Monika Kropej

Monika Kropej Telban (née Šašel, born 4 February 1956) is a Slovenian ethnologist and folklorist. She works as a research advisor at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). She completed classical secondary school in 1974 and graduated in ethnology and art history from the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, in 1980. She began working at the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum in 1983 and has been affiliated with the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology since 1985.

She has published articles in Slovenian and international academic journals and edited volumes, including contributions to the German journal Fabula and the Estonian journal Folklore, and entries for several encyclopaedias, including the Enzyklopädie des Märchens (Göttingen), the Enzyklopädie der slowenischen Kultur in Kärnten (Vienna), and the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe (ERNIE). In 2025, she received the Štrekl Award for her contributions to the collection and preservation of Slovenian folk heritage.

Publications

Pravljica in stvarnost (1995) [Folk Tale and Reality]

Od ajda do zlatoroga – Slovenska bajeslovna bitja (2008) [From Ajd to Goldenhorn. Slovenian Mythological Beings] A Treasury of Slovenian Folklore (2010) Supernatural Beings from Slovenian Myths and Folktales (2012) Tipni indeks slovenskih ljudskih pravljic; Živalske pravljice in basni (2015) [Type Index of Slovenian Folktales, Animal Tales and Fables]