about our team
Our team is steadily expanding with new scholars and experts
prof. martin homza, dr.
Martin Homza is a historian specializing in pre-modern Central European history, with a particular focus on the history of the territory of present-day Slovakia. His research concentrates primarily on medieval narrative sources such as chronicles, annals, and hagiographic texts.
He is the author of several scholarly monographs and the editor of extensive works on the history of Spiš (Szepes/Szepus). Among his most important recent works is the second volume of the synthesis Historia Scepusii: The History of Spiš from 1526 to 1918, which he edited in 2016 together with Polish historian Prof. Stanisław A. Sroka. In 2017, he published the monograph Mulieres suadentes – persuasive women: female royal saints in medieval East Central and Eastern Europe with a prestigious Dutch academic publisher.
For his scientific and publishing activities, he has received several notable awards. In 2005, his book Terra Scepusiensis: The State of Research on the History of Spiš was awarded the Wacław Felczak and Henryk Wereszycki Prize of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków for the best book on the history of Central Europe, and in 2012 he was honored by the President of Poland with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit for his contribution to the Polish Republic.
He has supervised numerous master’s and doctoral theses by key representatives of contemporary Slovak medieval studies. Among his students are Stanislava Kuzmová, Naďa Rácová (Labancová), Nora Verešová (Malinovská), Veronika Kucharská, Nataša Procházková, Jana Bačová, Angelika Herucová, Adam Mesiarkin, Vladimír Olejník, and others.
mgr. ivana lukáč labancová, phd.
Deparment of Slovak History
Ivana Lukáč Labancová is a historian specializing in the cultural, literary, and religious history of the early modern period in the Kingdom of Hungary. Her research focuses in particular on the role of vernacular languages in early modern preaching, with an emphasis on Upper Hungary (present-day eastern Slovakia).
She is the author of the monograph Jazyk kazateľnice: Multilingvizmus vo františkánskom kazateľstve 18. storočia (The Language of the Pulpit: Multilingualism in 18th-Century Franciscan Preaching) and of the source edition Františkánske kázne z 18. storočia (Franciscan Sermons from the 18th Century), both published within the series Monumenta Linguae Slovacae. She has completed several study and research stays abroad, including at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
PhDr. Eva Benková, PhD.
Deparment of Slovak History
Eva Benková specializes in the political, economic, and social history of early modern Slovakia, as well as in the history of viticulture and wine-making in the Little Carpathian region, the history of Upper Gemer, and the estates of the Pálffy family.
Among her most important publications are Vinohradníctvo na panstve Červený Kameň v ranom novoveku (Viticulture on the Červený Kameň Estate in the Early Modern Period, 2017) and Pôsobnosť kapitánov na hrade Krásna Hôrka v 70. a začiatkom 80. rokov 16. storočia (The Role of the Captains at Krásna Hôrka Castle in the 1570s and Early 1580s, 2016).
mgr. peter benka, phd.
Deparment of Slovak History
Peter Benka is a historian specializing in the cultural, religious, and intellectual history of the early modern period in the Habsburg Monarchy. His research focuses primarily on the social and cultural roles played by so-called vernacular languages (above all Slovak) in early modern urban settings in Upper Hungary (with a particular emphasis on the town of Bardejov).
He is the author of the monograph Mesto a jazyk: Bardejov v ranom novoveku (The Town and the Language: Early Modern Bardejov), published as the second volume of the Monumenta Linguae Slovacae series. He has completed several study and research stays abroad, including at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the University of Göttingen, Central European University in Budapest, and the University of Vienna.
mgr. radka palenčárová, phd.
Deparment of Slovak History (researcher at the project)
Radka Palenčárová’s research focuses not only on the history of female criminality, but also on women’s history, the history of medicine, and social history more broadly. She collaborates on the publication of Slovak pre-standardization texts. In 2021, she defended her doctoral dissertation at Comenius University in Bratislava. She has completed study and research stays in Italy, Austria, and Hungary.
In 2022, she co-edited and prepared for print Slovenské listy barónky Anny Márie Horvát-Stančičovej de Gradec (Slovak Letters of Baroness Anna Mária Horvát-Stančič de Gradec) within the series Pamätníky slovenského jazyka (Vol. VIII: Listy, Part I).
Contributing researchers
mgr. et mgr. vladimír olejník, phd.
Catholic University in Ružomberok
Vladimír Olejník’s research focuses on early modern ecclesiastical history, with particular attention to processes of confessionalization in the Spiš (Szepes/Scepusium) region. He is also engaged in the historical study of the architectural development of both sacred and secular monuments in Spiš and the surrounding regions.
Until 2023, he worked as a research fellow at the Department of Slovak History, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University. He currently serves as the head archivist of the Diocesan Archive at Spišská Kapitula and as a research and teaching staff member at the Catholic University in Ružomberok. Among his most important works are Spišské prepoštstvo na prelome stredoveku a novoveku II (The Provostry of Spiš at the Turn of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period II, 2015). In the same year, he was editor and co-author of Spišský hrad (Spiš Castle). In 2018, he was one of the editors of the successful volume Katedrála sv. Martina v Spišskej Kapitule (St Martin’s Cathedral in Spišská Kapitula).
MVDr. Miloš Jesenský, PhD.
Belianum Publishing in Banská Bystrica
From 2008 to 2019, he served as the Director of the Kysuce Museum in Čadca. He is currently employed at Belianum, the publishing house of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, where he specializes in the publication of the collected works of Matej Bel and serves as editor of the annual scholarly volume Belianum, dedicated to the renowned Hungarian polymath.
He has long collaborated in both scholarly and teaching capacities with the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Žilina, as well as with the Faculty of Mining, Ecology, Process Control and Geotechnologies (BERG) at the Technical University in Košice.
His research focuses on the regional history of central Slovakia, as well as on the history of science and technology. The core of his scholarly work, however, remains the history of alchemy in Slovakia within a broader Central European context. In addition to his academic activities, he is also active as a literary author.
Mgr. Stanislava Kuzmová, MA, PhD.
Deparment of Slovak History
Her research focuses on the medieval history of Central Europe, with particular emphasis on the interdisciplinary study of religiosity, the cult of saints, hagiography, preaching, and manuscript codices. She specializes primarily in the High and Late Middle Ages and in the Jagiellonian dynasty in Central Europe. She is the author of the monograph Preaching Saint Stanislaus. Medieval Sermons on Saint Stanislaus of Cracow, His Image and Cult.
She has worked on international research projects at Central European University in Budapest (within the ESF project Symbols that Bind and Break Communities) and at the University of Oxford (ERC project Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe), and has completed numerous study and research stays abroad.
prof. phdr. pavol žigo, csc.
Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Pavol Žigo is a linguist specializing in the history and development of the Slovak language, dialectology, and comparative linguistics. He has long been affiliated with Comenius University in Bratislava and with the Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
He is the author of numerous linguistic studies as well as several monographs. He has led multiple international research projects and has completed numerous study, research, and teaching stays abroad (in Georgia, Russia, Austria, and Hungary). His most significant results include his contributions to the processing and analysis of dialects of all Slavic languages within the Slavic Linguistic Atlas, to grant projects on the History of the Slovak Standard Language, and—in the field of general linguistics—to projects dealing with the Principles of the Structure, Development and Functioning of Language and the Category of Time in Language.
