Famous Personalities is Slovak History
Ludovit Stur
* October 28, 1815 Uhrovec
† January 12, 1856 Modra
The most notable figure of the second half of the 19th century, a member of the Hungarian Diet, and codifier of the Slovak language in 1843, politician, linguist, teacher, writer, and a journalist.
Milan Rastislav Stefanik
* July 21, 1880, Košariská
† May 4, 1919, Vajnory – Bratislava
An astronomer (interests: observing the Sun eclipse); took part in several educational and experimental trips to Brazil, Tahiti, Algeria etc.; he climbed the Mont Blanc; a politician, General of the French army, organizer of the East Front legions, co-founder of the Czechoslovakia, the first Czechoslovak Minister of War. Stefanik died when his plane crashed on the way from France to Slovakia.
Alexander Dubcek
* November 27, 1921, Uhrovec
† November 7, 1992, Prague
A politician and a leading figure of the Prague Spring (1968).
An active participant of the Slovak National Uprising; a first secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS, 1963); a leading figure of the Prague Spring and the reform movement; was arrested and later in police custody after the Warsaw Pact armies entered Czechoslovakia in August 1968; worked as the State Forests employee. After the November 1989 events he returned to political life and became a member and a chairman of the Federal Assembly and a chairman of Slovak Social Democratic Party. He died in September 1992 from the injuries related to his car accident on D1 Highway (Brno – Prague).
Juraj Jánošík
* January 25, 1688, Terchová,
+ March 18, 1713, Liptovský Sv. Mikuláš
A Slovak national outlaw and a folk hero who robbed the rich to give to the poor.
The Robin Hood of Slovakia, Juraj Janosik was born to a poor family of peasants. Since his childhood he and his parents worked as serfs for the lord Jakub Lowensburg from Teplicka nad Vahom. When he was 18, he was recruited by the Kuruc army of Francis II. Rakoczi. After the Kuruc army suffered the defeat near Trencin in 1708, Janosik managed to escape. However, the Emperor’s soldiers soon captured Janosik and made him a guard of the Kuruc soldiers imprisoned at the Bytca Castle. There he befriended a Kuruc Tomas Uhorcik who is believed to have persuaded Janosik into an organized robbery of the rich. Both Janosik and Uhorcik managed to escape the Bytca Castle and Janosik eventually became a leader of a band of outlaws.
The band robbed the noblemen, merchants, and townsmen in Trencin, Orava, Liptov and Gemer-Malohont regions as well as in Poland, Silesia and Moravia. Janosik’s group would rob the carriages with an infamous outcry: “Stop! Give your soul to God and your gold to us!” Other members of the band were Uhorcik, Rajnoha, Surovec, Adamcik, Ilcik, and others. Janosik would give the loot to the poor villagers. A year later he was captured in Klenovec, where Tomas Uhorcik , nicknamed Martin Mravec, worked as an innkeeper. In spring 1713 Janosik was caught one more time. Legend has it that as he was trying to escape through the mountains, he wanted to hide in a pub where an old woman spilled peas on the floor. As Janosik slipped on the peas, the soldiers swiftly managed to catch him. Janosik was then imprisoned and sentenced by the court in Liptovsky Mikulas to gruesome death by hanging (they pierced his back with a hook) on March 17, 1713. He was only 25 years old.
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