Adam František Kollár

Adam František Kollár (1718–1783) was a Slovak jurist, historian and linguist. After joining the Jesuits and studying Eastern languages in Vienna he left the order, entered the Imperial-Royal Library as a scribe in 1748 and became its chief librarian in 1774.

As adviser to Empress Maria Theresa, he supplied historical arguments for her centralist reforms and, in 1772, for Habsburg claims to Galicia and Dalmatia. His writings on the monarchy's peoples gave ethnology its first formal definition in 1783, and he is counted among the earliest pan-Slavic writers. He died in Vienna that year.