About & methodology
Why janosik.de?
Juraj Jánošík is the best-known figure of Slovak folk tradition – and at the same time a historical person about whom a surprising amount of uncertain information circulates. janosik.de sets out to show both: the man described in the trial records of 1713, and the hero that songs, poetry and film made of him. The site is published in German, Slovak and English.
janosik.de is run by Martin Janosik (Traffic netWorks, Düsseldorf).
How we work
- Sources first. We rely on the trial records of Liptov County (State Archive in Bytča), parish registers, academic literature – for example articles in Historický časopis of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the volume Zbojníctvo na Slovensku (2014) – and on museums and archives. Encyclopaedias and Wikipedia are used only for cross-checking.
- Every claim has a source. The superscript numbers lead to the source list at the end of each article. All links were opened and checked during research.
- Fact, debate, legend. Documented facts appear in green boxes, disputed points in red, legends in gold. Where historians disagree – for instance on the date of execution – we give both positions.
- No invented images. No contemporary portrait of Jánošík is known. Our illustrations are AI-generated mood pictures, labelled as such; they do not show his historical appearance.
- Corrections. We correct errors visibly and update the date. Please send corrections to info@janosik.de.
Use of AI
Research, writing, translation, diagrams and videos are produced with the help of AI tools and checked editorially against the sources. Details are on our AI transparency page.