Prešerė Day in Slovenia

First Portrait of F. PrechernFranze Prešern (born 3 December 1800 in the village of Vrba na Gorenjskem, Vrba na Gorenjskem; died 8 February 1849 in Kranj) is the largest Slovenian poet, the founder of the literary Slovenian language; he also wrote in German.

The son of a farmer and gardener from the village of Vrba, Preshern grew up on his father's farm. He was educated at the insistence of his mother, who dreamed of becoming a priest. Not feeling this vocation, Franze went to Vienna to study law, then to take up the official position in Laibach (Ljubljana). He began to write poetry in 1824, in 1827 the first publications appeared. Preshern immediately became a famous poet. Having received a doctorate in law, he tried to get a job in the civil service, but could not get a job because he was not German (Slovenia was then part of Austria). He eventually became an assistant lawyer.

In the 1830s, Preschern experienced the death of several close people and friends, as well as an unhappy love for the girl to whom his most famous poems are dedicated. By the early 1840s, he was already an alcoholic. But even intoxicated poems were so good that they were on lists (not all were allowed to be printed by the Austrian censorship). In 1844 he wrote "Health" (literally translated as "toast"), the seventh verse of which was forbidden during the poet's lifetime, and now became the words of the national Slovenian anthem.

In 1846, the Austrian government finally allowed Preschern to practice law and gave him a plot in the city of Kranj. There was a lot of work, and I even had to hire extra clerks. The poet first began his family life with the maid of his late friend, who by then had given birth to two sons. However, prosperity and peace came too late - Preschern was already terminally ill and on February 8, 1849 died of cirrhosis of the liver.

Prešern showed that his native language is not inferior to the languages of Western Europe, and in Slovenian you can create beautiful poems of various genres: ballads, gazelles, poems. The wreath of sonnets, a special form of versification that combines 15 sonnets into one work, was created by Preshern before the first wreath of sonnets in Russian. The first wreath sonnet in Russian was a translation from Prešeren made by Fedor Evgenievich Korsh (1889). The first letters of each sonnet in this wreath were formed in the acrostic "To Julia Primich" - a girl who rejected the poet.

On the day of Prešeren’s death, Slovenian Culture Day is also known as Prešeren Day.