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The Slovene Society (Slovene : Slovenska matica, [lower-alpha 1] also Matica slovenska) is the second-oldest publishing house in Slovenia, founded on 4 February 1864 as an institution for the scholarly and cultural progress of Slovenes.
The Slovene Society was founded upon the proposal of several Slovene patriotic associations and individuals from Maribor, who urged the establishment of an institution that would publish advanced scholarly literature in Slovene, foster the expansion of culture among Slovenes, and development of scientific terminology in Slovene. In 1864, the consortium Slovenska matica was founded in Ljubljana. Its work was based on the examples of similar institutions in other Slavic countries, such as the Matica hrvatska in Croatia, Matica srpska in Vojvodina, Matice česká in the Czech Lands, and Matica slovenská in Slovakia. [1] The consortium was established with private capital, as well as with capital of the Duchy of Carniola and several cultural associations. The Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I also gave a substantial financial contribution for its founding.
The institution reached its peak at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, it functioned as a regular publishing house on a free market, publishing books for a general public, many of which became bestsellers; at the same time, it also performed the role of an Academy of Sciences, fostering high culture and maintaining close contacts with the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, as well as similar institutions in Prague, Kraków, London and Saint Petersburg.
During World War I, the SM was closed and its properties confiscated by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. The alleged cause was the publication of the book Gospodin Franjo ("Mister Franjo") by the Slovene author and officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army Fran Maselj (pen name: Podlimbarski), which was a strong satirical critique of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Slovene Society expanded its publishing work and in 1938 it was one of the co-founders of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. During the Italian occupation in World War II, the leadership of the Slovene Society collaborated with the Liberation Front of the Slovene People. In 1944, it was shut down by the Nazi German authorities. In the late 1945, the communist authorities of the People's Republic of Slovenia allowed the society to be re-established, although its editorial policies were considered "too conservative" by the new regime. Most of its properties were nationalized by the state, but the institution was allowed to continue functioning and later received substantial subsidies.
The work of the institution was reinvigorated again in the 1980s, when it started systemically publishing translations of major Western philosophers and political theorists, including authors regarded as subversive of the official Socialist ideology, such as Heidegger, Machiavelli, Jan Patočka, Unamuno, José Ortega y Gasset, Aurelius Augustinus, and the complete works of Nietzsche.
Since its establishment, the Slovene Society has been headed by important figures from Slovene cultural and public life.
Many prominent individuals served as editors and chancellors (chief secretaries) of the institution. The most prominent of these were Fran Levstik, Josip Vidmar, Juš Kozak, France Bernik, and Drago Jančar. Several others have collaborated with the institution, including philosophers Ivo Urbančič and Tine Hribar, historian Vasilij Melik and political theorist Albin Prepeluh.
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. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Slovene, and has sometimes been compared to Franz Kafka and James Joyce.
The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members of the academy.
United Slovenia is the name originally given to an unrealized political programme of the Slovene national movement, formulated during the Spring of Nations in 1848. The programme demanded (a) unification of all the Slovene-inhabited areas into one single kingdom under the rule of the Austrian Empire, (b) equal rights of Slovene in public, and (c) strongly opposed the planned integration of the Habsburg monarchy with the German Confederation. The programme failed to meet its main objectives, but it remained the common political program of all currents within the Slovene national movement until World War I.
Oton Župančič was a Slovene poet, translator, and playwright. He is regarded, alongside Ivan Cankar, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn, as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature. In the period following World War I, Župančič was frequently regarded as the greatest Slovenian poet after Prešeren, but in the last forty years his influence has been declining and his poetry has lost much of its initial appeal.
Fran Albreht was a Slovenian poet, editor, politician and partisan. He also published under the pseudonym Rusmir.
Ivan Tavčar was a Slovenian writer, lawyer, and politician.
Josip Vidmar was a notable Slovenian literary critic, essayist, and politician. From 1944 to 1946 he was speaker of the Slovenian People's Liberation Council. From 1952 to 1976 was president of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and from 1950 to 1964 he was the head of the academy's Institute of Literatures.
Janez Bleiweis was a Slovene conservative politician, journalist, physician, veterinarian, and public figure. He was the leader of the so-called Old Slovene political movement. Already during his lifetime, he was called father of the nation.
Bojan Štih, was a Slovene literary critic, stage director, and essayist. He was one of the most influential figures in modern Slovene theatre after 1945.
Avgust Pirjevec was a Slovene literary scholar, lexicographer, and librarian.
Sodobnost is a Slovenian literary and cultural magazine, established in 1933. It is considered the oldest of currently existing literary magazines in Slovenia. Although Sodobnost has traditionally been a magazine focused on cultural and literary issues, it nowadays covers a wide range of current affairs. It is part of the Eurozine editorial project.
Bogo Grafenauer was a Slovenian historian, who mostly wrote about medieval history in the Slovene Lands. Together with Milko Kos, Fran Zwitter, and Vasilij Melik, he was one of the founders of the so-called Ljubljana school of historiography.
Vasilij Melik was a Slovenian historian, who mostly worked on political history of the Slovene Lands in the 19th century.
Izidor Cankar was a Slovenian author, art historian, diplomat, journalist, translator, and liberal conservative politician. He was one of the most important Slovenian art historians of the first part of the 20th century, and one of the most influential cultural figures in interwar Slovenia.
Albin Prepeluh was a Slovenian left wing politician, journalist, editor, political theorist and translator. Before World War I, he was the foremost Slovene Marxist revisionist theoretician. After the War, he became one of the most persistent advocates of Slovenian autonomy within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and, together with Dragotin Lončar, the ideologist of the democratic reformist faction of Slovenian Social Democrats. In the late 1920s, he evolved towards agrarianism. He was also known under the pseudonym Abditus.
Dragotin Lončar was a Slovenian historian, editor, and Social Democratic politician.
Josip Vošnjak was a Slovene politician and author, leader of the Slovene National Movement in the Duchy of Styria, one of the most prominent representatives of the Young Slovene movement.
Anton Vodnik was a Slovenian poet, art historian, and critic. He was one of the most notable representatives of Slovene Catholic expressionism in the interwar period.
Beno Zupančič was a Slovene writer and journalist. He is best known for his novels and youth literature.
Josip Marn was a Slovene literary historian, journalist, and teacher.
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