Ľudovít Štúr turned central Slovak dialects into the written language Slovaks use today
When Czech speakers refused to meet Slovaks halfway on a shared written tongue, Ľudovít Štúr and a few friends built a new standard from central Slovak dialects in 1843. His dismissal from teaching set off a student walkout, and one protesting student wrote a hymn that later became the national anthem of Slovakia.
Štúr was born on 28 October 1815 in Uhrovec, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, in the same house where Alexander Dubček would later be born. His father, a teacher, gave him his first lessons, including Latin. From 1829 he studied at the Lutheran Lýceum in Pressburg, today Bratislava, where he joined the Czech-Slav Society and rose to become its vice-president, teaching Slav history to older pupils.
In 1836 he wrote to the Czech historian František Palacký that the Czech used by Protestants in Upper Hungary had become hard for ordinary Slovaks to follow, and suggested a combined language with give on both sides. The Czechs declined. That April he led a trip to the ruins of Devín Castle, where members swore loyalty to the national cause and took extra Slavic names. After studying linguistics, history and philosophy at Halle, where he absorbed Hegel and Herder, he returned to teach.
On 2 February 1843 Štúr and his circle resolved to write in a standard built on central dialects, and that July, meeting at Jozef Miloslav Hurban's parish house in Hlboké, they settled how to codify it. An official investigation found nothing illegal, yet Štúr was stripped of his post. In March 1844, 22 students left Pressburg in protest, and among the supporters was Janko Matuška, author of Nad Tatrou sa blýska. In 1846 Štúr published the grammar, and by 1847 Catholics and Protestants at a Tatrín convention agreed to use only his standard.
He also shaped a political programme through his Slovak National Newspaper, launched on 1 August 1845, arguing that Slovaks formed one nation entitled to their own schools and autonomy within Hungary. Elected to the Diet for Zvolen in 1847, he gave five speeches calling for an end to serfdom, civil rights and Slovak in primary schools. In 1848 he helped organise Slovak volunteer campaigns. He died on 12 January 1856.
Source: Ľudovít Štúr
