Die Ehre des Hertzogthums Crain

The Original Glory of Carniola

In 1689, a Slovenian nobleman and polymath named Janez Vajkard Valvasor published The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, an exhaustive study of life in 17th-century Carniola. (Carniola being the Latin name for Krajnska, an area in central Slovenia.)

The Glory was a monster: 15 volumes, 3,532 pages, 528 copperplate engravings and 24 appendices. It was originally published in German under the title Die Ehre des Hertzogthums Crain. You can see the cover page above.

Three hundred years after its publication, Valvasor was rewarded for his efforts by the newly independent country of Slovenia, which put him on its 20-tolar banknote. That’s roughly ten Euro cents, which isn’t particularly flattering; but it’s a step above Primož Trubar, who was the first person to write a book in Slovene and only got the ten-tolar note to show for it.

Regardless of such trifles, The Glory remains an invaluable source of information on life in the 17th century, and on the history of the Slovenes in general. Valvasor’s residence, the castle Bogenšperk, is open to the public and can still be toured today.

Carniola.org

This site aims to continue the Valvasorian tradition of observation and inspection, albeit a little less scientifically, and to provide a modest picture of life in Slovenia after the year 2000.

This blog began on January 26, 2004, with a post called (appropriately enough) In the Beginning. Since then, every post has been written in such a way that no background knowledge about Slovenia is necessary to understand what’s going on. This is good because I also generally have no idea what’s going on.

There are about 15 different categories, ranging from Music to the eternal Slovenia-Slovakia mix-up and beyond. On Fridays, I try to post answers to questions people have about Slovenia in a category called Ask the Glory of Carniola.

On February 1, 2005, this site won the European Weblog Award for "Best Weblog Focused On A Single Country Or Region" and, controversially, "Best Weblog." Immediately thereafter it officially retired from the world of competitive blog awards. It has been chugging along merrily ever since.

For more info, see also:

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About Me