Peter Rovnianek: Financier, Nationalist… Grifter?
Abstract
After America’s Civil War, the influx of immigrants into the Atlantic ports more than doubled in the year 1900. Among these newcomers to American shores, Slovaks counted for such numbers that the 1910 census no longer labeled them as “Hungarians” or “Austrians.” The Slovak population joined many Slovak societies and fraternal insurance companies while reading Slovak English and Slovak-language newspapers and bulletins. One of the men at the forefront of this movement was Peter Víťazoslav Rovnianek. As a successful financier and banker, he amassed a fortune that allowed him to create newspapers and published Slovak nationalist works. However, as he was also relying on the sparse savings of Slovak immigrants for his financial endeavors, his bankruptcy not only affected him, but a large portion of Slovak immigrants in America. He even resorted to the notoriously inefficient method of regaining wealth: gold prospecting in California. In death, Slovaks and Slovak Americans often remember him as a gleaming light of Slovak nationalism and financial success. Yet, this is far from the truth. As much of the historiography surrounding Peter V. Rovnianek lionizes his nationalism and publishing in America, this article aims to provide an honest overview of his financial and literary work to discern if he was a failed financier who made bad fiscal decisions, or if he was a grifter stealing from his fellow immigrants to fund his National Slovak Society and his lifestyle before his fall from grace.
Journal eISSN: 2332-0419
Language: English
Published on: Sep 30, 2023
Published by: Pi Gamma Mu
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2023 Benjamin Sorensen, published by Pi Gamma Mu
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.