SLOVAK NATIONAL LIBRARY

On May 25, 2024, the discoverer of seven new dinosaurs, Martin Kundrát, and the first Slovak astronaut, Ivan Bella, will be guests at the Slovak National Library. We will look back into the past, when our oceans, land and air were inhabited by dinosaurs, and we will try to find the answer to whether their destruction could really have come from outer space. And there's one alive that's going to be wlaking and roaring around the library :-)

The work of the Slovak scientist, paleontologist doc. RNDr. Martin Kundrát, Ph.D. was presented in various TV news. He is considered to be an expert in the world and as a consultant he is invited by his colleagues to many expert cases. For example, he discovered the youngest specimen of Archeopteryx, two new pterosaurs - one of which is the largest flying reptile of South America. He found several dinosaur embryos as well as the first feathers of polar dinosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous of Australia. After years spent abroad on studies and expeditions, he returned home to Slovakia and works at the Center for Interdisciplinary Sciences at UPJŠ in Košice - teaching subjects such as Human Evolution, Paleozoology, etc. He studies the evolution of dinosaurs - he spends several months of the year in more or less friendly outdoor expeditions. He cooperates with several universities around the world. He is one of the pioneers in the use of computed tomography methods in paleobiology.
 
Foto: archive M. Kundrat

We will discuss to astronaut Ivan Bella about whether some of the many free-flying "rocks" in space could have really wiped out the dinosaurs. And we remember the 25th anniversary of his flight. On February 20, 1999, he got up in the morning, put on his spacesuit, unlocked the rocket and at 5:17 a.m. he set out to meet the greatest adventure of his life – a six-day scientific and medical space mission.

Visitors will be able to look into personal library of Andrej Kmeť (the so-called Kmetiana) in DIKDA - the digital library of SNK. Our polyhistor was also an archaeologist and the founder of  the Slovak paleontology. A Roman Catholic priest, despite the fact that he did not have a professional education in this field, he systematically devoted himself to archeology. He earned the nickname "Slovak Schliemann" at that time. He excavated and saved the mammoth from Beš (village) and thus laid the foundations of Slovak paleontology.

This day will also be full of other activities for all ages. The main attraction will be a "live" 4m tall dinosaur that will move and roar around the library. Modern technologies of the 21st century will allow us to stroke the baby dinosaur, feed it and hear its calls. Recent participants of the world championships in LEGO® robotics from Kockovňa Team will come to show robotic dinosaurs, which they program to follow different commands. And there will be other Mesozoic and Tertiary attractions or virtual reality, sales of books, science kits and toys, and creative workshops will be prepared for the little ones.

We will see you on May 25, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the headquarters building of the Slovak National Library.