István Küzmics

Who was István Küzmics?

István Küzmics also known in Slovenian as Štefan or Števan Küzmič was the most important Lutheran writer of the Slovenes in Hungary.

He was born at Strukovci, in the Prekmurje region of what was then Vas County, in the Kingdom of Hungary. His father was György Küzmics tailor. From 1733 to 1747 he went to school in Sopron and in Győr, and studied at the lyceum in Pozsony. He later became a pastor and teacher in two Slovene-speaking cities of Nemescsó and Surd, in what is now Zala County, but was then part of Somogy, an area in which numerous Slovene families settled in the 17th and 18th century. He also wrote Cathechisms and schoolbooks and translated the New Testament in his local Prekmurian language; the translated text, entitled Nouvi zakon ali testamentom, was published in the German town of Halle in 1771. He died at Surd.