Adam Ferenc Kollar

* Terhely, April 15, 1718 – † Vienna, July 15, 1783 / Slovak-born jurist, court councilor, director of the Vienna royal library ; ; He completed his studies in Bány Beszterce and Selmecbánya, then in Nagyszombat. In 1737 he entered the Jesuit order. He then worked as a high school teacher for a few years, then studied oriental linguistics and theology in Vienna. He taught for a short time in Szentmiklós near Munkács, then returned to Vienna. In 1744 he wrote down the heavily distorted text of the Kun Miatyánk, which was dictated to him by a man named István Varró. In 1748 he left the order and, with the support of van Swieten, was appointed first scribe of the Vienna court library, second in 1749, and first keeper in 1758. From 1773 he became the director of the court library and a court councilor. Between 1748 and 1751 he taught Greek to medical students at the university. ; He was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, declared himself a Slovak and, in contrast to the Hungarian nationalism of the estates, promoted the ideas of pan-imperial state patriotism. He expressed his views in the works Historiae diplomaticae iuris patronatus apostolicorum Hungariae regum libri tres (Vienna, 1762) and De originibus et usu perpetuo potestatis legislatoriae circa sacra apostolicorum regum Ungiare libellus singularis (Vienna, 1764. – Contemporary Hungarian manuscript: On the origins of the legislative powers of the apostolic Hungarian kings… in the manuscript collection of the National Library of Hungary), in which he mainly condemned the privileges of the high priesthood, but also the privileges of the estates and the vices of the serf system, and proclaimed the supremacy of state power over the church. The latter's work, which was published with the tacit support of the court, caused a great storm at the Diet of 1764–1765, the estates demanded the burning and banning of the book. With the support of the clergy, the Diet achieved a royal ban on the distribution of the book in Hungary. He gave his opinion to the central authorities in Vienna on Hungarian affairs on several occasions, and according to some views he played a greater or lesser role in the elaboration of the Ratio Educationis of 1777. In 1762–1763 he wanted to organize a narrower society of scholars of national history to develop knowledge of the state, and he also prepared a draft of this under the title Societas Literaria. Their journal (Allergnädigst Privilegierte Anzeigen), edited by Dániel Tresztyánszky in 1771–1776, discussed the relations of Hungary in a pan-imperial context, and its collaborators were mostly intellectuals living in various cities of the Upper Hungary. The journal became a kind of model for the Hungarian-language journals that started in the 1780s. Kollar is considered one of the early forerunners of the Slovak national movements of the reform era. ; ; His main works: ; Analecta monumentorum omnis aevi Vindobonensia (I–II.), 1761–1762, ; Casp. Ursini Velii de bello Pannonico libri decem cum annotationibus et appendix critico, 1762, ; Nicolai Olahi... Hungaria et Attila..., 1763, ; Jurium Hungariae in Russiam minorem et Podoliam, Bohemiaeque in Osvicensem et Zatoriensem ducatus explicatio (also in German), 1772, Historiae jurisque publici regni Ungariae amoenitates (I–II.), 1783).