Merry Day of Culture 2020
Although Slovenia celebrates its official cultural holiday on 8 February every year, many people also enjoy a similar occasion on 3 December. This is due to the date marking the birthday of France Prešeren, the national poet of Slovenia. Cultural events and celebrations take place across the country and Gimnazija Vič is no exception.
In different classes across all year groups, students linked up online with their Slovene teacher to hear works of literature from Slovenia as well as to enjoy some special musical performances which had been arranged to reflect the themes and ideas of the works covered.
Eva Brank, a student from 4F, prepared a short report on one of this year’s events:
Over our four years at Gimnazija Vič, we have been fortunate to have Ms Jana Ozimek as our Slovene teacher as she works hard to share her enthusiasm and passion for different aspects of Slovenian culture, in particular the literature of our nation.
Every year at the start of December, a special recital is held to mark the birth date of France Prešeren, the national poet of Slovenia. As well as learning different pieces of poetry, we add to the event by including musical performances.
The poems chosen are taken from the period that we are learning about in our regular class. In our case, it was the modern era of Slovenian literature. This meant looking at poetry written after 1950 including poets such as Veno Taufer, Dane Zajc, Gregor Strniša, and Tone Pavček. One theme we looked at in the works was that of alienation with the author being seen as the spectator of their surroundings.
We met together online on 3 December and were joined by Ms Alenka Krapež, our school’s principal. As well as enjoying our readings and performances, she took the time to add her own message at the end of the event.
As the final year at this school is going by so quickly and in a way that we could never have predicted, this recital left us all feeling rather nostalgic and the members of our class made an agreement to meet again for such an occasion in the future, even when our time at Gimnazija Vič has come to an end.
We would like to thank Ms Jana Ozimek for her work on this event and to praise all the students involved for their hard work in preparing for their readings and performances. We wish them well in their plans for keeping this important tradition alive in the years to come.