Albert T. Belay (born May 24, 1925) is a Gottschee German cultural activist in New York City.[1]

Belay was born in Livold (German: Lienfeld), Slovenia.[1][2] He left the Gottschee region as a teenager, becoming a displaced person in Austria after the Second World War,[3] and then emigrated to the United States in 1951, where he worked as a civil engineer.[2][4] He married a fellow Gottschee refugee, Therese Erker, in 1953.[2] Belay served as the president of the 1960 Gottscheer Volksfest in New York[4] and headed the cultural committee of the Gottscheer Relief Association for many years.[4] He is also the chairman of the Gottschee German Men's Choir in New York.[2][5][6]

Belay authored the cookbook Hoimischai Khöscht (Home-Style Fare), containing 155 traditional Gottschee German recipes,[2][7] and narrated the five-part CD series Eine Reise durch Gottschee 1936 (A Journey through Gottschee, 1936).[8] His son, the Late Roland Belay 1955 - 2020, was a member of the board of Gottscheer Central Holding, which runs Gottscheer Hall in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens, New York City.[9]

Bibliography

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  • Albert Belay. 1993. Hoimischai Khöscht = Heimische Kost: Küchenrezepte aus Gottschee. New York: Author.
  • Albert Belay, narrator. 2015. Eine Reise durch Gottschee 1936 (five-part CD set).

References

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  1. ^ a b Ferenc, Mitja; Zupan, Gojko (2012). Izgubljene kočevske vasi, vol. 2 (K–P). Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani. p. 104.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Ing. Albert Belay – Gottscheer Ehrenringträger" (PDF). Gottscheer Gedenkstätte. 52 (2): 14. April 2015. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  3. ^ Gross, Daniel A. (July 14, 2015). "An Attempt to Keep the Dying Gottschee Culture Very Much Alive". Smithsonian. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Petschauer, Erich (1984). "Das Jahrhundertbuch": Gottschee and Its People Through the Centuries. New York: Gottscheer Relief Association. pp. 152–156.
  5. ^ "116. Frühlingskonzert der Gottscheer Chöre" (PDF). Gottscheer Gedenkstätte. 53 (3): 7. June 2016. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  6. ^ 60th German-American Steuben Parade: Official Line-Up Book (PDF). New York: German-American Committee of Greater New York. 2017. p. 19. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  7. ^ Belay, Albert (1993). Hoimischai Khöscht = Heimische Kost: Küchenrezepte aus Gottschee. New York: Author.
  8. ^ Leustik, Hermann. "Audio-visuelle Medien über Gottschee". Gottscheer Medien Digital. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  9. ^ Grieco, Sue (August 9, 2017). "Keeping Alive a Heritage Nearly Destroyed by War". LI Herald. Retrieved February 11, 2018.