Primoz Trubar

Primož Trubar (June 9, 1508 - June 28, 1586) was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of Slovenia, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first printed book in Slovene.

Trubar was born in the village Rašica. In the years 1520-1521 he visited a school in Rijeka, in 1522-1524 he continued his education in Salzburg. From there he went to Trieste under the tutorship of bishop Pietro Bonomo, where he got in touch with the Humanist writers, in particular Erasmus of Rotterdam. In 1528 he enrolled at University of Vienna, but did not complete his studies. In 1530 he returned to Slovenia and became a preacher. He gradually leaned towards the Protestantism and was in 1547 expelled from Ljubljana. While a protestant preacher in Rothenburg, Bavaria, Germany, he wrote the first book in Slovene, Catechismus and Abecedarium, which was published in 1550 in Tübingen, Germany. In the following years, he authored around 25 more books in Slovene, the most important of them is the translation of the complete New Testament.

Trubar died in Derendingen, Germany (now part of the city Tübingen).

See also: List of famous Slovenes.