Polish Lecturers Awarded for Promoting Slovenian Literature
Polish literary historian Bozena Tokarz and her husband, linguist Emil Tokarz, will be awarded for promoting Slovenian literature and culture among students in Poland as part of the 6th annual Herberstein meeting of authors, which began in the mid north-eastern town of Velenje on Thursday.
The couple received the Pretnar Award, which is conferred on ambassadors of Slovenian literature. The judging panel of acclaimed Slovenian writers highlighted the Torkazs' exhaustive presentation of the Slovenian literature of the second half of the 20th century in the Polish journal Opcje in 2004.
The couple also encourage their students to study the Slovenian language and read Slovenian literature, as well guiding them in writing graduate and post-graduate theses on Slovenian literature.
It is thanks to them, that nearly one hundred students read Slovenian language and literature at universities in Katowice and Bielsko-Biala, which is as much as in all other European universities combined, the panel quoted the Torkazs' merits in a press release.
The Pretnar Award was first presented in 2004 for the promotion of Slovenian language and literature abroad. It is named after Tone Pretnar (1945-1992), a lecturer, poet and translator, mainly from Polish, who introduced Slovenian literature to university students in Austrian Graz, and Warsaw, Krakow and Katowice in Poland.
The Torkazs will join laureates Ludwig Hartinger, Austrian translator, editor and publisher, Czech translator Frantisek Benhart and his Bulgarian colleague Ganco Savov.
The award is presented at the festival named after Slovenian-born Ziga Herberstein (1486-1566), a renowned diplomat in the service of the Holy Roman Empire who wrote "Notes from Moscow". This was the first major book on Russia and its people. It was printed in 1549 in Latin and then translated into numerous European languages.
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