Belgická vysťahovalecká epizóda člena rodu Sobola z Lalinka
Belgian Emigration Episode of the Sobola Family Member From Lalinok

Summary/Abstract: Permanent or temporary emigration was a phenomenon of Kysuce and Upper Považie Regions, especially at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. By far the most interesting destination chosen by the inhabitants of this region was the United States of America, a much smaller percentage at that time headed to German-speaking countries. The emigration wave peaked before World War I. Slovaks settled overseas mainly in industrial areas and worked mainly in the mining or metallurgical industry. Relatively rare emigration destinations were French-speaking countries, where skilled Slovaks found employment in other sectors as well. The specific case of Ján Sobola – Letko, a textile worker, born on 5th May 1865 in Lalinok in the Kysucké Nové Mesto district (today part of the municipality of Divinka in the Žilina district) sheds light on the individual story of an emigrant who obtained Belgian citizenship and married a Belgian woman, Julienne Vieuxtemps. He left the Kingdom of Hungary in 1880 due to lack of work and lived first in the Walloon Dinant, then in France, and in 1886 came back to Belgium. Ján and his wife had 3 children and settled in the city of Verviers in the Walloon region in the province of Liège, where the textile industry was developed at that time. Here he used only a shortened form of his surname, Letko, and this was adopted by his descendants living in the Kingdom of Belgium to this day.

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