Ivan Cankar is considered to be the greatest Slovenian writer
and playwright. He was also a poet, critic, essayist and political
activist. He was the first Slovenian professional writer and so belonged to a profession that was not well respected during
his lifetime. He was born on 10 May 1876 in the hamlet of Na Klancu in Vrhnika.
He was the eighth of twelve children; his mother was a day laborer and his
father a tailor. He spent his childhood in Vrhnika, where he attended primary
school.
Cankar
was strongly attached to Vrhnika, which is evident from his description of the
town in many of his works. Vrhnika remembers its native son with the Cankar Memorial House and a statue. There is also a literary trail - Cankar Boyhood Trail. It has seventeen
stations with brief information signs describing Cankar’s life or where
extracts from his works are displayed. The School under the Bridge (‘Enajsta šola pod mostom’) and Holy Trinity
Church (‘Cerkev sv. Trojice’) are two of the places that Cankar mentioned in
his works more than thirty times.