The honor of the Hertduchy of Crain
The Honor of the Hertzogthums Crain (Slovenian: Slava Vojvodine Kranjske ) is a work published by Baron Johann Weichard von Valvasor in 1689. The cities, markets, monasteries, castles and palaces in what was then the Duchy of Carniola , now the central part of Slovenia , are depicted on contemporary copperplate engravings .
The work was written in German and published in Nuremberg . It consists of 15 volumes, which are divided into four sections, and comprises a total of 3552 large-format sheets with 24 appendices and 528 copperplate engravings. Valvasor presents his homeland by documenting its history , geography , topography , medicine , ethnology , biology , geology , theology and other disciplines.
Although various stories have been recorded in the past, Valvasor's work is groundbreaking thanks to the meticulous and scientifically sound research and documentation.
The content is broad. It includes historical events, theological discourses, philosophical discussions, descriptions of the manners and customs of the people and the nobility, descriptions of cities and castles, but also anecdotes, sagas, legends, poems, etc. In this respect, the work is not an encyclopedia with alphabetical structure, but has similarities with a travelogue. The work is mostly written from the author's point of view. Valvasor himself wrote that he did not want to publish an encyclopedia, as this could be too monotonous for the reader, and in certain parts he added various stories from the present and the past. Essential information about the history of the noble family Graben von Stein and their representatives as well as the rulers of the county of Gorizia come from his work . His story about Jure Grando , who is considered one of the first vampires to be documented in writing, is considered a curiosity .
The text is divided into two columns and decorated with elaborate initial letters. Fourteen different fonts were used. The text has long nested sentences with different paragraphs; it contains opposites, circumstantial words, adjectives, metaphors, expressions, phrases, Latin quotes and moral narratives. Valvasor used more than 200 images from the " Topographia Ducatus Carniolae modernae " for illustration. Since the printing plates were too wide for the “Ehre” book format, they had to be trimmed by 40 to 50 mm. This affected the composition of the picture and some revealing details were lost.
Valvasor's work was already of great importance when it was first published, as most of the contemporary books that came from Carniola were ecclesiastical works. The production of larger works was associated with high costs. Valvasor had to spend almost all of his private fortune on the edition of his work.
There was no translation from German into Slovene, as it turned out to be very complicated and too extensive. It was not until 2009 that the first Slovenian translation came out under the direction of Zavod Dežela Kranjska . The leading figures in the translation were Božidar Debenjak (* 1935), the Gottscheer Doris Debenjak, b. Krisch (1936–2013) and their son Primož Debenjak.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.dezela-kranjska.si/
- ↑ http://www.rtvslo.si/kultura/knjige/veliki-podvig-prevajanja-valvasorja-je-koncan/284697
