Background
He was born into a family of freemen, or soltys, the son of Ján Bencúr Juriš and his wife Zuzana, née Pašková, and had two brothers and one sister.
He was born into a family of freemen, or soltys, the son of Ján Bencúr Juriš and his wife Zuzana, née Pašková, and had two brothers and one sister.
He was educated at the Slovak "gymnasium" in Revúca, Martin, Banská Bystrica, Kežmarok, and finished his education in Sopron. Although he wished to study theology in Bratislava, due to the anti-Slovak atmosphere prevailing at that time, he chose to study medicine in Prague instead.
He was the most notable representative of Slovak literary realism, and is considered one of the founders of modern Slovak prose. After graduating and completing his internship in Bratislava, Innsbruck and Vienna, he attempted without success to find employment in Slovakia. In 1904, he became one of its directors.
In 1896-1897, he tried unsuccessfully to return to Slovakia.
During 1922-1924, he lived again in Slovakia (Czechoslovakia at that time), then moved to Croatia in 1924-1925, briefly returning to Chile in 1925 to resolve property disputes. In 1926, he finally settled in Lipik, a spa town in Croatia, where he died in 1928.
Temporarily buried in Zagreb, he was interred in the National Cemetery in Martin in October 1928.
Instead in 1893 he began to work as a doctor in the village of Selca on the island of Brač in Croatia, where he was also an active member of the cultural society Hrvatski Sastanak.