1864 and 1874 Two boys, ten years apartDvaja chlapci, desať rokov po sebe

Jozef Murgaš was born in Tajov on 17 February 1864 and Jozef Gregor on 18 October 1874. Both were village children in a poor place: Gregor was a shoemaker's son, one of nine, and spent much of his childhood with his grandparents. Both went down to the gymnasium in Banská Bystrica. They grew up in the decades of Magyarisation, when the Hungarian state was closing Slovak institutions — the three Slovak gymnasiums in 1874, the cultural society Matica slovenská in 1875 — so a clever Slovak village boy had to make his way in someone else's language. Gregor became a teacher and was moved from post to post because he would not fall in with his superiors; writing as Tajovský, after this village, he put village poverty, drink and emigration into Slovak literature.Jozef Murgaš sa v Tajove narodil 17. februára 1864, Jozef Gregor 18. októbra 1874. Obaja boli dedinské deti z chudobného kraja: Gregor bol synom obuvníka, jedným z deviatich súrodencov, a veľkú časť detstva prežil u starých rodičov. Obaja odišli dolu na gymnázium do Banskej Bystrice. Vyrastali v desaťročiach maďarizácie, keď uhorský štát zatváral slovenské ustanovizne — tri slovenské gymnáziá v roku 1874, Maticu slovenskú v roku 1875 — a bystrý slovenský chlapec z dediny sa musel presadiť v cudzom jazyku. Gregor sa stal učiteľom a striedal miesta, lebo sa s vrchnosťou neznášal; ako Tajovský, teda podľa tejto obce, vniesol do slovenskej literatúry dedinskú chudobu, pitie a vysťahovalectvo.