Primož Trubar June 8

Trubar was born in the village of Rašica in the Duchy of Carniola, then under the Habsburgs. In the years 1520-1521 he attended school in Rijeka, in 1522-1524 he continued his studies in Salzburg. From there he went to Trieste under the tutelage of the Roman Catholic bishop Pietro Bonomo, where he came into contact with humanist writers, especially Erasmus of Rotterdam.

In 1527, Bishop Pietro Bonomo assigned Trubar a post as priest in Loka pri Zidanem Mostu. In 1528 he enrolled at the University of Vienna, but did not complete his studies. In 1530 he returned to Slovenian lands and became a preacher in Ljubljana, where he lived until 1565. During his stay in Ljubljana he lived in a house, on today's Fish Square (Ribji trg), in the part the oldest in the city. 

Living in Ljubljana had a profound impact on his work, he considered Ljubljana the capital of all Slovenes because of its central position in the heart of Slovenian lands and because its inhabitants spoke Slovene as their first language, unlike several other cities of present-day Slovenia.

It is estimated that during Trubar's time around 70% of Ljubljana's 4000 inhabitants attended mass in Slovenian. It was the Ljubljana language that Trubar took as the basis for what later became Standard Slovenian, with a small addition of his native speech, i.e. the Lower Carniola dialect. Trubar considered the Ljubljana speech the most suitable, because it sounded much nobler than his own simple dialect from his hometown Rašica. 

His decision to write in the Ljubljana variety was later adopted also by other Protestant writers, who also lived in Ljubljana during Trubar's time. He gradually leaned towards Protestantism and was expelled from Ljubljana in 1547.

In 1550, while a Protestant preacher in Rothenburg, he wrote the first two books in Slovene, Catechism and Abecedarium, which were subsequently printed that year in Schwäbisch Hall by Peter Frentz.

In total, Trubar is the author of 22 books in Slovenian and two books in German. He was the first to translate parts of the Bible into Slovenian. After the exhortation of Pier Paolo Vergerio, he translated the Gospel of Matthew in 1555 and until 1577 in three parts published the translation of the entire New Testament. Between 1561 and 1565, Trubar was the director and supervisor of the Bible Institute Slavic from the south. An eschatological spirit, he also tried to proselytize the Muslims of Türkiye with his books.

Trubar died in Derendingen, Holy Roman Empire Germanic (now part of the city of Tübingen, Germany), where he is also buried.