Milko Kos

Milko Kos in the 1930s

Milko Kos (12 December 1892 — 24 March 1972) was a Slovenian historian, considered the father of the so-called Ljubljana school of historiography.

He was born in the town of Gorizia (then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in Italy), where his father, the renowned medievalist Franc Kos, taught at the prestigious State Gymnasium. His mother was a Friulian from Gorizia and Gradisca. His younger brother Anton Gojmir Kos later became a famous painter.

He studied history at the University of Vienna, specializing in the social history of the middle ages. He was an expert on medieval settlement patterns in the Slovene Lands. He also wrote about social history of medieval towns, and issues related to early Slovenian history, including the Slavic principality of Carantania and the Freising manuscripts.

In 1928, he started teaching at the University of Ljubljana, where he replaced Ljudmil Hauptmann as the head of the chair for Slovene history. In this position, he influenced almost all Slovenian historians of the post-WWII period, most of him graduated under his direct dissertation, including Fran Zwitter and Bogo Grafenauer.

Between 1941 and 1945, Kos served as the rector of the University of Ljubljana. During the difficult period of Italian and Nazi German occupation of Slovenia, Kos maintained an underground connection with the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People.

After the war, he became member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1955, he received the Prešeren Award, the highest prize for cultural achievements in Slovenia, for his work on the land registers in the Slovenian Littoral.

He died in Ljubljana.

The Milko Kos Historical Institute of Ljubljana is named after him.

Persondata
Name	Kos, Milko
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Date of birth	1892
Place of birth
Date of death	1972
Place of death