I think I can also safely say that years of branding efforts paid off, because I received no less than 5 gifts/cards that had something to do with corgis. Jupi meeting the walking corgi balloon was a definite highlight!

I hope this will be inspiration for all my fellow PhD travelers - I can genuinely say that I had so much fun not only with the celebrations afterward, but also at the defense itself. It turns out that when you devote yourself to something for almost 7 years, you are indeed prepared to talk about it!

(See, pseudohistory, I can do it too! But I think it could work, it’s like how every single Jewish holiday food is symbolic on 7 levels, god forbid we should eat something that isn’t fried at a Hanukkah party)

Traditionally, #feastoftheass bundts have incorporated a sharp or sour fruit or berry into the mix - like red currant and lemon - to mark the bitterness of the order forcing Jesus & fam out of Bethlehem; the sweetness of the Bundt celebrates the ass’ lovely character ❤️

The political insistence on building this statue — and the reluctance to make it present what has been historically attested about Svätopluk — reflect, in our analysis, the slow joy linked to this mythologized version of him that has emerged over the last two centuries./fin!

He wasn't connected to anything *Slovak* as such, but Slovak leaders since the 19th century have articulated him as a great Slovak, linking him with national pride. This takes place in public; we chose Svätopluk because of his statue at Bratislava castle, which was the center of a huge scandal.

Medievalist pseudohistories are particularly salient examples, because while they may center an individual from the past, the general lack of historical documentation leaves a lot of room for, let’s say, character development. We explored this through King Svätopluk I of Great Moravia, 871-894.

Over time, sustained engagement with pseudohistorical narratives of national greatness builds what we call ‘slow joy’, or a gradual accumulation of positive emotions linked to the subject of the narrative.

My colleagues Jonáš Syrovátka and @Zea Szebeni and I studied pseudohistory, and pseudohistory's role in nation-building. We argued that a pseudohistorical narrative emerges through a long term process, rather than reflecting a single character or event from the past.

We took part in a special issue of the Slovenský národopis/Slovak Ethnology journal on 'slow memory' (check out @slowmemo.bsky.social). Memory studies tends to focus on how specific events/characters resonate now, while slow memory looks at past events that occurred gradually, over a long time.