Mihaly Matunak

* Nagysurány, July 17, 1866 – † Körmöcbánya, December 5, 1932 / Roman Catholic priest, teacher, historian, archivist, Turkologist ; ; His father was Imre Matunák, his mother was Katalin Augustín. He completed his high school studies in Érsekújvár between 1879–1883, in Selmecbánya between 1883–1885, and in Eger between 1885–1887. He studied theology at the University of Budapest between 1887–1891. He spoke Hungarian, Slovak, Latin and German at a native level. He was ordained a priest in Besztercebánya in 1891, and from 1894 he became a chaplain in Körmöcbánya. Until the end of 1897 he was a member of the council of the Hungarian association there and the president of the Catholic bachelors' association. He spread the Hungarian language and patriotism among the German and Slovak bourgeoisie. He conducted historical research in the city archives for several years. In 1898, he was appointed to the position of director of the Korpona state and municipal upper folk school. He also organized the city archives in Korpona and enriched the city museum he founded with a numismatic collection and other antiquities. He also published a valuable article about the Korpona parliament of 1605. In 1898, he organized the diplomatic part of the Hont county historical exhibition and was elected secretary of the Hont Museum Society that was founded after that. Between 1902 and 1922, he was the dean of Breznóbánya, and then from 1922, he was the archivist of the city of Körmöcbánya. ; In addition to collecting numismatics, he also dealt with botany and compiled several herbariums. He donated his collections to the Breznóbánya school. In 1919, he was a founding member of the Bány Slovenská branch of Matica slovenská. He worked as a religious teacher, educator, public school director and archivist in several villages and towns (Göd, Nagyszalatna, Szucsány). Above all, however, he was a good, precise, diligent, disciplined historian and local historian. The discovery of the double founding year of Érsekújvár is linked to his name. He researched, collected and recorded Slovak patriotic historical songs with great diligence. In several of his works, he dealt with the origin, history, ethnography of the Slovak nation, as well as the life and work of Cyril and Methodius. ; He primarily researched the history of the 16th–18th centuries, but his studies and results, which testify to his thorough scientific preparation, were not taken into account or were ignored by the generation of historians who came to the scene after 1945. His writings were published in the newspapers Érsekújvár és Vidéke, Érsekújvári Lapok, Nitramegyei Szemle, Nitramegyei Közlöny, Századok, Hadtörténeti Közlemények, Felvidéki Híradó, Besztercebányai Híradó, and Slovenské pohády. He was one of the founders of the newspaper Korpona és Vidéke in December 1898 and co-editor until October 1900. He wrote the chapter summarizing the history of Korpona in the part of Samu Borovszky's series of counties and cities of Hungary dealing with Hont county and the free royal city of Selmecbánya. After the change of empire in 1918, he published only in Slovak. ; ; His main works: ; Historical sketch of the former castle of Nagy-Surány, 1889, ; History of the Bosnyák family in Hungary, 1895, ; The second founding of Érsekújvár – 1574, 1897, ; The judges and mayors of the free royal city of Korpona 1266–1898, 1898, ; Korpona in 1848–49, 1900, ; The military role of Drégely and Palánk under the Turks 1552–93, 1901, ; The castle captains of Korpona, 1901, ; Draft of the names of the squares, streets, alleys and rows of houses of the city of Korpona (also in Slovak), 1901, ; Érsekújvár under Turkish rule (1663–85), 1901, ; Additions to the history of Korpona, 1902, ; Drégely, Szondi, Palánk, 1902, ; Végles Castle, 1904; The Battle of Palást (August 9–10, 1552), 1910.