Matjaž Kmecl

Matjaž Kmecl was born on 23 February 1934 at Dobovec under Mount Kum, near Trbovlje, in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He came from an old family of teachers: his father Edo and his mother Boža both taught, and the family also lived and taught in Velenje. His grandmother, though from Ljubljana, had been a teacher in the Cyril and Methodius school at St James in Trieste. As a boy below Kum he could see the snowy Kamnik Alps in the distance, and as a young man he set out for them barefoot, without proper equipment, coming back battered but happy, the start of a lifelong love of the mountains.

He finished the First Gymnasium in Celje in 1953 and studied Slavic studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana, graduating in 1959. In 1970 he received his doctorate there with the dissertation Uvod v razlago sodobne slovenske novele (An Introduction to the Interpretation of the Modern Slovenian Novella). He later furthered his studies in Vienna and Moscow.

Kmecl spent most of his career at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana: assistant in the chair of the history of Slovenian literature (1960 to 1971), assistant professor, associate professor (1977) and full professor (1982). He was dean of the faculty from 1977 to 1979 and later spent two years as head of its Slavic department. He lectured at universities in Klagenfurt, Regensburg, Vienna, Venice, Tübingen, Sydney, Melbourne, Trieste and Gorizia.

His research centred on narrative prose, especially 19th century Slovenian prose, literary programmes, Fran Levstik and Slovenian literature in Austrian Carinthia. His books include Novela v literarni teoriji (1975), Od pridige do kriminalke (1975), Mala literarna teorija (1976, revised several times), Rojstvo slovenskega romana (1981), Fran Levstik (1981), Babji mlin slovenske literarne zgodovine (1996), Tisoč let slovenske literature (2004), Kratka kulturna zgodovina Slovencev (2005, also translated into French and English) and Josip Jurčič, pripovednik in dramatik (2009). Mala literarna teorija became a standard handbook for teaching literature in Slovenian schools.

He was secretary of the Slavic Society of Slovenia (1962), president of the Seminar of Slovenian Language, Literature and Culture for foreign Slavists (1972 to 1975), co-editor of Problemi, editor of Jezik in slovstvo (1970 to 1976), twice led the reform of the Slovenian language curriculum, and was a founder and first head of the Language Tribunal.

In creative writing Kmecl was above all a dramatist. He began with radio plays such as Pišem radijsko igro (1966) and Intervju (1968), then wrote stage plays drawing on Slovenian myths and history: Lepa Vida ali problem svetega Ožbalta, Friderik z Veroniko ali grof celjski danes in nikoli več (1979), Marjetica ali smrt dolgo po umiranju (1980), Levstikova smrt (1981) and Mutasti bratje (1982), plus the television drama Bohinjska miniatura. With Branko Šömen he co-wrote the screenplay Poet (2000) about France Prešeren. Bridkost po slovensko (2002) gathers five imagined monologues by Trubar, Andrej Smole, Prešeren, Lovro Toman and Levstik. His essays include S prijatelji pod macesni (1978), a classic of Slovenian mountain writing, Slovenska postna premišljevanja (1987) and the cultural guide Zakladi Slovenije (1979). His autobiographical book Sveti Lenart, vrtnice in gamsov skret appeared in 2008.

Kmecl was elected to the Ljubljana Center municipal assembly in 1963. From 1982 to 1986 he was a member of the Executive Council of the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia and president of the Republic Committee for Culture. He joined the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia after 1982 and sat on its presidency from 1986 until the end of 1989. From 1990 to 1992 he was a directly elected member of the five-member Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia during the independence period, travelling on state business to Austria, Germany, the Soviet Union, Italy, France, Australia and Poland. He then led the Council for Culture of the Republic of Slovenia for a time, and from 2010 he was a vice president of the veterans' Union of Associations for the Values of the National Liberation Struggle.

Kmecl was a passionate amateur rose breeder for decades and an honorary member of the Slovenian rose lovers' society. He bred new varieties including Prešeren, Trubar, Čajkovski, Astrid Lindgren, da Vinci and Ljubljana. He was a keen mountain walker who called himself a 'šodrovec' at heart, a lover of scree paths rather than climbing routes, and was introduced to mountain writing by the headmaster and alpine author Tine Orel. He belonged to the Primož Trubar Slovenian Protestant Society. His son Primož Kmecl is a researcher. He remained closely tied to Velenje, where he was an honorary citizen.

Kmecl spoke candidly about his time in politics, saying in an AirBeletrina interview that he went in hoping to do something sensible for Slovenian culture but found that once inside you only sink deeper into the mud. He argued that genuine literary criticism struggles in a small culture where honest judgement is taken as a personal offence. He cared deeply about the standard of written Slovenian and saw the mountains, and Triglav in particular, as part of Slovenian identity and memory, a kind of liberated territory where a person can belong to themselves for a few hours.

Župančič Prize (1979, with collaborators, for Zakladi Slovenije); Kidrič Fund Award (1976 and 1983, the second for Rojstvo slovenskega romana); Award of the Uprising of the Slovene Nation (1979); Order of Labour with silver wreath (1982); Order of the Republic with silver wreath (1986); Golden Order of Freedom of the Republic of Slovenia (1996); Pretnar Award for spreading Slovenian literature and language abroad; title of Ambassador of Slovenian Literature (2009); plaque of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana; associate member (1997) and full member (2003) of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts; honorary citizen of Velenje (1997) and of Ljubljana (2012).

Kmecl is remembered as one of the most prominent Slovenian literary historians and theorists of his generation. Generations of pupils learned literature through Mala literarna teorija, and Tisoč let slovenske literature remains a panoramic reference. His plays gave modern form to Slovenian myths, his mountain essays are treasured by climbers, and his roses Prešeren and Trubar, planted in his honour at Vila Bianca in Velenje in 2024, stand as a living reminder of his love of Slovenian culture.

Matjaž Kmecl died on Saturday 7 November 2026, aged 92. His death was announced on 9 November 2026 by the City Municipality of Velenje, where he was an honorary citizen, and reported by RTV Slovenija, STA, Delo, Dnevnik and Večer. The cause and place of death were not made public. Velenje opened a book of condolence in its town hall on 10 and 11 November 2026 and, at the family's wish, held no commemorative session. The funeral was to take place in Ljubljana in the close family circle.