HLINKA, ANDREJ. - Apostolic protonotary and Slovak politician, b. Sept. 27, 1864 at Černová, d. Aug. 16, 1938 at Ružomberok (Slovakia). Ordained a priest in 1889, H. devoted himself to the apostolate by organizing social cooperatives, combating alcoholism, and dedicating himself actively to teaching. In 1905 he became parish priest in the town of Ružomberok, where he had schools and an orphanage built, created a publishing house, and began his notable political and cultural activity. Having founded the newspaper L'udové Noviny in 1897, he was proposed for the first time the following year as a candidate for the Parliament of Budapest, and in 1905 he brought to life the Slovak People's Party, which aimed at the political and religious freedom of that nation. Thus there arose, beginning in 1923, the largest political party in Slovakia, thanks to which in 1938 the autonomy of the country came to be realized; with the communist Russian occupation of 1945 the party was suppressed.
After the elections of 1906 H. incurred, for political reasons, suspension by his Ordinary and at the same time was sentenced by the Hungarian authorities to three and a half years in prison, which he served at Szeged. During his imprisonment he translated the Holy Scripture anew into the Slovak language; the ecclesiastical case was resolved in his favor in Rome, so that, having left prison in 1910, he was able to take possession of his parish again, and he had a beautiful church built in his native village of Černová. But on Oct. 27, 1907, when the church was to be consecrated, a serious clash took place between the people and the Hungarian gendarmerie, with the killing of various persons and several arrests. H. then made a lecture tour in central Europe, interesting the public in the situation of the Slovaks in Hungary.
After the First World War, in 1918, H. accepted the union of the Slovaks with the Czechs, but he soon saw his plans frustrated and therefore resumed the autonomist movement, proving himself once again an excellent and faithful priest. He was in fact urged to take part in the nascent schism of the national Church in Czechoslovakia, but, relying on his great popularity, he contributed not a little to neutralizing such tendencies throughout Slovakia, always defending the Catholic religion in the Parliament of Prague and supporting the arduous work of the apostolic nuncios at such a delicate moment.
Bibliography3 works
Carlo Sidor