Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

's first book was printed by the Protestant reformer Primož Trubar

Primož Trubar

Primož Trubar or Primož Truber was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of the Slovene Lands, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first Slovene-language printed book...

 (1508–1586). It was actually two books, Katekizem

Katekizem

Catechismus in der windischenn Sprach or shortly Catechismus , is a book written by the Slovene Protestant preacher Primož Trubar in 1550. Along with Trubar's 1550 book, Abecedarium , Catechismus was the first book published in Slovene...

(a catechism

Catechism

A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...

) and Abecednik

Abecedarium (Trubar)

Abecedarium —along with Catechismus —is the first printed book in Slovene. It is an eight-page booklet for helping people learn the alphabet. The protestant reformer Primož Trubar had it printed in 1550, with reprints in 1555 and 1566. An improved version of it was also printed by Sebastjan Krelj...

, which was published in 1550 in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

The central part of the country, namely Carniola

Carniola

Carniola was a historical region that comprised parts of what is now Slovenia. As part of Austria-Hungary, the region was a crown land officially known as the Duchy of Carniola until 1918. In 1849, the region was subdivided into Upper Carniola, Lower Carniola, and Inner Carniola...

 (which existed as a part of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 until the early twentieth century) was ethnographically and historically well-described in the book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola

The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola

The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola is Johann Weikhard von Valvasor's most important work on history and natural history of his homeland Carniola, a central part of the present-day Slovenia and Istria in Croatia....

(, ), published in 1689 by Baron

Baron

Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...

 Janez Vajkard Valvasor

Janez Vajkard Valvasor

Johann Weichard Freiherr von Valvasor or simply Valvasor was a Slovenian nobleman, scientist and polymath, and a fellow of the Royal Society in London.-Biography:...

 (1641–1693).

Slovenia's two greatest authors were the poet France Prešeren

France Prešeren

France Prešeren was a Slovene Romantic poet. He is considered the Slovene national poet. Although he was not a particularly prolific author, he inspired virtually all Slovene literature thereafter....

 (1800–1849) and writer Ivan Cankar

Ivan Cankar

Ivan Cankar was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature...

 (1876–1918). Other famous Slovenian authors include Vladimir Bartol

Vladimir Bartol

Vladimir Bartol was a Slovene writer, most famous for his novel Alamut. Alamut was published in 1938 and translated into numerous languages, becoming the most popular work of Slovene literature around the world.-Biography:Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in San Giovanni , a suburb of the...

, Srečko Kosovel

Srecko Kosovel

Srečko Kosovel was a Slovene expressionist poet who evolved towards avant-garde forms. Since the 1960s, Kosovel has become a poetic icon, in the league of the most prestigious Slovene literates like France Prešeren and Ivan Cankar. Together with Edvard Kocbek, he is considered as the most...

, Edvard Kocbek

Edvard Kocbek

Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...

, Boris Pahor

Boris Pahor

Boris Pahor is a Slovene writer from Italy. He is considered to be one of the most influential living authors in the Slovene language and has been nominated for the Nobel prize for literature by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts...

, Dane Zajc

Dane Zajc

Dane Zajc was a Slovenian poet and playwright. He served as president of the Slovene Writers' Association , and was awarded the prestigious Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement...

, Tomaž Šalamun

Tomaz Salamun

Tomaž Šalamun is a Slovenian poet. He was born in 1941 in Zagreb, Croatia, and raised in Koper, Slovenia. He has published 39 collections of poetry in his native Slovenian language. Šalamun spent two years at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop in the 1970s and has lived for periods of time in...

, Aleš Debeljak

Aleš Debeljak

Aleš Debeljak , is a Slovenian cultural critic, poet, and essayist.- Biography :Debeljak was born in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana in 1985...

 and Drago Jančar

Drago Jancar

Drago Jančar is a Slovenian writer, playwright and essayist. Jančar is one of the most known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement.-Life:...

. The most important Slovenian painters are Ivana Kobilca

Ivana Kobilca

Ivana Kobilca was a Slovene realist painter who lived, worked and studied in various European cities including Vienna, Sarajevo, Berlin, Paris and Munich. She was a member of Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris. Many of her paintings are still lifes, portraits or country settings...

, Anton Ažbe

Anton Ažbe

Anton Ažbe was a Slovene realist painter and teacher of painting.Ažbe, crippled since birth and orphaned at the age of 8, learned painting as an apprentice to Janez Wolf and at the Academies in Vienna and Munich. At the age of 30 Ažbe founded his own school of painting in Munich that became a...

