- Andrej Einspieler
Andrej Einspieler (
13 November 1813 -16 January 1888 ) was a Slovenepolitician ,Roman Catholic priest andpublicist , and one of the early leaders of theSlovene national movement in the 19th century. He was known as the "father of theCarinthian Slovenes ".Einspieler was born in the village of Sveče ( _de. Suetschach) near
Bistrica v Rožu in theDuchy of Carinthia . He attended thelyceum and later the theological seminary inKlagenfurt . He served as a priest throughout the Slovene-inhabited areas of southern Carinthia. During thespring of nations in 1848, he collaborated with the fellow Carinthian Slovene priest and political activistMatija Majar , and became a fervent advocate of the political program ofUnited Slovenia . In 1851, Einspieler founded theHermagoras Society , the oldest Slovene publishing house, together withAnton Janežič andAnton Martin Slomšek . Due to Einspieler's restless cultural and publicist activity, Klagenfurt emerged as the major center of the Slovenenational revival in the 1850s.With the beginning of the constitutional period in the
Austrian Empire in 1860, Einspieler gradually abandoned the ideal of United Slovenia as unachieveble. He wrote numerous articles in theGerman language , in which he called for a collaboration between Slovene and German speakers in Carinthia. In 1865, he was the initiator of theMaribor Program , in which a group of so-calledOld Slovenes (a conservative fraction within the Slovene national movement) proposed the re-establishment ofInner Austria , a largely autonomous and federative political unit within the Austrian Empire into which the traditional provinces of Carinthia, Styria, Carniola, andAustrian Littoral would be merged. He launched the journal "Stimmen aus Innerösterreich" ("News from Inner Austria"), written mainly in theGerman language , in order to convince the German-speaking public to accept this idea. The program was however rejected by both Slovene andethnic German nationalists. At the beginning of the 1870s, Einspieler was marginalized from the mainstream in Slovene politics, although he continued his political actvity. In 1876, he was elected in the Klagenfurt municipal council.He died in Klagenfurt in 1888.
Legacy
During all his active life, Einspieler fought for the linguistic and political rights of the Carinthian Slovenes. He became known as "the father of Carinthian Slovenes".
In 1979, the Slovene Christian Cultural Association from Carinthia Einspieler Prize established the Einspieler Award, which is given to individuals who have rendered outstanding services to the cause of co-existence among different peoples or nationalities. The prize has been awarded to, among others, the governor of Bolzano-Bozen,
Luis Durnwalder ; scholar and professor at theCentral European University ,Anton Pelinka ; Roman Catholic prelate,Egon Kapellari ; and Austrian politician,Rudolf Kirchschläger .Sources
*
Jože Pogačnik , "Andrej Einspieler" in "Slovenska misel: eseji o slovenstvu" (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1987), 436-437.
* [http://www.kkz.at/ljudje/einspieler-andrej.htm KSZ: Andrej Einspieler]
* [http://www.kocna.at/einspieler.html Kočna.at: Andrej Einspieler]
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