Komitat Hont
Tuka, sometimes referred to by the Magyar name Béla, was born in Hegybánya, in the Hont County of the Kingdom of Hungary (today: "Štiavnické Bane, Slovakia"). He studied law at universities in Budapest, Berlin, and Paris. He became the youngest professor in the Kingdom of Hungary, teaching law in Pécs and—from 1914 to 1919—at the Elizabethan University in Bratislava. After the dissolution of that university in 1919, he worked as an editor in Bratislava.