Prior to the 1840s, the small Slovenian-oriented intellectual elite was in no position to mobilize the broad public needed to organize large assemblies with a national character, and the press was hampered by a harsh censorial regime; it was not until 1843 that a major Slovenian-language newspaper, Kmetijske in rokodelske novice (“Agricultural and artisan news”, Ljubljana 1843-1902), was permitted to appear. This changed after 1848; other journals and associations emerged, e.g. Slovensko Društvo (Slovenian Association, founded in Ljubljana in 1848). Backed by a growing media infrastructure, associations were now in a position to organize (and fund-raise for) cultural events, centennial commemorations, sepulchral monuments and memorials for important figures. In particular, the so-called béseda (literally, “word”) events, which included a varied artistic and convivial programme, became popular. Among the first successful campaigns of the so-called Old Slovenians, led by Janez Bleiweis (1808-1881), the editor of Novice, and Lovro Toman (1827-1870), was the installation of a new tombstone for the poet France Prešeren at the Kranj cemetery in 1852. It introduced typical features of “national” campaigns: collective fund-raising (with appeals to donors across all Slovenian ethnic territory), remembrance rituals, institutional support and media coverage.
The pattern was repeated with even greater success at the centenary of Valentin Vodnik’s birth in 1858. Even though the original plan to produce a marble statue failed, a plaque with an inscription “to the first Slovenian poet” was placed on Vodnik’s birth house: for the first time, the word “Slovenian” was publically exhibited in the durable form of marble engraving. Moreover, the social, commemorative aspect of Vodnik’s centenary – including singing, rituals, iconolatry, new editions and other typical elements of the cult of “cultural saints” – demonstrated for the first time that the Slovenian cause was winning wider support.
In the 1860s, activities of the Slovenian Association were backed by the quickly spreading network of public reading societies, čitalnice, and the publishing activities of Slovenska Matica (The Slovenian Matica, founded in 1864). These societies, covering most of the Slovenian ethnic territory, organized various national cultural gatherings and commemorations that included reciting, choral singing, music and theatre production and oratory in convivial form. Towards the end of the century, a number of male and mixed choirs, the largest and most prominent being the Glasbena Matica (Music Matica, founded in 1891), became an indispensable part of commemorative and festive gatherings.
In this period, commemorations of cultural figures, especially poets, were an important impulse for large festive assemblies. In 1872 a crowd of some 6000 people, including the newly founded Association of Slovenian Writers, took a pilgrimage to Vrba in Upper Carniola to honour Prešeren as the new patron of Slovenian writers by affixing a memorial plaque on the house where he was born. Nearby, in the scenic lake resort of Bled (one of the settings of Prešeren’s 1836 masterpiece Krst pri Savici, “The baptism on the Savica”) a column was placed in 1883. In 1889, the first public monument with a national character was unveiled in central Ljubljana, dedicated to Vodnik, in a three-day festival. The ceremonious unveiling of a large bronze statue of Vodnik attracted a large crowd (c.10,000); it included among other things a celebratory cantata performed by over 300 singers.
The inauguration of the Vodnik monument exacerbated tensions with the smaller German community in Ljubljana, where national celebrations were beginning to overshadow the older festive tradition, tied to dynastic patriotism (celebrating Habsburg birthdays, imperial visits to Slovenian lands, military victories and peace agreements). At the same time, the Slovenian movement grew in political power as well. The commemorative ceremonies for Fran Levstik showed that the various elements (a column, a plaque, marchings bands orations, poetry etc.) were now becoming routine. After Josip Vošnjak (1834-1911) took charge of the Pisateljsko Podporno Društvo (Writers’ Support Association) in the 1880s, that society became almost obsessed with memorial tablets and monuments: about sixty Slovenian notables were “immortalized” with plaques and monuments by 1918.
To account for the commemorative fever around cultural and especially literary figures, it should be noted that the possibilities for a large-scale collective expression of Slovenian national sentiment were limited, especially after the banning of the nationalistic open-air Taborsko Gibanje (“Encampment Movement”, 1868-71), which at its peak attracted up to 30,000 people. The Slovenian national movement appears to have channelled its energies instead into the commemorative mode, which the Habsburg authorities tolerated as being less subversive. This explains the drive, during the 1890s, for yet another national monument to Prešeren, by now firmly canonized as the national poet par excellence. Even though the campaign, led by the most prominent cultural and political figures of the day, missed its original deadline of 1900 (the centenary of the poet’s birth), large centennial celebrations took place in various locations (quite a few in far-flung cities like Graz, Prague, Zagreb, Sarajevo and Vienna). The Prešeren monument was finally unveiled on 10 September 1905, in a minutely-designed ritual protocol. Some 20,000 people attended the ceremonies, many from distant places (thanks to the enhanced railway network). The procession, starting at the recently-built Narodni dom (“National house”), included as many as 127 associations. The emotional unveiling involved a spontaneous singing of the Pan-Slavic anthem Hej, Slovani! (“Hey, Slavs!”), and vociferous cheering.
After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 and the establishment of the new Slavic monarchy, commemorative gatherings became less nationally charged.