, the impressionist

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 Rihard Jakopič

Rihard Jakopic

Rihard Jakopič was a Slovenian painter. He was the leading Slovenian Impressionist painter and theoretician. Together with Matej Sternen, Matija Jama and Ivan Grohar, he is considered the pioneer of Slovenian impressionist painting.- Life :Jakopič was born in Ljubljana, then part of the...

 and the constructivist Avgust Černigoj

Avgust Cernigoj

Avgust Černigoj, also known in Italian as Augusto Cernigoi was a Italian painter, known for his avant-garde experiments in Constructivism....

. The most famous Slovenian architects are Jože Plečnik

Jože Plecnik

Jože Plečnik , was a Slovene architect who practised in Vienna, Belgrade, Prague and Ljubljana.-Biography:...

 who worked in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 as well as in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, Max Fabiani

Max Fabiani

Max Fabiani, was a Slovene-Italian architect from the Gorizia region. Together with Ciril Metod Koch, he introduced the Vienna Secession style of architecture in the Slovene Lands.-Life:...

, Ivan Vurnik

Ivan Vurnik

Ivan Vurnik, was a Slovene architect. Together with, Ciril Metod Koch and Jože Plečnik, Vurnik is considered one of the initiators of Slovenian modernist architecture.-Early years:...

 and Vladimir Šubic

Vladimir Šubic

Vladimir Šubic, was a Slovene architect. He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...

.

Slovenia is a homeland of numerous musicians and composers including Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 composer Jacobus Gallus

Jacobus Gallus

Jacobus Gallus Carniolus was a late Renaissance composer of Slovenian ethnicity...

 (1550–1591), who greatly influenced Central European classical music. In the twentieth century, Bojan Adamič

Bojan Adamic

Bojan Adamič was a well-known Slovenian composer of film scores, born in Ribnica.-Biography:Adamič earned a degree in piano from the Ljubljana Music Academy. His teacher was Janko Ravnik. Although he had an early preference for jazz, he later concentrated on film, pop, and stage music...

 was a renowned film music composer.

Contemporary popular musicians have been Slavko Avsenik

Slavko Avsenik

Slavko Avsenik is a Slovenian composer and musician. His career accomplishments place him at the worldwide pinnacle of success among ethnic popular musicians...

, Laibach

Laibach (band)

Laibach is a Slovenian avant-garde music group associated with industrial, martial, and neo-classical musical styles. Laibach formed June 1, 1980 in Trbovlje, Slovenia . Laibach represents the music wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst art collective, of which it was a founding member in 1984...

, Vlado Kreslin

Vlado Kreslin

Vlado Kreslin in Beltinci, SR Slovenia, Yugoslavia is a Slovenian folk rock musician.Kreslin was born in the village of Beltinci in the Prekmurje region of Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia. He began his musical career in his student years, first coming to acclaim as the lead singer with the rock...

, Zoran Predin

Zoran Predin

Zoran Predin is a Slovenian singer-songwriter from Maribor. In the 1980s, he was the front man of the folk-rock band Lačni Franz. He also writes music for film, television and theatre....

, Pero Lovšin

Pero Lovšin

Peter Lovšin, known also as Pero Lovšin , is a Slovenian musician, songwriter and singer, best known as a frontman of the Slovene punk rock group Pankrti...

, Silence

Silence (band)

Silence is a Slovenian electronic, synth pop and soundtrack music composing duo consisting of Boris Benko and Primož Hladnik . Their fanbase and their tours are currently limited to Slovenia, Germany and parts of Eastern Europe...

, New Swing Quartet, DJ Umek

DJ Umek

Uroš Umek is an internationally acclaimed DJ and music producer from Slovenia, author of more than 500 releases for world renown record labels such as Renaissance, Armada, Cocoon Records, Audiomatique, Hell Yeah, Tronic, Datapunk amidst many others...

, Valentino Kanzyani

Valentino Kanzyani

Tine Kocjančič, better known as Valentino Kanzyani is a Slovenian techno deejay and music producer. He has also released records under the name Recycled Loops, which is also the name of one of the record labels that he co-runs , the other being Earresistable.He became famous in Slovenia, when he...

, Melodrom

Melodrom

Melodrom are: Mina Špiler , Matevž Kolenc , Miha Žargi , Matej Nolda and Polona Janežič . The band create everything by themselves: from music and lyrics through videos to design....

, Siddharta

Siddharta (band)

Siddharta is a five-piece Slovenian rock band founded in 1995. They are named after the popular novel by German writer Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha.- History :...

, Magnifico and others.

Slovenian cinema has more than a century-long tradition with Karol Grossmann, Veličan Bešter, Božidar Jakac

Božidar Jakac

Božidar Jakac was a Slovene Expressionist, Realist and Symbolist painter, graphic artist, art teacher, photographer and filmmaker. He produced one of the most extensive oeuvres of pastels and oil paintings , drawings and, above all, graphics in Slovenia...

