Lucija PEČNIK
“O YOU WRETCHED MAN – WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!”
The trial of the smuggler Anton Krajnc for robbery and murder in 1837
The article deals with the criminal trial that took place between 1837 and 1842 before the Blagovna Territorial Court against Anton Krajnc, a serf of the local manor and tobacco smuggler, accused of the theft and robbery and murder of the couple Matija and Neža Kramarič in the village of Poljana Sutlanska, right on the Croatian border. The article presents the life story of Anton Krajnc, also known as »Švercar Tona«, based on a large and fully preserved criminal case file held by the Historical Archive of Celje within the records of the Blagovna Manor Local Court.
Marija Mojca PETERNEL
ILLUSTRIRTES UNTERHALTUNGSBLATT: WÖCHENTLICHE BEILAGE ZUM LAIBACHER TAGBLATT (1874)
This article aims to give a brief introduction to the weekly supplement of the Ljubljana newspaper Laibacher Tagblatt. The supplement provided readers with cultural, entertaining but also educational content, with a wealth of pictorial material, as indicated in the title Illustrirtes Unterhaltungsblatt. The distinctly German-oriented supplement, which has remained unaddressed in Slovenian historiography, was published with the same content but with a different headline by different newspapers throughout the monarchy. The aim of the paper is primarily to complement the existing nineteenth-century newspaper picture of the then Slovenian territory, while at the same time confirming its embeddedness in the wider European context and, finally, the strong journalistic competence of the Ljubljana publishers of the time.
Dragan MATIĆ, Ivan SMILJANIĆ
“YOU MUST NOT PUT THE SEAL OF FRAUD ON MY FOREHEAD, I HAVE NEVER BEEN DISHONEST, I REMAIN HONEST!”
Anton Pesek and his financial affairs in the late 1920s
The article focuses on the entrepreneur Anton Pesek, who in the 1920s shook the circles of Ljubljana through a series of financial scandals. In 1919, he formed the Yugoslav Credit Institution, and in the mid-1920s, the Ljubljana Loan and Savings Bank and the Yugoslav Insurance Savings Bank, because of the many projects for which he needed money. In all cases, Pesek used the institutions to make generous loans to himself, placing himself, family members and dependants in top positions. He used practices such as false claims of financial stability, promises of extremely high interest rates and tempting offers of employment in exchange for a deposit. All Pesek’s financial institutions ended up in liquidation or bankruptcy, and at his trial in 1927 he was acquitted of fraud charges thanks to a strong legal defense and sentenced to only ten months in prison.
Jerneja FERLEŽ
“HE ADORNS THE CITY – LET THE CITY SUPPORT HIM!”
The formative Idrija period of photographer Josip Pelikan
Photographer Josip Pelikan spent most of his career in Celje, where his legacy is well researched and documented and represents an important part of the city’s heritage, but this text looks back to his less well-known quarter-century formative period in Idrija between 1894 and 1919. Through registers and other sources, it sheds light on the photographer’s childhood and youth, as well as on the life of his ancestors, especially his mother in her birthplace Rožmítal pod Třemšínem in the Czech Republic. It describes the arrival of young Pelikan from Trbiž, where he was born, to Idrija, where he spent a quarter of a century, and the circumstances of his upbringing and development into a renowned professional photographer. It also focuses on the buildings in which he lived and worked, and the people he grew up with. The paper highlights the surviving photographs of Josip Pelikan, Anton Schmeiler and Barbara Kastner from Trbiž, Idrija and Brežice, and raises the question of the influence of buildings on personal and collective memory, or on the processes of heritage in general.
Urh FERLEŽ, Mia STRAŠEK
“AND ALL THE WISDOM OF LIFE IS PERHAPS TO BE AS READY AS THE SOUND OF A FLUTE …”
Life and retrospective of the professional achievements of Božena Orožen (1929-2025)
This article presents the life and work of Božena Orožen (1929-2025), teacher of Slovene and Russian, librarian and researcher. Her work focused on local history research, Slovenian-Czech literary contacts and the popularisation of local cultural history. After her exile to Serbia during the Second World War, she studied Slavic Studies in Ljubljana and then taught for several decades at a secondary school in Celje. She published several scientific and professional articles and contributed to the development of teaching materials. In 1994, she was one of the initiators of the establishment of the University for the Third Age of Life in Celje. Her bibliography includes contributions in the fields of literary history, local history studies and didactics. She is one of the most important Slavists and cultural history experts in Celje.