As seen in The Slovak Spectator

When New York-based dancer and actor James Monroe Števko, 36, picked up a family photo album one day, he had no idea he was beginning a twelve-year journey uncovering his family’s roots that would end up with him applying for citizenship of a small country thousands of miles away.

Leafing through the pictures, he came across a small card.

“I think it was a military draft document. It had my great-grandfather’s name and it said Rovňany, Czechoslovakia,” Števko recalls.

He found out that the village was in southern Slovakia near Poltár.

As he later found out, this was where his great-grandfather, Martin Eliáš Števko, had been born before he emigrated to the USA. It was there that he met his wife, who herself coincidentally had Slovak roots, sometime around 1914.

Intrigued by his discovery, while in Prague in 2012 for a few months, Števko went to visit a Slovak friend from New York who happened to be home at the same time. The pair decided to take a road trip and with his family’s history still very much in his thoughts, they made sure they included a stop in Rovňany.

There, after asking around, locals guided them to a house where a family bearing the name Števko lived. The current owner listened carefully as the American told, his friend interpreting his words, the story of his family’s roots and whether the man was a distant relative of his great-grandfather.

The man listened, but was unable to help. He called around the village to see if anyone else knew anything about a Martin Eliáš Števko. One by one, people gathered at the house as Števko, again using his friend as an interpreter, retold his story.

But none of them could help either.

A picture Števko had with him was ultimately of no use either - Števko learned only this year that the photo he had was not actually of his great-grandfather but another member of his family.

However, while the people who heard his story said they could not help him, they pointed him in the direction of someone they thought might be able to. Local man Milan Marcik, who has since passed away, had some records of local births and marriages stretching back for years. “This man had his finger on the pulse of everything in the village,” says Števko. As they age, Americans’ desire to reconnect with Slovakia grows

  Marcik agreed to do some research for Števko and it was not too long after he was back in New York that Števko received an email from Marcik with the outline of a potted family history of Števko’s ancestors.

It was then that Števko decided to explore more of his family history – he says among family members there had never been much awareness of their Slovak roots – and the traditions of the country, even going as far as to take a course in Slovak at the University of Pittsburgh.

Then, in February 2022, changes to Slovak laws on citizenship gave Števko the chance to form a much deeper bond with the land of his great-grandfather.

Amendments were passed to Slovakia’s Citizenship Act which, among others, made it easier for descendants of Slovak migrants to gain Slovak citizenship.

The amended legislation states that a person may be granted citizenship of the Slovak Republic without fulfilling the usual condition of continuous permanent residence if they are not a citizen of the Slovak Republic and at least one of their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents was a Czechoslovak citizen born on the territory of the Slovak Republic, provided that they have permission to stay in the territory of the Slovak Republic.

The Interior Ministry told The Slovak Spectator that between April 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 only two people were granted citizenship on these grounds - a US citizen and Czech citizen.

The Interior Ministry admits that the application process, which includes providing documentary proof of an applicant’s descent from a person of Slovak origin and that the relevant grandparent/great-grandparent was a Czechoslovak citizen, is demanding.

“Submitting an application for this exception [to obtain citizenship by descent] is, in terms of time and finance, more demanding for the applicant – [as they have] to obtain relevant birth certificates and documents on Czechoslovak citizenship and at the same time register for residence in the Slovak Republic at the relevant department of the foreign police (EU citizens) or through an embassy (citizens of third countries),” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Števko began collecting the documents he needs to make his citizenship application six months ago.

He says the most difficult part has not been providing the documentation related to himself that Slovak authorities need for his application, such as proof of a clean criminal record, and of employment and health insurance, but getting evidence of his great-grandfather’s Slovak origins.

He got in touch with officials in Slovakia and after several months of communication, staff at the Registry Office in Lučenec told him they had found a record of his great-grandfather’s birth.

“Based on this, they are creating a birth certificate for him. I do not think my great-grandfather had one,” Števko says.

Once he has this certificate, Števko says he will be ready to submit his citizenship application at the Slovak consulate in New York. He will then wait for the Interior Ministry to check the documents, and if there are no problems, he will then be invited for an interview with officials. When asked what could have made the application process easier, he replies jokingly: “If I’d paid someone to do it for me.”

“I think I did pretty well just getting in touch with the registry office in Lučenec. It was the biggest step. Now it’s just paperwork, getting documents translated and getting an official stamp,” he adds.

But Števko points out that he was lucky he knew where his great grandfather originally came from thanks to the card in the photo album. He says his family had no idea of the name of the village.

“Many others aren’t that lucky, they have a surname but no location, which makes it hard to know where to start when they look into their ancestry,” he says, adding that he has heard of many people in a similar situation who want to apply for citizenship under the new law, but have little information on how to go about it.

While Facebook groups can help, he says, Števko has some advice for anyone looking to find out about their Slovak roots: Any information about ancestors can be useful - what church they belonged to, gossip from the town they came from can provide more information, and dates of births, deaths, marriages, baptisms might help in eventually finding the documents needed to prove descent.

Meanwhile, as he waits for his application to be processed, Števko has been in touch with the Slovak consulate in New York and attended several events organised by them and Slovaks living in the US.

He has also noticed that Slovak culture has had an impact on his work.

He mentions the Slovak language course he took, and how it also taught him about Slovak films, and national and folk culture, and says he also believes his ancestors’ artistic roots have played a part in his love of music.

“The one thing I heard about my great-grandfather was that he was a violinist,” Števko recalls.

“I have never seen any evidence to back it up, nobody knows whether it is true. But I think that the moment I was first told this was the moment I became interested in music. As a child I always loved music and that love just grew and grew and grew.”

And what would it mean for James Monroe Števko if his citizenship application were successful? “It would allow me to learn more about my background and hopefully to connect [with Slovakia] more,” he says. “I would also love the chance to work in Europe as an artist.”