As part of the ”DLAN reads” project, which is financed by the Ministry of Culture with an aim to represent and promote the Slovenian language, we discussed the life work of Josip Jurčič. Our professional worker Vlasta Hojan briefly presented his life, enriched from early childhood by the stories and fairy tales told to him by his grandfather. It is interesting that he earned his living by writing already in elementary school. He wrote the story about the white snake at the age of seventeen. In 1868, on the advice of Fran Levstik, he wrote the first Slovenian novel Deseti brat.
We had privilege to went through the book edition, which was illustrated by Maksim Gaspari (Mladinska Knjiga, Ljubljana), dated from early 1979. In greater detail we looked at the meaning and roles of two important characters in the novel: the tragic character Martinek Spak – the Tenth Brother and Krjavlj, the indestructible bold joker who leaves a mark in the readers’ memory. This particular character over the years became the adjective ‘’krjaveljski’’ (a krjavel) and even into the name of an industrial product, a type of high-quality bread “Krjavljev kruh”.
Due to a lack of financial resources Josip Jurčič did not finish his studies in Vienna, he returned to Maribor and later to Ljubljana, where he was born. In 1880, together with Janko Kersnik, Fran Levec and Ivan Tavčar, he founded the Ljubljanski zvon for which he wrote until his death. He died in Ljubljana and is buried in Navje.
The Government of the Republic of Slovenia declared 2021, on the 140th anniversary of his death, the cultural year of Josip Jurčič.
