Ljubka Šorli, married BRATUŽ (1910-1993), was forced to leave her home as a child due to the battles of the Isonzo, which took place near her home. After the war she went to the primary and citizen school in her hometown of Tolmin, and later to music school and school of commerce in Gorizia. Even before she married teacher, composer and choirmaster Lojze Bratuž, she worked as a musician and choirmistress in illegal Slovenian organisations that resisted the strong Italian assimilation pressure. Their home in Gorizia was a place where the most prominent artists and culture workers in the Gorizia area had gathered until fascists poisoned Bratuž for Christmas of 1936. During World War II she was
imprisoned and tortured in Trieste and Zdravščina for her connections with Janko Premrl-Vojko’s family. After the war she qualified as a teacher and taught elementary school in villages around Gorizia. Her personal life story and the fate of her nation pervade her poetry, evoking her native landscape, moods and reflections. Her melodic love, patriotic and religious poems worded in classical verse and stanzas, were often set to music. She published them in Soča, Mladika and the Women’s World magazines, the Calendar of Gorizia Mohor Society, and similar publications. She published a crown of sonnets with acrostic Venec spominčic možu na grob (A garland of forget-me-nots to my husband’s grave, 1957), poems to the native Tolmin Rumeni ko zlato so zdaj kostanji (Yellow as gold are now the chestnuts, 1985), children’s poems Veseli ringaraja (Merry merry-go-round, 1983) and Križev pot (Stations of the cross, 1994). Her Selected poems (1973) were edited by Marijan Brecelj and Pod obokom čarobnim (Under the enchanted vault, 1987) by France Bernik.
(Written by: Dr. Irena Novak Popov, source: Antologija slovenskih pesnic, Ljubljana 2004-2007.)
