Matej Bor

Matej Bor was the pen name of Vladimir Pavšič (14 April 1913 – 29 September 1993), who was a Slovene poet, translator, playwright, journalist and Partisan.

Biography Matej Bor was born as Vladimir Pavšič in the village of Grgar near Gorizia, in what was then the Austrian County of Gorizia and Gradisca and is today part of Slovenia. After the Italian annexation of the Julian March in 1920, his family moved to Celje, which was then part of Yugoslavia. After finishing his studies at Celje High School, he enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied Slovene and Slavic philology. After graduating in 1937, Bor did not get a proper job due to his communist activity but worked for a short while as a journalist in Maribor. He wrote poetry and from mid-year 1940 until the German occupation in 1941, he was employed as a professor in Kočevje.

When the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, he escaped from Nazi-occupied Maribor to the Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. In the summer of the same year he joined the Communist-led partisan resistance, He translated a number of works by Shakespeare into Slovene.

Bor is also remembered for discovering the "letter rules" of the Venetian alphabet and Venetian grammar. His claims have been rejected by scholars.

Essential bibliography

Main poetry collections

Previharimo viharje (1942) Pesmi (Poems, 1944) Pesmi (Poems, 1946) Bršljan nad jezom (Ivy on the Dam, 1951) Sled naših senc (The Trace of our Shadows, 1958) Podoknice tišini (Serenades to Silence, 1983) Sto manj en epigram (A Hundred but One Epigram, 1985)

Youth literature

Uganke (Riddles, 1951) Slike in pesmi o živalih (Images and Songs About Animals, 1956) Sračje sodišče ali je, kar je (The Raven Court or Whatever Is Done is Done, 1961) Pesmi za Manjo (Songs for Manja, 1985) Ropotalo in ptice (The Scarecrow and Birds, 1985) Palčki - pihalčki (Dwarves, 1991)

Discography Source: Zajček (1968) Partizan (1980) Jutri Gremo V Napad (1988) Hej brigade (2006) (published posthumously)

English translations A Wanderer Went Through the Atom Age, (London: Adam Books, 1959). A Wanderer in the Atom Age (Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije, 1970). An Anthology of Modern Yugoslav Poetry, edited by Janko Lavrin (London: J. Calder, 1962).