The time when the coldness of winter gives way to a more pleasant spring has
traditionally been associated with numerous festivities around the country. The most
festive celebration marking the beginning of a new season and agricultural cycle is known as pust, the carnival season, which in 2009 will take place between 19 and 25 February.

Argentine mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink returns to Cleveland for her recital
debut in a program of works by Franz Schubert and Antonín Dvořák. David Patrick
Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer hailed Fink for having “the perfect lieder voice—
robust but clean, with a timbre you can enjoy all day, and with a flexibility that responds
to the slightest emotional quiver.”

In the past, Mardi Gras festivities have mostly been associated with rural tradition; today, however, they are most often held in the form of town carnivals and masquerades. Lately, many towns and villages around the country have seen the revival of their traditional pustovanje festivities, the most famous being the kurentovanje in Ptuj, laufarija in Cerkno and the Mardi Gras carnival in Cerknica.

The Cerkno Laufarji are among the most widely known and remarkable pust groups in
Slovenia. A laufar family has 25 members, all of whom (except one) wear wooden masks called larfe. The central laufar character is Pust, dressed in moss-patched clothes and carrying a young spruce tree, who represents winter and carries the blame for all the troubles and mishaps that happened in the area during the year. And for this he is sentenced to death by mallet www.laufarija-cerkno.si

On so-called Fat Thursday, the Cerknica mayor hands his authority over to the mayor of
Butale and his ministers for one week, and during the pust festivities Cerknica transforms into the fictional town of Butale. Witches from Slivnica, with Mother Ursula, land in the streets, the devil brings out dormice to graze, and there is Jezerko, the mythical Lake Cerknica monster, who brings frogs and a giant pike. Then there is none other than the strong Martin Krpan with his mare, and the not-very-clever people of Butale, characters from the story by Fran Milčinski, in the company of the local marching band.

The pust festivities in Cerknica start on Tuesday, the Children's Masquerade follows, and the celebration culminates on Sunday in a parade through the streets of Cerknica, which starts at "somewhere around 12:32 on the dot" www.cerknica.net/pust

Petelinji Zajtrk (Rooster's Breakfast) - English subtitles
Monday, December 1, 2008 8:00 PM, MC 136

Zvenenje v Glavi (Headnoise) - English subtitles
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 2:45 PM, MC 136

Sladke Sanje (Sweet Dreams) - English subtitles
Friday , December 5, 2008 6:30 PM, MC 136

The Center for Slovene as a Second Foreign Language in Ljubljana announces its 15th annual Slovenian Winter School Course. The two-week long course will take place from January 26 through February 6, 2009. The intensive nature of the course means that it is particularly suitable for people wanting to learn as much as possible in as short a time as possible. Students can choose from a four-hour course day to a more intensive six hour course day, depending on preference. The accompanying Winter School Social Program offers afternoon and weekend activities in which participants are introduced to Slovenian culture and society.

The documentary “All Slovene, all Russian, all English, and all cosmopolitan - the portrait of Janko Lavrin (1887 – 1986)” tells the life story of a Slovene intellectual, who spent most of his time abroad, first in Russia and then in Great Britain; but never forgot that he was a Slovene, born in Krupa, Bela krajina.

In 1915, as a young journalist he reported from the Balkan about World War I.

Slovenian film industry is receiving a special attention this November at the cultural center AFI Silver in Sivler Spring, MD.

With a program of 8 Slovenian movies, from past and present times, Washington movie-goers will get a chance to really experience the Slovenian cultural character, country’s expression of it’s identity, and last but not least, it’s take on the global narratives, as it is reflected through the Slovenian cinema. 

AFI has organized for the month of November its 21st annual European Film Showcase.

This first-class selection of films from EU member states includes film festival award winners, box office hits, as well as U.S. premieres.

November 8, 2008

Slovenian soprano Sabina Cvilak will be for the second year in a row part of a performance, marking the opening of the fall season at the Washington National Opera.

Starting next week, Cvilak will perform as Micaёla in Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Next to such great name as Denyce Graves, who is known around the world for her portrayal of Carmen, Sabina Cvilak’s performance is highly anticipated by opera lovers.

Not many people know much about Slovenia, but it is a tiny diamond and well worth the trip to find out more, says DAVE ROBSON ...

SO how much do you know about Slovenia? No, me neither. I’d heard of its capital Ljubljana, although spelling it proved a challenge, but other than that – let’s say it wouldn’t be my specialist subject on Mastermind. So when the chance of a week at a Keycamp holiday home in Ljubljana offered itself, it had to be taken.

Marko Nabersnik's Petelinji Zajtrk (Rooster's Breakfast), centering on forbidden love in a sleepy town, is Slovenia's entry for foreign-language film in the Academy Awards.

Klavdij Pirih is trying to be polite, but he has had enough of my notetaking and questions.

"How much did you use?" I ask, so absorbed in getting down on paper every detail about his Slovene dumplings that I haven't noticed that the chef has stopped blending together his mix of water, flour, eggs and salt.

Pirih is a chef at the Kenda Manor hotel, a 14th-century Relais & Châteaux property in the tranquil town of Spodna Idrija, where I stayed and took cooking and wine-tasting classes last fall. He is eager to share with me and several other students his version of idrijski zlikrofi, potato balls flavored with bacon, onions and herbs that are wrapped and cooked in a thin dough.