The article is devoted to Ľudovít Štúr’s biography and his works. He was a well-known public figure and codifier of standard Slovak. There were discussed the most important milestones of Štúr’s career as a politician, a scientist, a writer and a publisher. The author analyzes the philosophical and ideological roots of his linguistic works and gives an insight into the sociolinguistic situation in Slovakia in the middle of the XIX century. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the genesis of the literary language codified by Štúr and to the identification of the base dialect of the idiom.