University of Ljubljana opens its doors on Slovenian Cultural Day

On 8 February, Prešeren Day, the Slovenian cultural holiday, the University of Ljubljana will reopen the doors of the Rector's Office, which is housed in the 120-year-old provincial mansion on Congress Square. Tours of the interior of the building will be available at 14:00, 15:30 and 17:00. Each tour lasts approximately 45 minutes. No registration is required and the guided tour is free of charge.

France Prešeren is the symbol of all those students who, for centuries, with more or less means, by carriage, on foot or by train, went abroad and sought academic knowledge at foreign universities. Some of them stayed abroad, others returned to their homeland, where they worked among Slovenians scientifically, educationally, culturally and artistically. The idea of founding a Slovenian university was born among them; they worked for it in various ways and some of them took professorships at the university, says Tatjana Dekleva, head of the archives and museum service at the University of Ljubljana. The University of Ljubljana was founded in 1919 and has since been housed in a country mansion, which celebrated its 120th anniversary last year. The University was born on 3 December 1919, when Dr Fran Ramovš gave the first lecture in Slovenian in the University's Assembly Hall. In his greeting to the students at that time, he said that on this day we are entering a new life, and our nation a history that will never be erased.

With 23 faculties and 3 academies, the University of Ljubljana is today the oldest, largest and most successful higher education and scientific research institution in Slovenia, as well as an artistic institution that has made an important contribution to the development of science and art in Slovenia. For example, the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana will move to the renovated premises of the Kazina Palace in October 2022. "When you walk into the Kazina building, you feel positive energy, full of new expectations and ideas of what else we can show society that we have not been able to show it so far: excellence and global recognition, exceptionality and uniqueness," said Mihaela Bauman Podojsteršek, Chief Registrar of the University of Ljubljana, at the opening of the new premises. The new premises will also be used for the launch of the new first cycle of the much-awaited jazz studies programme in the academic year 2023/2024.