January 15, 2018
January 15
In 1884 Josip Vandot was born in Kranjska Gora, the author who wrote about a boy called Kekec, with these stories later made into three movies that played in theatres in over 30 countries. The theme song from the second of these, the 1963 movie called Srečno Kekec (Good Luck Kekec) was written by Marijan Vodopivec, who also appears in this Week in History (see January 21).
January 16
In 1601 the bishop of Ljubljana, Tomaž Hren, and provincial governor, Jurij Lenkovič, proclaimed that all the people living in Ljubljana who had accepted Lutheranism must renounce their religion or leave the city within six weeks. According to Valvasor, only six people converted back to the old religion, while all the other Lutherans left the city.
Primož Trubar (1508- 1586), Slovenian Protestant Reformer. Trubarjeva cesta is named after him.
January 17
In 1882 the farmer Janez Grilc found a bronze bucket in a fallow near Vače. The bucket turned out to be the most important archaeological find from the Early Iron Age in the territory of modern Slovenia, known as the Vače Situla. It dates from about the fifth century BC, and can be seen at the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana.
January 18
In 2005 the famous Slovenian singer Marjana Deržaj died in Ljubljana.
Marjana Deržaj singing "Poletna Noč" composed by Mojmir Sepe (Bojan the Bear)
January 19
In 1876 Dragotin Kette, a Slovenian poet, was born in Prem at Ilirska Bistrica. He died in 1899 at the age of 23 from tuberculosis in the old sugar factory called “Cukrarna” in Ljubljana. Another great Slovenian poet died in Cukrarna from the same disease two years later, Josip Murn, at the age of 22.
Cukrarna
There are, in fact quite a few Slovenian poets who didn’t make it past the age of 23. In addition to Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn, Srečko Kosovel died at the age of 22 in 1926 due to meningitis; Karel Destovnik-Kajuh was killed as a partisan fighter at the age of 21 in 1944; France Balantič lost his life in 1943 at the age of 21, and Ivan Hribovšek died in 1945 during the post-war slaughters at the age of 22.
January 20
In 1980 the alpine skier Bojan Križaj won World Cup slalom for the first time in Wengen.
January 21
In 1920 Marijan Vodpivec was born. He is best known as a composer of several children’s songs, some of them now having the status of folk songs. Apart from aforementioned “Kekec Song”, he is also the composer of “Huda Mravljica” (Brutal Little Ant), from the Slovenian TV show “Rasmus and the Vagabond”, based on the book by Astrid Lindgren (better known as the author of the Pippi Longstocking books).
