Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Arts
Literature
Medieval to Modern
Like that of cultures everywhere, Slovenian literature, among the oldest in the Slavic
world, is heavily influenced by the nation's history.
The oldest example of written Slovene can be found in the so-called Freising
Manuscripts (Brižinski Spomeniki) from around AD 970. They contain a sermon on sin
and penance and instructions for general confession. Oral poetry, such as the seminal Lepa
Vida (Fair Vida) , a tale of longing and nostalgia, flourished throughout the Middle Ages,
but it was the Reformation that saw the first book in Slovene, a catechism published by
Primož Trubar in 1550. Almost everything else published until the late 18th century was in
Latin or German, including an ambitious account of Slovenia, The Glory of the Duchy of
Carniola (1689), by Janez Vajkard Valvasor (1641-93), from which comes most of our
knowledge of Slovenian history, geography, culture and folklore before the 17th century.
The Enlightenment gave Slovenia its first
dramatist (Anton Tomaž Linhart), poet (Valentin
Vodnik) and modern grammarian (Jernej Kopit-
ar). But it was during the so-called National Ro-
mantic Period that Slovenian literature gained
its greatest poet of all time: France Prešeren. In
the latter half of the 19th century, Fran Levstik
(1831-87) brought the writing and interpretation
of oral folk tales to new heights with his legends about the larger-than-life hero Martin
Krpan, but it was Josip Jurčič (1844-81) who published the first novel in Slovene, Deseti
Brat (The 10th Brother) in 1866.
Slovenia is the third-smallest literature market in
Europe (a fiction 'bestseller' means 500 to 800
copies sold) and in the EU only the Danes borrow
more library books than the Slovenes, where the
annual average is 10 books per person.
 
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