About
In order to pay tribute to a great Kubed man, a priest and a writer – the bard of Slovenian Istrian poetry, the Koper municipality bought the abandoned Kocjančič house in 2019, which got inherited by Kocjančič’s long-term housekeeper Milena Vitez. A memorial room was installed in the house.
Visiting the memorial room will take us through the life of Alojz Kocjančič, his literature and priesthood calling. The exhibition, reflecting Kocjančič’s modesty and human warmth, includes among other items, his personal library, interesting documents and some personal items.
The memorial room was designed by a renown local architect Martina Grižančič. The basic inspiration for the room design was found in a place of worship, which are known to have an axis based floor plan focusing on an altar piece. The impression of being in a church was created by positioning the furnishings in a way to create church ambiance: in the back of the room, alongside the shorter northern wall, the writer’s corner equiped with original pieces of furniture is put in the limelight. The rest of the equipment in the room is subordinate to this positioning. Additionally, one senses a clear cut between the original displayed pieces and newly introduced furniture, which paraphrases the difference between the past and the present through a selection of contrastual but harmoniuos materials, colours, shapes and details.
Collaborators on the project: Ines Cergol, Tanja Jakomin Kocjančič, Alferija Bržan, Srečko Vilhar Library in Koper (librarian Ivan Marković), Koper Regional Archives (archivists Mirjana Kontestabile Rovis and Tamara Lindič), Koper Regional Museum (curators Tina Novak Pucer and Marko Bonin, restoration specialists Jure Čeh and Enio Vivoda), Skala Kubed art and culture society (Vojko Udovič and Dušan Arko) and translator Špela Planinc.
Exhibits
The memorial room, which reflects Kocjančič’s modesty and human warmth, includes some of his personal items: priest’s robes on a hanger, typewriter in the display cases, glasses, watch and sacerdotal objects.
Personal library
Kocjančič’s library contains over 1,600 books and approximately the same number of magazines. The volume of this collection shows intellectual tendencies of priest and writer Alojz Kocjančič. The collection’s greatest part covers theology themes with other works covering domains from social-political themes, history, geography and literary fiction.
Kocjančič’s library contains true rarities, including Anton Janežič’s German-Slovenian dictionary from 1905, a work entitled St Socerb published in 1909 by Dolenc publishing house, France Prešeren’s Poems (Poezije) from 1908, Simon Gregorčič’s Poems (Poezije) from 1908, a songbook self-published by Vinko Vodopivec in 1923. Slovenian literary classics are complemented with great international works like Dante in Italian or Petrarch and Schiller in German.
View from the north-facing window
Upon entering the memorial room, one first notices a writing on the wall taken from Kocjančič’s typescript “From Kubed to Virgin Mary on Vzroček/Sketch Story from Slovenian Istria” (originally »S Kubeda k Devici Mariji na Vzročku/Črtica iz slovenske Istre«. The paragraph depicts the view from the room’s window overlooking the surrounding landscape.
Legacy
The photo materials left behind shows us Kocjančič as a child of ten, during his school years, surrounded by classmates, teachers and friends, discovering passion for the mountains. Most of the photographs are from his priest years, from his first mass in Kubed, his priest years in Koštabona and Klanec to his celebration of 50th anniversary of ordination and the publication of his second poem collection.
Alojz Kocjančič’s extensive personal correspondence includes over 130 letters. It is certainly proof of Kocjančič’s importance to his compatriots, writers, academics and ordinary people. For the clergy, he was a respected pastor, who was happy aand responsible in his work. He would regularly exchange professional opinions with writer colleagues on different poems, he would ask for their reviews and consult and help in exchange if asked to. On the other hand, “beloved father Lojze” was more than just a priest for the people. He was their confidant, friend and all in all a person who liked to lend a hand. And all these letters, that Alojz loyally kept from his studient years on testify about his numerous qualities.
Alojz Kocjančič’s preserved literary legacy testifies about his ties to his birthplace, its people and the places he worked. His notes reveal his passion for studying the history of Istria and Mali Kras. His manuscripts and typescripts of sermons, translations, letters, poems and prose reflect his sensitivity in experiencing place, people, events, himself and divine presence.
