Background
He was born into a peasant family in Lukovištia, a village in the Gemer (Gömör) region.
Member of Parliament politician writer poet
He was born into a peasant family in Lukovištia, a village in the Gemer (Gömör) region.
He studied at the Hungarian grammar school in Rimavská Sobota (Rimaszombat), later at German grammar schools in Sibiu and Braşov, where he graduated. In 1900 he applied for the study of chemical engineering in Prague, where he successfully graduated in 1905.
He worked then for some time as a chemist in the town of Klobuky, later in a chemical factory in Slaný. When the First World War broke out, he went to fight on the Eastern Front against the Russian Empire. He mostly lived in Bratislava, but in 1943, he moved to Piešťany, where he lived until 1958.
He died on 3 March 1958 in Bratislava, and is interred in Lukovištia.
There is a memorial room in Piešťany, opened in 1976, dedicated to his life and work. A street in Piešťany is named after him.
He started writing poems during his grammar school studies, but he published first of them only in 1896, called Pieseň nášho ľudu (app Song of our folk). He has written some more works in the 1910s, but many of his first works were first published in the 1950s.
The topics include: social inequality, Magyarisation of the Slovak nation, passivity of young generation and also his personal sadness.
He also wanted to write poetic composition about his experience from the World War I and protests against it, but only the introduction was published in 1929 under the name "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" (a Hebrew/Aramaic New Testament quote that reads Bože môj, Bože môj, prečo si ma opustil? in Slovak and My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? in King James Version English).
He was a member of the Slovak association Detvan. After end of the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia and started working as a politician, becoming a member of parliament and a senator of the Agrarian Party.
