Slovenska matica recently handed over a number of materials to the National and University Library, including Anton Martin Slomšek’s manuscripts with the toponyms of Slovenian places in Styria, and the manuscript of Cankar’s novel Novo živjeno.
As the assistant director of NUK for management of professional work emphasized at the presentation of the materials Ines Vodopivecit is NUK’s task to collect Slovenian – everything that is written in the Slovenian language, by Slovenian authors, about Slovenia and Slovenians, the written cultural heritage of our nation, on which our identity is based and which is the first and most important source for historical study and knowledge of our culture.
Overlooked manuscripts found in a closetHead of the Slovenske matica program Ignatius Fridl Jarc she said that the part of the material that was created as part of the publishing house’s activities – manuscripts and later typescripts – was continuously handed over to NUK. The last material handed over to NUK was found by accident. While rearranging one of the rooms and inspecting the cupboards in it, it turned out that the cupboards contained not only material from recent years, but also material that had been overlooked during previous handovers, which is why it is particularly valuable.
According to the administrator of the NUK Manuscript Collection Marian Rupert already in 2014, in agreement with the then secretary of Slovenska matica, took over the first part of the matica’s publishing archive – manuscripts, typescripts and other material related to publishing books. They found some gems in the last donation they received last year.
He exhibited handwritten notebooks with toponyms of Slovenian places in Styria written by Slomšek. The manuscript is from 1846, and the president of the register, Janez Bleiweis, wrote a kind of receipt on it. According to Rupert, it is a very interesting manuscript that testifies to the cultural activity of the Slovenian Motherland in the early period.
Cankar’s story about a yearning artistAnother treasure is Cankar’s manuscript of the novel New life. As he said, the manuscript nicely explains the genesis of the novel, and the writer submitted it to the mother in four parts. He recalled that the aforementioned novel was also Cankar’s last publication in Slovenska matica.
As a special feature, he singled out the photo of the remains of the linguist Jerne Kopitar from Vienna. As he explained, the Motherland of Slovenia initiated the transfer of his remains to Ljubljana, together with the tombstone. In 1897, Kopitar’s remains were reburied at the Ljubljana cemetery in Navje.
President of Slovenska matica Aleš Gabric reminded that the Matica was one of the central Slovenian cultural institutions until the First World War. Even before the establishment of the University of Ljubljana and NUK, it had a library that was richer than most others in Slovenia, as it also exchanged material with related scientific societies in Central Europe, mostly in the Slavic world. After the founding of the University of Ljubljana and the renaming of the Lyceum Library, which was the predecessor of today’s NUK, the mother gave a large gift of books to the young university, and more donations followed. The mother handed over the documents in four batches to the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, the last time in December last year.
Source: Rtvslo
