Pavel Jozef Šafárik

(; 13 May 1795 – 26 June 1861) was a Slovak philologist, poet, literary historian, historian and ethnographer. He was one of the first scientific Slavists.

Family Šafárik was born in Kisfeketepatak, Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg monarchy (now Kobeliarovo, Slovakia) on 13 May 1795. His father Pavol Šafárik (1761–1831) was a Protestant clergyman in Kobeliarovo and before that a teacher in Štítnik, where he was also born. His mother, Katarína Káresová (1764–1812) was born in a poor lower gentry family in Hanková and had several jobs in order to help the family in the poor region of Kobeliarovo.

P.J. Šafárik had two elder brothers and one elder sister. One brother, Pavol Jozef as well, died before Šafárik was born. In 1813, after Katarína's death, Šafárik's father married the widow Rozália Drábová, although Šafárik and his brothers and sister were against this marriage. The local teacher provided Šafárik with Czech books.

On 17 June 1822, when he was in Novi Sad (see below), P. J. Šafárik married 19-year-old Júlia Ambrózy de Séden (; 1803–1876), a highly intelligent member of Hungarian lower gentry born in 1803 in modern-day Serbia.