Pavel Jozef Šafárik (; 13 May 1795 – 26 June 1861) was an ethnic Slovak philologist, poet, literary historian, historian and ethnographer in the Kingdom of Hungary. He was one of the first scientific Slavists. Family His father Pavol Šafárik (1761–1831) was a Protestant clergyman in Kobeliarovo and before that a teacher in Štítnik, where he was also born. His mother, Katarína Káresová (1764–1812) was born in a poor lower gentry family in Hanková and had several jobs in order to help the family in the poor region of Kobeliarovo. P.J. Šafárik had two elder brothers and one elder sister. One brother, Pavol Jozef as well, died before Šafárik was born. In 1813, after Katarína's death, Šafárik's father married the widow Rozália Drábová, although Šafárik and his brothers and sister were against this marriage. The local teacher provided Šafárik with Czech books. On 17 June 1822, when he was in Novi Sad (see below), P. J. Šafárik married 19-year-old Júlia Ambrózy de Séden (; 1803–1876), a highly intelligent member of Hungarian lower gentry born in 1803 in modern-day Serbia. She spoke Slovak, Czech, Serbian and Russian, and supported Šafárik in his scientific work. In Novi Sad, they also had three daughters (Ľudmila, Milena, Božena) and two sons (Mladen Svatopluk, Vojtěch), but the first two daughters and the first son died shortly after their birth. Upon Šafárik's arrival in Prague, they had 6 more children, out of which one died shortly after its birth. His eldest son Vojtěch (1831–1902) became an important chemist, Jaroslav (1833–1862) became a military doctor and later the supreme assistant at the Joseph Academy in Vienna, Vladislav (born 1841) became a professional soldier, and Božena (born 1831) married Josef Jireček (1825–1888), a Czech literary historian, politician and a tutor in Šafarík's family. Vojtech wrote an interesting biography of his father – Co vyprávěl P. J. Šafařík (What Šafárik said) – and the son of Božena and Jireček the study Šafařík mezi Jihoslovany (Šafárik among the Southern Slavs). Life Early years (1795–1815) Pavel spent his childhood in the region of Kobeliarovo in northern Gemer (Gömör) characterized by attractive nature and rich Slovak culture. He gained his basic education from his father. As P. J. Šafárik's son Vojtech put it later in his book (see Family): In 1805–08 Šafárik studied at a "lower gymnasium" (in some sources described as Protestant school which was just changed into a middle Latin