| Daniel Sinapius-Horčička | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 August, 1640 Sučany, Upper Hungary |
| Died | 27 January, 1688 Levoča, Upper Hungary |
| Occupation | Dramatist, poet, composer and preacher. |
Daniel Sinapius-Horčička was a Slovak baroque writer, poet, dramatist, composer of hymns and evangelical protestant preacher who lived during the mid 17th century in what is modern Slovakia.
Daniel Sinapius-Horčička was born on August 3, 1640 in the village of Sučany, in the present day Martin District of the Žilina Region of northern Slovakia, though at the time the village was part of Upper Hungary in the Kingdom of Hungary. He was born into a family of preachers and after studies in Levoča and Wittenberg, Germany he worked as a preacher and rector of, successively, Jelšava, Kameňanoch, Liptovská Teplička and finally Radvaň . In 1673, during the persecution of Protestants, Sinapius-Horčička was exiled from Hungarian lands. He travelled with his family first to Silesia and then to Nového Bojanova, both of which fell outside of Hungarian jurisdiction but still within the realm of the Habsburgs. After returning from exile in 1683, he worked briefly in Radvan before moving on to Levoča. While in Levoča, Sinapius-Horčička served as a rector, evangelical priest, school inspector, and editor and proofreader of books published in Slovak. Sinapius-Horčička would later die on January 27, 1688 in Levoča aged 47.
Daniel Sinapius-Horčička was involved in the writing of Latin poems and school dramas. However, a large part of his work was devoted to religious baroque prose, proverbs and select Slovak spiritual poetry. Despite devoting much effort to his Latin works, his Slovak ones have maintained and sustained his reputation more into the modern era. His prose is considered to reflect that national consciousness- lauding the Slovak language and criticizing the lack of patriotism among his fellow Slovaks. He touches on the antiquity of the Slovak nation and the then current Slovak youth. What is very noteworthy in addition to these proto-nationalistic verses, Sinapius-Horčička wrote exclusively in Slovak when many of his Slovak contemporaries were using the more common Slavic literary language of Czech.
(Titles in Slovak)