Mária Potemrová

Ing. Mgr. Mária Potemrová was a Slovak musicologist, music publicist, editor, secondary school teacher, pianist, and manager. The focus of her professional and scholarly work was in regional historiography. She concentrated on her hometown of Košice, where she spent her entire life.

At the beginning of her career, Mária Potemrová worked as a piano teacher at the Municipal Music School in Košice, and after completing her studies in musicology in Bratislava, she taught music-theoretical subjects at the conservatory.

While supervising final theses, she directed the attention of conservatory graduates to the local history of musical culture in eastern Slovakia. From the best of these works, she compiled a 7-volume anthology titled Hudobný život východného Slovenska (Musical Life in Eastern Slovakia), which included profiles of eastern Slovak composers and performing artists, music and artistic ensembles, musical theatre, music education, and more.

At the Košice City Archive—rich in monuments of the city’s musical past—she found primary sources and inspiration for academic research. She published her findings in professional and scholarly journals and presented them at musicological conferences. She also prepared numerous entries on eastern Slovakia for the Československý hudební slovník (Czechoslovak Music Dictionary, 1963, 1965). She was a member of the editorial boards of Hudobný život (Musical Life) and Slovak Music, though her journalistic and critical articles appeared in other magazines and periodicals as well. In addition, she wrote the script for a six-part radio series titled Od histórie k dnešku (From History to the Present) in 1980, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Košice.

Mária Potemrová was the author of monographic and synthetic studies, including Dejiny Hudobnej školy v Košiciach (History of the Music School in Košice, 1955), the two-volume monograph Hudobný život v Košiciach v rokoch 1848 – 1918 (Musical Life in Košice from 1848 to 1918, 1981), and the study 60 rokov hudobného vysielania z rozhlasového štúdia Košice (60 Years of Music Broadcasting from the Košice Radio Studio, 1987). She explored the concert scene in studies such as Košická hudobná jar 1956 – 1975 (Košice Musical Spring 1956 – 1975) and Koncertný život v Prešove 1918 – 1945 (Concert Life in Prešov 1918 – 1945). She focused on musical theatre in Košice in the book 20 rokov Štátneho divadla v Košiciach (20 Years of the State Theatre in Košice, 1965) and the study História divadelníctva v Košiciach (History of Theatre in Košice, 1955).

She also dedicated several chapters to the development of musical art in the cities of Košice, Bardejov, Prešov, and Rožňava, where she researched the activities of various music institutions (associations, choirs) and concert and theatre life. She wrote studies on the lives and works of figures connected to eastern Slovakia (e.g., Oldřich Hemerka, Vojtěch Měrka), as well as the history of music education.

She was the organizer of numerous musical and musicological events in Košice. Mária Potemrová was a member of the Slovak Historical Society at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS), the Union of Czechoslovak Composers and Concert Artists, and in 1991, she co-founded the Nadácia Hemerkovcov (Hemerkovci Foundation) in Košice (now the Hudobná spoločnosť Hemerkovcov – Hemerkovci Music Society).

As part of her efforts to promote awareness of the musical history of Košice, Mária Potemrová initiated the installation of commemorative plaques for composers František Xaver Zomb and Oldřich Hemerka. She also advocated for the establishment of a SAS research center in Košice, although this initiative remained unrealized.