Fonds 20-004 - Karol Murín fonds

Karol (Charles) Murín was born in 1913 in Slovakia. After obtaining his Doctorate of Law from the University of Bratislava, he studied in Paris. From 1939 to 1945, he was the personal secretary to Dr. Jozef Tiso, president of the wartime Slovak Republic who was eventually tried and executed an as war criminal. Murín was also tried but charges against him were dropped and he left Europe in 1948, arriving in Canada with his wife Isabella and daughter Janina. To his European degrees, he added a M.A. and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Montréal. A few years after his arrival, he started teaching philosophy at the University of Montréal, where he taught until retirement.
A specialist on Nietzsche and Thomas Aquinas, Karol Murín published Nitzsche problème: généalogie d’une pensée (Paris, 1979). In the French periodical Étude d’histoire littéraire et doctrine appeared his extensive study “De l’être moral dans l’œuvre de St. Thomas” (Paris, 1962). He also wrote Zahraničí matica slovenská (1987), later published under the new title Priatelia prezidenta Tisu (1991, 1992) and in English under the title "Remembrances and testimony: Dr. Jozef Tiso and the Slovak Republic, 1939-45)" (1992). His scholarly writings also include numerous articles and book reviews for Slovak newspapers such as Kanadský Slovák, Slobodné Slovensko and the English quarterly Slovakia. Karol Murín passed away on July 17th, 1998 at the age of 85.