"Monuments in Ljubljana (1)" Ljubljana Travelogue by andreslo2000

The Ilirian provinces have been founded by Napoleon Bonaparte around year 1800 when the French emperor concured my hometown. Many people were happy with the new goverment as the Kaiser's (Austrohungarian emperor in Vienna that Napolen defeated) was not pretty much in favour of Slovenian people. Just Austrian noblemen lived good while poor Slovene peasants were suffering high taxes, long (as long as 7 years) military service, etc.
So our poet (we call him The father os Slovene poetry) Valentin Vodink wrote a poem to Napoleon and to Ilirian provinces. This poem is written on this monument. If you take a closer look you will see an inscription that says: "Chorintus is called a Greece eye and Iliria would become the hub of Europe."

General Meister was a WWI soldier who fought for Slovenia's northern border. He maneged to concure Maribor which would later be the last frontier of our state. Despite he and his soldiers came further to Klagenfurt (now Austria) and even more than 50% of population were Slovene at those times (after WWI) later on all the region didn't belong to Yugoslavia due to plebiscite in 1921 where people decided rather to live in Austria than Yugoslavia.
Nowdays there are only some 20.000 Slovene speaking people behind the border (less than 15%) so general Rudolf Meister must turn himself in the grave.

Simon Gregorcic was a poet from the Kars region. His poems mostly talk about his native land - Primorska - and about it's people. The most famous poem of his is "Soci - To the Soca River". In this lyric he describes the beauty of Soca, Soca valley and girls who lives there as much as the strong boys from the mountains singing a beautiful song. But then suddenly he turns 180 degrees and he becomes pesimistic. He predicts a horrible war and sees Soca (which once was clear and blue) to become red, covered with blood of young soldiers fighting in the hills. However his predictions became true as in the WWI the hills above Soca river were one of the most horrible fronts where more than 100000 young braves died. The American Ernest Hemingway who was a military car driver in those mountains well described the horrors of the war in his novel Farewell to Arms lot of years after our great poet Simon Gregorcic put the whole masacre in just one poem - so beautiful but yet so fearful.

In this house our greatest poet France Preseren lived during the years 1832-1836. He met his greatest love Primicova Julija during this years in Trnovska cerkev (Trnovo church - see chapter "churches and museums") and - as his love wasn't fulfiled he wrote some greatest poems as "Sonetni venec" and "Sonetje nesrece" in this house.

The grave of Josip Jurcic, the father of Slovene novel, author of famous (Slovene famous, that is) novel called "Deseti brat" or "The Tenth Brother" in translation.

Graveyard and park Navje where lots of writters, painters and other famous Slovenes are buried.

A painter. His picture "Sejalec" or "The Sower" is a masterpiece also in world-class impresionist opus.

See above.
The inscription says: There will be no son, neither daughter after me, while there will be plenty of memmory throught my poems.

One of Europeans top intelectuals from the first half of 19th century. A poliglot who spoke more than 20 languages but sadly drowned in the Sava river before he maneged to present his great talent. His friend, our greates poet France Preseren, said of him: He's the biggest mind yet lived in Slovenia, but to the hell with him as he wont give a single page, nothing, nada, niente away from him.
What a pitty!