Headstone to Simon Gregorčič

Abstract

The committee for the headstone to Simon Gregorčič and the memorial plaque on the poet’s birth house was set up on 3 December 1906 in Gorizia. The fundraising was hindered by objections voiced by the Gorizian branch of the National Progressive Party, which did not recognise the committee on account of its under-representation in the body. Many preferred to donate funds for the School Home in Gorizia than the headstone. The headstone, set against the external wall of the presbytery of the St. Lawrence Church at Libušnje, and the memorial plaque mounted on Gregorčič’s birth house at Vrsno, were made by sculptor Anton Bitežnik (1869–1949) from Gorizia and unveiled on 6 September 1908. The clericalist-liberal rift over how the memory of Gregorčič should be preserved continued even after the unveiling. In 1920, the medallions on the headstone were replaced with new ones featuring the lines from Gregorčič’s poem Naša zvezda [Our Star].