The story
Jánošíkove dni in Terchová
Janosikove dni, or Janosik Days, is an international folklore festival in Terchova held each July or August since the early 1960s, gaining international character from 1991. Named for local folk hero Juraj Janosik, born in Terchova in 1688, it centers on the Amphitheatre Nad Bormi and Vratna dolina valley, drawing a record 82,000 visitors in 2018.
Terchova is a small village in northern Slovakia's Zilina region, tucked beneath the Mala Fatra mountains, but it carries an outsized place in Slovak national folklore as the birthplace of Juraj Janosik, an early-eighteenth-century highwayman executed in 1713 whose legend, of robbing the rich to help the poor, has made him one of the country's most enduring folk heroes.