In 1875 the Hungarian government closed Matica slovenská, the Slovak cultural institution founded at Martin in 1863, and confiscated its property; the Slovak grammar schools had already been shut. Two years later, in 1877, Országh signed a poem for the dead Slovak leader Viliam Pauliny-Tóth with a new name — Hviezdoslav, roughly "star-praiser" — and kept it for the rest of his life. He earned his living as a lawyer and then a judge in Dolný Kubín, a few kilometres down the road, and wrote in the evenings. Hájnikova žena (The Gamekeeper's Wife, 1884–86) and Ežo Vlkolinský (1890) are set in exactly this landscape: the forests, the crags and the shabby gentry villages of Orava.Roku 1875 uhorská vláda zatvorila Maticu slovenskú, slovenskú kultúrnu ustanovizeň založenú roku 1863 v Martine, a zhabala jej majetok; slovenské gymnáziá boli zrušené už predtým. O dva roky, roku 1877, podpísal Országh báseň na smrť slovenského vodcu Viliama Pauliny-Tótha novým menom — Hviezdoslav — a zostal pri ňom do konca života. Na chlieb si zarábal ako advokát a potom sudca v Dolnom Kubíne o pár kilometrov nižšie a písal po večeroch. Hájnikova žena (1884 – 1886) aj Ežo Vlkolinský (1890) sa odohrávajú presne v tejto krajine: v lesoch, pod bralami a v schudobnených zemianskych dedinách Oravy.
