Dušan Mayer – a captain from Šoštanj and seafarers’ life in his time

Abstract

In the first half of the twentieth century, the Mayer family was known in Šoštanj for the role that the lawyer Fran Mayer played in the town and for its residential villa. Further contributing to its reputation was Fran’s son Dušan (1900–1971), who sailed to various parts of the world as an officer and a commander of merchant navy ships. Following the completion of his training in the First World War at the Royal Nautical School in Bakar, he sailed on board of various cargo ships of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (Yugoslavia), and after the Second World War on board of the fleet of the company Splošna plovba Piran. In his longstanding seafaring career, Dušan Mayer gained an in-depth understanding of seafarers’ life as well as how it was affected by technological advancements in the shipping industry and by the socio-political changes. As the only seafarer of the merchant navy in Šoštanj at that time, he shared his experience of the seafarer’s career and encounters with foreign places in his local environment, and thus contributed to the knowledge of seafaring profession and foreign, especially non-European cultures.