Adam František Kollár (April 15, 1718, Terchová – July 15, 1783, Vienna) was an important Slovak legal historian, imperial royal counsellor and director of the Royal Court Library in Vienna. He was born in Terchová, into a family of a lesser nobleman.  He started to attend school in Banská Bystrica and finished in Banská Štiavnica. He studied rhetoric and poetry in Trnava, where he entered the Jesuit order in 1737. He studied philosophy in Vienna and worked as a professor in Liptovský Mikuláš for a certain period of time. Afterwards, he returned to Vienna where he focused on oriental languages and studied theology. In 1748, he quit the Jesuit order to do scientific work. In the same year, he started to serve in the Court Library, where he held various positions and worked as its director from 1773. He created an important 7-volume library catalogue. He was extraordinary at history, as well as the Hebrew and Turkish languages. He issued a textbook of Latin and Turkish and translated texts from oriental languages. He also published the extensive history of Vienna. He was a proponent of enlightened absolutism and, in contrast to the aristocratic nationalism, he promoted the idea of imperial state patriotism. He published his opinions in his works, including Historiae diplomaticae (Vienna, 1762) and De originibus et usu perpetuo potestatis Legislatoriae (Vienna 1764). In those, he opposed the nobility's privileges, the clergy's prerogatives, the injustice of serfdom and declared supremacy of the state power over even the Church. His book, De originibus, stirred up especially great displeasure; the Assembly requested that its distribution be banned and the Vatican listed it among forbidden books. He tried to form a society in terms of national geography.  He founded a magazine called Allergnädigst privilegierte Anzeigen in 1771. He played an important role in the formation of the school reform of Maria Theresa. He excelled among his contemporaries thanks to his knowledge and work and was nicknamed Rustproof Gold and the Slovak Socrates. The author of the postage stamp is Jozef Česla. The portrait of A. F. Kollár was inspired by the oil painting of Jozef Hauzinger from 1779. FDC carries an image of the Library, inspired by the initials from Kollárʼs book − Analecta Vienna, 1762, column 3. In the upper right corner, there is Kollárʼs coat of arms after it was completed by Maria Theresa in 1777. The motif of the initials on the cover is adopted from A. F. Kollárʼs ex libris.
                                                                                                                                                                                         Klára Mészárosová