AFARK, PAVEL JOSEF

born , May 13, 1795, Kobeliarov, Slovakia, Hung. died June 26, 1861, Prague leading figure of the Czech national revival and a pioneer of Slavonic philology and archaeology. Safark was director of the Serbian Orthodox grammar school at Novi Sad before settling in Prague in 1833. In 1841 he refused an invitation to occupy the chair of Slavonic philology at Berlin, preferring to remain a private scholar in his own country. Erudition and scholarly integrity characterize a series of influential works on the history and languages of the Slavs: Geschichte der slavischen Sprache und Literatur nach allen Mundarten (1826; "History of the Slavic Languages and Literature in All Dialects"); Slovansk starozitnosti (1837; "Slavic Antiquities"), better known in the German translation Slawische Altertmer (1843); ber den Ursprung und die Heimat des Glagolitismus (1858; "Concerning the Origins and Provenance of the Glagolitic Alphabet"); Geschichte der sdslawischen Literatur (1864; "History of South Slavic Literature"). Although his work on the origins and migrations of the Slavs has been superseded, it was of great value in its time. His philological works can still be read with profit: in his belief in the priority of the Glagolitic alphabet over the Cyrillic he was far ahead of his time.