Július Ďuriš

Július Ďuriš (9 March 1904 – 18 February 1986) was a Czechoslovak communist politician.

Biography The son of a teacher and the youngest of four siblings, Ďuriš was born in the village Rovňany near Lučenec; he grew up in a multiethnic environment, attending both Hungarian and Slovak grammar schools. After graduation in 1924, he began his studies at the Faculty of Law at Charles University in Prague. Ďuriš came into contact with communist ideas while studying in Paris in 1926–1927, and joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) upon his return from France. In 1928/1929, he abandoned his studies and was employed as a party worker of the KSČ. In the summer of 1929 he was assigned work in Ostrava as an editor at Pravda, the party's Slovak newspaper, but returned to France in the fall of the same year to work in the Czechoslovak section of the French Communist Party (PCF). Ďuriš served as editor of Rovnost, a magazine for Slovak workers in France, but was expelled from the country in December 1931 because of his political activities. After completing military service upon his return from France, Ďuriš moved to Bratislava, where he was appointed organizational secretary of the KSČ in Slovakia, as well as editor of the newspapers Pravda and Ľudové denník.