Classical Reception in Slovenia

Abstract

The territory of today's Slovenia was to a great degree Romanized by the time of the Slavic invasion. It belonged to the Latin (Catholic) West during the Middle Ages and contributed to Renaissance humanism through personalities such as Augustinus Prygl “Tyfernus” (c.1475–1536), the first collector of inscriptions in the Austrian lands, and Baron Sigismund von Herberstein (1486–1566), author of the first important work on Russia in the West. Both Valentin Vodnik (1758–1819), the central figure of Slovenian Enlightenment classicism, and the Romantic bard France Perešeren (1800–1849) were heavily indebted to classical models. Like elsewhere in Europe, Greek myth––in modern clothing or as a political metaphor––was a crucial constituent of twentieth-century theater. The introductory chapter presents the architect Jože Plečnik (1872–1957) and his plan to transform the capital of Slovenia into a “new Athens” as an idiosyncratic case of modernist architecture regressing into neoclassicism.