page_title: Slovenia
section_title: Literary history
hierarchical_section_title: Slovenia / Culture / Literature / Literary history
caption_attribution_description: The first depiction of the Slovene poet France Prešeren and the only one created from memory of his true appearance.
context_page_description: Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country located in Europe at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes.
  It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest. Slovenia covers 20,271 square kilometers and has a population of 2.095 million. One of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia is now a parliamentary republic and member nation of the European Union, United Nations, and NATO. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana.
  Slovenia has a mostly mountainous terrain with a mainly continental climate, with the exception of the Slovene Littoral, which has a sub-Mediterranean climate, and of the Julian Alps in the northwest, which have an Alpine climate. Additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a dense river network, a rich aquifer system, and significant karst underground watercourses. Over half of the territory is covered by forest. The human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven.
context_section_description: History of Slovene literature began in the 16th century with Primož Trubar and other Protestant Reformers. Poetry in the Slovene language achieved its highest level with the Romantic poet France Prešeren (1800–1849). In the 20th century, the Slovene literary fiction went through several periods: the beginning of the century was marked by the authors of the Slovene Modernism, with the most influential Slovene writer and playwright, Ivan Cankar; it was then followed by expressionism (Srečko Kosovel), avantgardism (Anton Podbevšek, Ferdo Delak) and social realism (Ciril Kosmač, Prežihov Voranc) before World War II, the poetry of resistance and revolution (Karel Destovnik Kajuh, Matej Bor) during the war, and intimism (Poems of the Four, 1953), post-war modernism (Edvard Kocbek), and existentialism (Dane Zajc) after the war.
  Postmodernist authors include Boris A. Novak, Marko Kravos, Drago Jančar, Evald Flisar, Tomaž Šalamun, and Brina Svit. Among the post-1990 authors best known are Aleš Debeljak, Miha Mazzini, and Alojz Ihan. There are several literary magazines that publish Slovene prose, poetry, essays, and local literary criticism.
caption: France Prešeren, best-known Slovenian poet
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