Prešeren Award

Škofja Loka – One of Slovenia’s most prolific painters France Slana has died, aged 95, several media reported on Monday. He was most known for his oil paintings and watercolours, but also for his prints, painted ceramics and tapestries. He was one of the 1964 recipients of the Prešeren Fund Prize.

Ljubljana – Culture Day, a public holiday marking the anniversary of the death of poet France Prešeren (1800-1849), will be celebrated in Slovenia on Tuesday in a limited form, as there will be no traditional event at Prešeren’s birth house in Vrba, and the recital of Prešeren’s poetry will be broadcast on the radio.

Ljubljana/Kranj/Vrba – Despite restrictions limiting gatherings and the cancellation of several long-standing events, Slovenians flocked to cultural institutions and points of interest on Tuesday to celebrate Culture Day, a public holiday in memory of the great Romantic poet France Prešeren.

A bust of Alojz Rebula (1924-2018), an award-wining diaspora writer and translator, has been unveiled in front of the Church of St Helen in Loka pri Zidanem Mostu, the birth place of his wife, where he spent the last years of his life.

Ljubljana – President Borut Pahor hosted the annual Culture Day event in Presidential Palace on Monday, receiving this year’s Prešeren Prize and Prešeren Fund Prize recipients. Pahor called for culture of dialogue. Author Feri Lainšček, one of the laureates, meanwhile highlighted the role Slovenian culture played in the country’s independence efforts.

Ljubljana – Feri Lainšček, a writer and poet from Slovenia’s north-easternmost region, and Marko Mušič, an architect who has made a name for himself in Slovenia and throughout the former Yugoslavia, are the winners of the Prešeren Prizes for lifetime-achievement for 2021. The country’s top accolades for artistic accomplishments will be presented on 7 February.

However, the main event already took place, as the Prešeren Prizes, top national accolades in arts and culture, were given out last night.

Two lifetime achievement prizes were given out this year, going to theatre costume designer Bjanka Adžić Ursulov and independent documentary director Filip Robar Dorin.