Michal Miloslav Hodža

Michal Miloslav Hodža
Born	22 September 1811 Rakša, Turóc County, Kingdom of Hungary
Died	26 March 1870 Cieszyn, Austria-Hungary
Occupation	Priest, poet, linguist and Slovak National Revivalist

Michal Miloslav Hodža (22 September 1811, Rakša, Turóc County, Kingdom of Hungary – 26 March 1870 in Cieszyn, Austria-Hungary) was a Slovak national revivalist, Protestant priest, poet, linguist, and representative of the Slovak national movement in 1840s as a member of "the trinity" Štúr – Hurban – Hodža. Michal Miloslav Hodža is also the uncle of the Czechoslovak politician Milan Hodža.

Michal Miloslav Hodža came from the a family of farmer-millers while his father was also a non-commissioned officer. Hodža studied in Rakša, Mošovce and later, at gymnasiums in Banská Bystrica and Rožňava. In the years 1829–1832 he continued his studies, focusing on theology, at the Evangelical college in Prešov. From 1832–1834 he continued to study theology at the Evangelical lyceum in Bratislava. During his study in Bratislava he began to work for the Czechoslovak Language and Literature Company. Also during his time at the lyceum, Hodža was a chairman's deputy of the same association. In the years 1834–1836 he worked as a tutor in Rakša and Podrečany. From 1834–1837 he continued his theological studies in Vienna, where he was ordained a priest in 1837. In the late 1830s he published in educational and didactic magazines such as Krasomil, Vedomil tatranský, Slovenské noviny and Slovenská včela. He was also a co-author of Prosbopis liptovského seniorátu whose purpose was to restore the Department of the Czechoslovak language and literature at the Bratislava lyceum. In 1840 he was made a Dean of Liptov seniorate and an envoy for district's convents. Only a year thereafter he became a member of the editorial staff of the evangelical magazine Spěvník. In 1842, Hodža settled in the parsonage in Liptovský Mikuláš where he would stay with brief interruptions until 1866. In the same year he became a member of the deputation of Slovak evangelical scholars to the Austrian monarch. In the summer of 1843 Hodža met with Štúr and Hurban in the parsonage of Hlboké village where he took part in the decision making process about the formation of the modern literary Slovak language and the publication of Slovak newspapers. A second meeting was held a year later, this time in Hodža's home at Liptovský Mikuláš, which lasted from 26 to 28 August 1844. At that meeting, the trio of Hurban, Štúr and Hodža founded a cultural and educational association, called the Tatrín Cultural-Enlightenment Society, of which Hodža became the first chairman.

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