He came from Vyšný Kubín in Orava, where he was born in a peasant family on 2 February 1849. After studies at the grammar school in Miškovec and Kežmarok, he graduated from the law academy of the Evangelical College in Prešov between 1870 and 1872. Together with Koloman Banšell, they founded the Kolo association and published the literary almanac Forward. He passed the bar exam in 1875 in Budapest. He worked as a lawyer and judge in his native Orava. From 1902 he devoted himself only to literary activity. At the end of his life he welcomed the establishment of Czechoslovakia and became one of the presidents of the reopened Slovak Matrix in 1919. He died on 8 November 1921 in Dolný Kubín.

He published his first poems as a student. Later he decided to use the pseudonym Hviezdoslav. He wrote mostly reflective, nature and social lyrics. He is known for his Sonnets, Psalms and Hymns, three cycles of Letorostov, Walks in Spring, Walks in Summer and Blood Sonnets, which have been translated into both French and English. Of the epic works, the epics Ežo Vlkolinský and Gábor Vlkolinský, Hájnik's Wife and the drama Herodes and Herodias still resonate. He has translated the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Lermontov, Mickiewicz and Petöfi into Slovak. Hviezdoslav's work is not only varied in genre, but also unusually rich in motifs and ideas, ranging from intimate and family motifs to national and world problems, deepened by social relations and a desire to achieve a high degree of universality. He is rightly regarded as an exceptional personality of Slovak literature.

In Prešov, a street and the regional library are named after him.

Buildings:

Hlavná 16, Prešov - the house where Hviezdoslav lived as a student, today the seat of the children's library Slniečko

Hlavná 137, Prešov - Evangelical College, where Hviezdoslav studied

Slovenská 18, Prešov - Regional library P. O. Hviezdoslav (formerly Levočská 1)

Source: Regional Library P. O. Hviezdoslav in Prešov; Micro-project.
Photo source: Free work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=741471

Jonáš Záborský was a Slovak novelist, playwright, poet, historian, journalist and priest. He was born in 1812 in a peasant family in the village of Záborie (now Martin district). He studied at grammar schools in Kežmarok and Levoča, graduated in theology at the Evangelical Academy in Prešov and later studied at the University of Halle in Germany. From 1834 to 1839 he was a chaplain in Pozdišovce, in 1840 he became a parish priest in Rankovce. After the fire of his rectory in 1842, he converted to the Catholic Church and worked at the German rectory in Košice.

He disagreed with Ľudovít Štúr and his codification of the written Slovak language and considered his national programme unrealistic. In 1848 he was imprisoned for possession of the Requests of the Slovak Nation, and in 1850 he was appointed professor of Greek at the law faculty in Košice. From 1850 to 1853, he also worked as editor of the government-run Slovak Newspaper in Vienna, from where he had to leave due to conflicts with the censorship. In 1853 he became a parish priest in the eastern Slovak village of Župčany, where he worked until his death, adopted a new form of Slovak and devoted himself mainly to literary activities.

Jonáš Záborský's oeuvre is extensive. It includes classicist poetic compositions (Zehry, The Entry of Christ into Paradise), satirical prose (Faustiáda, The Shofranks, On the Seven Dukes of Hungary, Chruňo and Mandragora, Frndolína), didactic humoresques (Two Days in Chujava, Kulifaj), and autobiographical prose (The Panslavist Parson), historical short stories (Buld, Svätopluk's Betrayal, Mazep's Love), a syllabotonic poetic composition (The Death of Janosik), and many dramas (The Last Days of Great Moravia, The Arpáds, The Resistance of the Danube Slavs, Pansláv, Holub, Batory, Striga, the so-called "The Resistance of the Danube Slavs", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia", the "The Last Days of Great Moravia". Lžedimitrijád, etc.). He wrote an extensive historical work History of the Kingdom of Hungary from the beginning to the times of Sigismund. The main themes of his work are historical facts and autobiographical elements.

Source: csfd.sk
Photo source: By Jonáš Záborský - Jonáš Záborský, Free Work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19141314