Pavel Jozef Šafárik

Pavel Jozef Šafárik was born in May 13, 1795 in Kobeliarovo, Slovakia. Elementary school education got from his father, furhter he studied in lower high school in Rožňava (1805-1808) and in Dobšina (1808-1810), and after that evangelical lycee he finished in Kežmarok (1810-1814). Over there he met Polish, Serbian and Ukrainien students which affected his poetic creation. For one whole year he was tutor in family of D. Goldberg in Kežmarok and in the years 1815 to 1817 he studied in University of Jena classical languages, history, philosophy and natural science.

After two years long tutor work in family of G. Kubíni in Bratislava, he became in the year 1818 a principal of Eastern Orthodox high school in Novi Sad, where (later only as a professor) he worked until the year 1833. Together with Michal Godra and Juraj Rohoň in the year 1829 he established in Gložan the reading community Sociatas slavica, which, however, after Rohoň’s death (October 22, 1831), Godra’s departure to Pest (October 27, 1831) and Šafárik’s departure to Prague (April 6, 1833) ceased to exist. In the years 1833-1860 he worked in Prague as an editor of the magazine “Svetozor” and magazine of Czech museum, later as a book censor and custodian and director of University library and an associate professor of Slavic philology in the University over there.

He died in June 26, 1861 in Prague. – He published in Latin language poem Ode festiva [….], Andream Marjassy [….] (1814). Together with Ján Kollár he published anthology World poems of Slovak people in Hungary 1, 2 (1823, 1827). His Silver writings 1-3 were published in Prague in the years 1862, 1862 and 1865, while his poetic work in books Poems of Pavel Jozef Šafárik and František Palacký was published in the year 1889. In the scope of Writings in the year 1938 were published only his Poetic writings, while the Slovak translation of his only collection in Czech language was published under the title Tatra’s muse with Slavic lyre (1896 translated by Ľubomír Feldek). In the year 2005 in Bratislava again was published his Poetic work. During his life were published seventeen books with Slavic thematic in Czech, German and Latin language. His writings started again to be published in the year 1961 in Slovakia, while in Serbia in the year 2005 was published in edition of “Matica Srpska” in Novi Sad (in translation from the manuscript) his history of Serbian literature, originally written in German language.