500 Korún Ľudovít Štúr

Ľudovít Štúr codified the Slovak literary language in 1843, basing his standardization on Central Slovak dialects — a decision that ended decades of competing written forms and remains the foundation of modern Slovak. The timing of this 2003 issue placed it in the early years of Slovak EU accession negotiations, just before the country's 2004 entry, when national cultural figures carried particular political weight on commemorative programs.