Laszlo Mate

* Szilice, November 22, 1942 – / teacher, local historian, writer ; ; He began his school studies in his native village, graduating from the Pedagogical High School in Rozsnyó in 1960. He obtained his teaching diploma in correspondence at the Pedagogical College in Nitra in 1969, his secondary school teacher’s diploma at the ELTE Faculty of Education in Budapest, and his doctoral degree in 1982 based on his dissertation on the life and work of Zoltán Fábry. He was a teacher in Buzita between 1960 and 1971, and then worked as an elementary and secondary school inspector until the change of regime in 1989. After 1990, he started the journal Keleti Napló with Sándor Gál, of which he was the editor-in-chief until 1995. From 1996 he worked in the Košice Mayor's Office, then as a cultural attaché at the Slovak Embassy in Budapest, and finally as an advisor to President Rudolf Schuster. In 2005 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, and in 2009 he received the Czine Mihály Prize. He writes children's books and local history works. ; ; His main works: ; Silica Field, Silica Field… , 2010, ; The History of the Batsányi Circle in Košice ; (Based on the Recollections of József Béres), 2012, ; Csillagnyaj, 2014.