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Senior state officials and other prominent guests and ordinary people gathered in the southeastern village of Rasica on the eve of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Primoz Trubar to pay homage to this Protestant reformer who wrote and published the first Slovenian book in 1550.
Sunday's ceremony, held on the estate where Trubar was born, was the culmination of the many festivities in and around Slovenia in the jubilee Trubar Year.
The keynote speaker, Culture Minister Vasko Simoniti credited Trubar for having laid the foundation for the development of the Slovenian cultural identity, one of the cornerstones of the Slovenian nation today.
This was not a primary intention for Trubar, who as a reformer only wanted people to learn to read the Bible in their native, Slovenian tongue, and to be able to listen to God's word alone and free, independent of any intermediaries.
The minister listed Trubar's seminal contributions to the Slovenian nation, including giving Slovenians their language in a book form, starting Slovenian popular schools and the first printing office in Ljubljana and for being an outspoken critic of the unbearable conditions they lived in at the time.
He literally took history in his hands, Simoniti said, noting that it was Trubar who started what eventually resulted in the Slovenian language becoming one of the official languages in Europe.
A crowd of some 3,000 saw a show that walked them through the main stages of Trubar's life in the reversed order, from his death in Derendingen, Germany, in 1586 to his birth in Rasica in 1508. Several actors of different ages alternated in the role of Trubar.
Another ceremony commemorating the jubilee was held in the Ljubljana Lutheran Church on Saturday, with Slovenian President Danilo Tuerk saying that Trubar proved that the "broadness of spirit of a European scholar does contradict genuine efforts for the identity of one's nation".
Trubar published the first two books in Slovenian, the spelling-book "Abecedarium" and "Catechism", in 1550. He also translated the entire New Testament (1582) and the Psalms from the Old Testaments (1566).
Trubar was the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church in Slovenia. He wanted to write books in a language which could easily be understood by all Slovenians and decided to base the written version of Slovenian on dialects spoken in the country's central regions.
He published the first two books in Slovenian, the spelling-book "Abecedarium" and "Catechism", in 1550. He also translated the entire New Testament (1582) and the Psalms from the Old Testaments (1566). In his "Catechism" the inhabitants of today's Slovenia were referred to as "Slovenci" (Slovenians) for the first time.
Source: STA
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