Ministry of Defence launches 16th MOD Literary Competition, winners to receive cash prizes

The Ministry of Defence has launched the 16th Literary Competition open to secondary school, college and university students, with this year’s theme: “What is the price of peace?” The deadline for sending the literary entries is 22 November 2020. The creative writing contest is organised by the Defence Magazine Editorial Staff.

Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď said: “The young generation is our future. That’s why we are sincerely interested in our students’ opinions on the issues related to the Ministry of Defence and our country’s defence and security. We try motivate them to remain interested in Defence by different ways. One of them is the MOD Literary Competition, the 16th edition of which puts the value of peace at its core. I myself am very much looking forward to the competitive entries on this theme.”

Entrants are expected to write their writing samples as a story or an essay. The submissions must be in between 1,000 to 5,000 letters in length, including spaces. The texts must be typed and submitted as DOC, DOCX, ODT or PDF documents. Entries should be forwarded to sutaz@mod.gov.sk along with your personal information (name and surname, address, school name, age and telephone number) and a written statement consenting to the processing of personal data in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). More information on the competition rules can be found on the SVK MOD website at www.mosr.sk/sutaz-2020/.

The MOD jury will select 5 best competitive entries in each category. These will be published on the MOD’s Facebook for an online vote between 1 and 6 December 2020. The public will decide the winning entries through Facebook “likes”. The results of the writing contest will be announced on 8 December 2020. The first three winners of each category will receive cash prizes – €500 (1st place), €400 (2nd place), and €300 (3rd place). The prizes will be presented to the winners by Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď. The winning entries will be published in the MOD’s Defence monthly magazine.