, Janko Ravnik, Ferdo Delak, France Štiglic, Mirko Grobler, Igor Pretnar

Igor Pretnar

Igor Pretnar was a Slovenian film director.Pretnar won the Golden Arena for Best Director for his film Wild Growth at the 1963 Pula Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...

, France Kosmač, Jože Pogačnik, Matjaž Klopčič

Matjaž Klopčič

Matjaž Klopčič was a Slovenian film director and screenwriter. He directed 28 films between 1959 and 2005...

, Jane Kavčič, Jože Gale, Boštjan Hladnik

Boštjan Hladnik

Boštjan Hladnik was a Yugoslavian/Slovene filmmaker.Hladnik was born in Kranj. He started with amateur short films after acquiring a projector and a 8mm camera in 1947. From 1949 he studied at the Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana and made a name for himself with several...

 and Karpo Godina

Karpo Godina

Karpo Ačimović Godina is a Slovenian cinematographer and film director. His film Artificial Paradise was screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:* Occupation in 26 Pictures...

 as its most established filmmakers. Contemporary film directors Janez Burger

Janez Burger

Janez Burger, a Slovene director, screenwriter and producer.-Life and career:Born on 21 March 1965 in Kranj, Slovenia. He grew up in Železniki, now lives and works in Ljubljana . In 1986 started his studies on Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana, but in 1990 quit this studies and moved to study at...

, Jan Cvitkovič

Jan Cvitkovic

Jan Cvitkovič is a critically acclaimed Slovenian film director, screenwriter and actor. As of April 2007 he has already won a total of 12 awards and 3 nominations at various film festivals for his work, including the San Sebastian Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival.-Biography:After one...

, Damjan Kozole

Damjan Kozole

Damjan Kozole is one of the most recognized Slovenian filmmakers. In his films, "some of the most raffish, funky and even sordid characters discover their own humanity" . Sight & Sound ranked his Spare Parts among ten most important films of the New Europe...

, Janez Lapajne

Janez Lapajne

Janez Lapajne [yannez la-pie-nay] is a Slovenian film director,and former president of Directors Guild of Slovenia.The son of geophysicist and seismologist Janez K...

 and Maja Weiss are the most notable representatives of the so-called "Renaissance of Slovenian cinema".

Slovenia's learned men include chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 and Nobel prize laureate Friderik Pregl, physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 Jožef Stefan

Joseph Stefan

Joseph Stefan was a physicist, mathematician, and poet of Slovene mother tongue and Austrian citizenship.- Life and work :...

, philosophers Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....

, Mladen Dolar

Mladen Dolar

Mladen Dolar is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist, film critic and expert in psychoanalysis.Dolar was born in Maribor as the son of the literary critic Jaro Dolar. In 1978 he graduated in Philosophy and French language at the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated under the...

, Alenka Zupančič

Alenka Zupancic

Alenka Zupančič is a Slovenian philosopher whose work focuses on psychoanalysis and continental philosophy.Born in Ljubljana, Zupančič graduated at the University of Ljubljana in 1990. She is currently a full-time researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and...

 and Milan Komar

Milan Komar

Milan Komar, also known as Emilio Komar was a Slovene Argentine Catholic philosopher and essayist.-Life:...

, linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

s Franc Miklošič

Franc Miklošic

Fran Miklošič , was a Slovene philologist.-Biography:Miklošič was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town of Ljutomer, then part of the Austrian Empire....

 and Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Bartol Kopitar was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna...

, theologian Jadran Strle, sociologists Thomas Luckmann

Thomas Luckmann

Thomas Luckmann is a German sociologist of Slovene origin. His main areas of research are the sociology of communication, Sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, and the philosophy of science.- Biography :...

 and Jože Pučnik

Jože Pucnik

Jože Pučnik was a Slovenian public intellectual, sociologist and politician. During the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, Pučnik was one of the most outspoken Slovenian critics of dictatorship and lack of civil liberties in former Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned for a total of 7 years, and later...

, physician Anton Marko Plenčič, mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 Jurij Vega

Jurij Vega

Baron Jurij Bartolomej Vega was a Slovene mathematician, physicist and artillery officer.-Early life:...

, rocket engineer and pioneer of cosmonautics Herman Potočnik

Herman Potocnik

Herman Potočnik was an Austro-Hungarian rocket engineer and pioneer of cosmonautics . He is chiefly remembered for his work addressing the long-term human habitation of space.- Early life :Potočnik was born in Pola, southern Istria, Austria-Hungary...

.

External links

• Culture.si. A wiki operated by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and the Ljudmila media lab. Accessed 9 February 2011.