance for the needs of current and future generations. The chronicle contributes to the development of historical and cultural and social awareness of the village residents and to a suitable presentation of the life of the village of Bystričany and its parts Vieska and Chalmová, within a broader social context.
The task of the chronicle is to record, factually, chronologically, in writing and with images, all significant facts of general importance on the basis of continuously obtained and undistortedly processed data from public and social life, municipal self-government, political, economic, cultural, sports, social and other events in the village. It also includes events in education, healthcare, church life, weather information and the most important news from the world. The details of the processing and the richness of information are also evidenced by the fact that the third book, kept by the third chronicler, has already been written in our village.
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The village of Bystričany has had its chronicle since 1957.
The first municipal chronicler was František Radosa (Jožkeje). After him, in 1990, the chronicler of the time was Mrs. Helena Kmeťová , née Ziaťková, a school daycare teacher at the local elementary school. She carried out her chronicler activity for twenty years and ended it in 2010. In January 2011, the Municipal Council in Bystričany approved the appointment of Mrs. Ing. Mária Kollárová , née Školnová, as the municipal chronicler at its meeting. She devoted herself to keeping the municipal chronicle for ten years, until the end of 2020.
The chronicle records are handwritten, in cursive script, in three large, hardcover volumes. Volume I records records from 1957 to 1997. Volume II from 1998 to 2012, and Volume III from 1993 to the present.
Part of the municipal chronicle is accompanying documentation - photographs, albums, documents, newspaper clippings.
We are grateful to all those who have devoted a lot of time in the past to obtaining and collecting information, recording events, and writing chronicles by hand, thus leaving us with a huge source of information about life in our village.
The long-term efforts to collect knowledge, information, records, materials, photo documentation, recording of deeds and events from the past and present were put into literary form by the former pedagogical and educational worker and former chronicler, Mrs. Helena Kmeťová. With the active help of the mayor of the village at that time, Ján Šnirec, and the director of the Upper Nitra Museum in Prievidza, PhDr. Iveta Géczyová, she contributed with her chronicler work to the creation of the historically first publication about the village entitled "Bystričany - Events in the Village from the Beginnings" , which was published in 2010 in a print run of one thousand copies. This book publication with a diverse range of images has served the needs of not only the current generation for years, but we believe that it will also serve future generations.
The chronicle is stored at our municipal office and is made available to every reader in person after a pre-arranged appointment.
We wish all readers a pleasant time "browsing" it, and let us not forget that only if we know our past can we understand our present.