Slovenia dedicates an entire year of events to author Cankar

One of the most notable contemporary adaptations of his works staged this year was Scandal in St. Florian Valley, a co-production of three Ljubljana theatres.

The Ljubljana City Museum and the Cankarjev Dom put on exhibitions dedicated to his life and work, while many of other institutions organised events ranging from expert symposia to amateur adaptations of his plays and dozens of books detailing his life and work were published.

Strongly influenced by the poverty of his family, he wrote novels, short stories and plays that provided a critical insight into the ideologically divided and economically stratified society he lived in, works that remain topical reads to this day.

Irena Avsenik Nabergoj, a Cankar scholar, has described the centenary celebrations as the moment that "Cankar was received by the people and became one of us."

Credited as the pioneer of modernism in Slovenian literature, Cankar started writing at an early age. He wrote over 30 books, was a master of fiction and the first notable author of Slovenian drama.

Apart from being a socially critical author, he was also a political activist and even stood for parliament in the first election to the Austrian parliament in 1907 on the ticket of the Marxist Social Democratic Party.

He pushed for rights of the weak and the powerless, and opposed clericalism, conservatism and the abuse of workers, while calling for a unified Slovenia.