Ivan Hribar - Hribarjevo nabrežje - Ljubljana
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SMacB
N 46° 02.849 E 014° 30.332
33T E 461745 N 5099442
Ivan Hribar was mayor of Ljubljana for 14 years until 1910. When in 1941 the Italians occupied Ljubljana in protest against the occupation he committed suicide by jumping into the Ljubljanica.
Waymark Code: WMT63M
Location: Slovenia
Date Posted: 10/02/2016
Views: 1
Ivan Hribar was mayor of Ljubljana for 14 years until 1910. When in 1941 the Italians occupied Ljubljana in protest against the occupation he committed suicide by jumping into the Ljubljanica.
"Ivan Hribar (19 September 1851 – 18 April 1941) was a Slovene and Yugoslav banker, politician, diplomat and journalist. During the start of the 20th century, he was one of the leaders of the National Progressive Party, and one of the most important figures of Slovene liberal nationalism. Between 1896 and 1910, he was the mayor of Ljubljana (nowadays the capital of Slovenia), and greatly contributed to its rebuilding and modernisation after the 1895 earthquake.
Hribar was known as a passionate politician and a great Slovene and Yugoslav patriot. After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, Hribar committed suicide (at the age of ninety) as a protest against the Italian annexation of Ljubljana. On 18 April, after returning home from a meeting with the Fascist Italian authorities, which had just offered him the mayorship of the city, he jumped into the Ljubljanica River, wrapped in the Yugoslav flag. He left a note with the verses from France Prešeren's poem The Baptism on the Savica:
Manj strašna noc je v crne zemlje krili,
kot so pod svetlim soncem sužnji dnovi.
Less fearful the long night of life’s denial
Than living ‘neath the sun in subjugation!
After World War II, the embankment of Ljubljanica from which Ivan Hribar jumped into the river was named after him. On 30 August 2010, a monument to Hribar was unveiled on the Hribar Embankment (Slovene: Hribarjevo nabrežje), next to the Shoemakers' Bridge (Cevljarski most), not far from the place of his death. The monument was created by the Bosnian Slovenian sculptor Mirsad Begic."
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A slightly larger than life size bronze statue of Ivan Hribar. He is wearing a thick heavy coat and holding what I guess to be plans to rebuild the city after the 1895 earthquake. Behind him possibly a representation of the destruction of the earthquake, he contributed greatly to the reparations and modernisation after it.