József Szakovics
Who was József Szakovics?
Slovenian Catholic priest, writer (1874-1930)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on József Szakovics (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
József Szakovics (February 2, 1874 – September 22, 1930) was a Slovenian Roman Catholic priest and writer who championed the linguistic and cultural rights of Hungarian Slovenes in Prekmurje, known in Hungarian as Vendvidék. Born in Vadarci, previously known as Tivadarc in Austria-Hungary, he was the son of Hungarian Slovenes Mátyás Szakovics and Ilona Mácsek. His name appears in several forms across different languages: Jožef Sakovič in Slovene and Joseph Sakowitsch in German, showing the multilingual world he lived in.
After finishing his theological studies in Szombathely, Szakovics became a priest on July 2, 1899. Early in his career, he worked in several parishes in the region. He served as a parish vicar in Pápóc and a curate in Zalaegerszeg, and moved in 1900 to Rechnitz, now in Burgenland. In the following years, he held posts in Črenšovci (1901), Tótszentmárton (1902), Tišina (1905), and Weiden bei Rechnitz (1906), gaining experience in the region's diverse communities.
In 1906, Szakovics became the parish vicar in Beltinci, and in 1909 in Cankova. From 1909 to 1913, he served in Alsószölnök, near Szentgotthárd, an area with Germans, Slovenes, and Magyars. He then moved to Turnišče, where he was vicar from 1913 to 1917 and later the parish priest until 1928. He passed away on September 22, 1930, in Alsószölnök, Hungary, returning in his final years to the community where he had served earlier.
Besides his church duties, Szakovics was a writer and political figure supporting the Slovenian minority in Hungary. In 1904, he updated a prayer book by Miklós Küzmics, first published in 1780. The revised version was popular among Slovene Catholic families in Prekmurje, going through five reprints. In 1918, during the end of World War I, Szakovics joined Slovenian activists József Klekl, Jószef Csárics, Iván Bassa, and István Kühár to draft a plan for an independent Slovene March—an autonomous area within Hungary, or as part of an independent country, or within Yugoslavia. Though this plan didn't materialize as envisioned, it showed how Szakovics was involved in both religious and national political matters.
Before Fame
Szakovics was born on February 2, 1874, in Vadarci, a village then part of the Kingdom of Hungary under Austria-Hungary and now in Slovenia. He grew up among the Hungarian Slovene community, a small ethnic and linguistic group with an uncertain place in Hungary. His parents, Mátyás Szakovics and Ilona Mácsek, were also Hungarian Slovenes, which likely influenced his future commitments.
He studied theology to become a Catholic priest at the seminary in Szombathely, the diocese center for the area. He was ordained in 1899, starting a clerical career that took him to many parishes in a complex border region. His early roles put him in communities where German, Slovene, and Magyar speakers lived together, teaching him about minority languages' realities before he used that experience in his writing and political work.
Key Achievements
- Revised the historic Küzmics prayer book in 1904, producing an edition that was reprinted five times and remained in use among Prekmurje Slovene Catholic families
- Co-authored the 1918 political program for an autonomous Slovene March, one of the earliest formal proposals for Slovenian self-determination in the region
- Served as a consistent public advocate for the linguistic rights and Slovenian identity of the Hungarian Slovene minority throughout his priestly career
- Maintained active literary and religious writing alongside decades of pastoral service across ethnically mixed communities in Hungary, Slovenia, and Burgenland
Did You Know?
- 01.The prayer book Szakovics revised in 1904 was originally written by Miklós Küzmics and had first been published in 1780, meaning it was already 124 years old when Szakovics updated it.
- 02.Szakovics served in at least nine different parishes or curacies between his ordination in 1899 and his final posting in 1928, spanning parts of present-day Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria.
- 03.The Slovene March program that Szakovics co-authored in 1918 proposed three possible political outcomes simultaneously: autonomy within Hungary, full independence, or membership in the newly forming Yugoslavia.
- 04.His name exists in three distinct linguistic forms — Magyar, Slovene, and German — reflecting the trilingual character of the communities in which he ministered throughout his career.
- 05.Szakovics died in Alsószölnök, the same village near Szentgotthárd where he had served as vicar nearly two decades earlier, between 1909 and 1913.