The Slovenia Times

Culture

The Idrija and Cerkno brass bands perform at the opening ceremony of the 2025 European Capital of Culture. Photo: STA
The Idrija miners' brass band is the oldest in Slovenia and one of the oldest worldwide. Dating back to the 17th century, the ensemble celebrates its 360th anniversary this year, and anyone interested to learn more about its storied past can visit an exhibition in Idrija, a western town known for i
The Ingeborg Bachmann Dome in Nova Gorica. Photo: GO! 2025 Institute

Ingeborg Bachmann Dome relocates to Nova Gorica

CultureEuropean Capital of Culture 2025
An installation dedicated to the Austrian writer and poet Ingeborg Bachmann has been put up in Nova Gorica to serve as a place for reflection and various events as part of the first cross-border European Capital of Culture until the end of autumn.
A temporary gift of the Carinthian Cultural Foundat
The 1 May Square in Piran. Photo: nschuwi/Wikimedia
A small but iconic square in the heart of Piran has become Slovenia's first location to make the Treasures of European Film Culture, a list of symbolic places of European cinema compiled by the European Film Academy to highlight the need to maintain and protect them.
The 1 May Square is best known
A colorised rendition of Wilhelm Helfer's photo of Stritar Street right after the earthquake, with Ljubljana castle in the background. Photo: Courtesy of the National and University Library
A major earthquake hit the Slovenian capital Ljubljana on Easter Sunday 130 years ago. Many images chronicling the aftermath have survived, and some have now come alive thanks to the latest advances in technology.
The National and University Library has deployed artificial intelligence to add colou
Self-portrait by Zoran Mušič (1909-2005) at the National Gallery. Photo: Daniel Novakovič/STA
Zoran Mušič (1909-2005), an internationally acclaimed modernist painter and printmaker, will be honoured with a series of exhibitions in Slovenia and Italy as Nova Gorica and Gorizia have come together as the first cross-border European Capital of Culture.
Born to Slovenian parents in the Slovenian
The Jewish cemetery in Rožna Dolina, close to Nova Gorica. Photo: Eva Horvat/STA
The Italian city of Gorizia used to have a thriving Jewish community. During the Second World War most of its members perished or fled, and when the war ended the synagogue and the cemetery were on different sides of the Iron Curtain. They are now being reconnected at a symbolic level.
A cross-bord
Democratic Party's contentious referendum campaign posters reading pittance for the people, prestige for the select few. Photo: Katja Kodba/STA
Slovenia will head to the polls on 11 May for a referendum on special pension allowances for artists launched by the opposition amidst government appeals that voters should boycott it.
The referendum, whose date was confirmed on 4 April, concerns a law passed at the end of January that would give s
The logo of this year's national Eurovision contest. Photo: Katja Kodba/STA
More than 50 Slovenian musicians, including several former Eurovision contestants, have signed a petition calling for a ban on Israel's participation in this year's Eurovision song contest amidst continued Israeli attacks on Gaza.
They have called on public broadcaster RTV Slovenija, which manages
One of the works exhibited at the new Muza gallery. Photo: Bor Slana/STA
NLB, Slovenia's largest bank, has amassed Slovenia's largest private collection of art over several decades of purchasing works by modern and contemporary authors. The artworks, long hidden from public view, are now on show in a dedicated gallery in the centre of Ljubljana.
The gallery called Muza
A plaque dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini in Idrija. Photo: Milanka Trušnovec

Idrija, a town in western Slovenia, is well known for its abandoned mercury mine, lace-making tradition and delicious žlikrofi dumplings, but there is another, little-known fact about the picturesque town: in the early 1930s, it was home to the young Pier Paolo Pasolini, the prolific Italian poet,
Nina Pušlar, the top ranked Slovenian artist in the airplay charts, performs in a sold-out Stožice Arena in December 2023. Photo: Nebojša Tejić/STA
Foreign artists continue their dominance of Slovenian airwaves. In 2024 fewer that one in three songs played on the radio were Slovenian, the lowest share since statistics began 15 years ago.
Ten years ago the share of Slovenian music peaked at almost 43%, but since then it has been more or less co
Aleš Šteger at a literary event in 2024. Photo: Katja Kodba/STA
Writer Aleš Šteger has received the Prix Max Jacob Etranger poetry award, one of the most prestigious poetry awards in the French-speaking world. He was honoured for his selected poems Nad nebom pod zemljo (Above the Sky Beneath the Earth or Au-delà du ciel sous la terre), which have been translate