PhDr. h.c., univ. prof Jozef ©kultéty (1853-1948), literary critic and historian, linguist, translator and journalist. Jozef ©kultéty was an editor of Národné noviny and Slovenské pohľady, a teacher at the Faculty of Philosophy at Comenius University, Bratislava, and from 1919 to 1948 head of Matica slovenská, the Slovak national cultural institution. An organising force in Slovak literary life at the end of the 19th century, he popularised the aesthetic principles of realism through his translations from Russsian and his critical writings (in Kritické listy, with Vajanský). His scholarly works (A Hundred and twenty-five Years of Slovak National Life / Stodvadsa»pä» rokov zo slovenského národného ľivota, Do not Insult My People!/Nehaňte µud môj!, On the Former Upper Hungary/O bývalom Hornom Uhorsku) were polemical responses to the realities of national life. ©kultéty edited the works of the writers Andrej Sládkovič, P.O. Hviezdoslav and Martin Kukučín, compiled an anthology of Slovak poetry entitled A Garland of Slovak National Songs (Veniec slovenských narodných piesní), and authored Foreign Words in Slovak (Cudzie slová v slovenčine). In the period before the First World War he supported the theories of Samuel Czambel on the stabilising of written Slovak. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Prague's Charles University in 1921, and was chairman of the Slovak Museum Association from 1938 to 1948.
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