Josef Dobrovský

Dobrovský, Josef (dô'brôfskē), 1753-1829, Hungarian philologist, of Bohemian parentage. In 1792 the Royal Bohemian Academy of Sciences commissioned Dobrovský to recover Bohemian manuscripts lost in the Thirty Years War. He is the founder of modern Slavonic studies and the father of modern Czech philology and literature. Dobrovský was criticized by scholars when he questioned the authenticity of The Judgment of Libusha, the oldest Czech writing, discovered by Hanka in 1817. He wrote much on early Slavic materials.