“Though long for its Beauties Ljubljana was known”

Filter 57s in Our History and Heritage

Abstract

The cigarette brand called Filter 57 is both an important and a trivial part of our past. It is cigarette that, after its introduction in 1957, became part of history and part of the “everyday life” of many smokers and non-smokers in Slovenia and Yugoslavia. It is connected with Ljubljana and the Tobacco Company Ljubljana. The latter was among those industrial enterprises that considerably influenced the development of the city and the course of its industrialization. The text that was printed on the edge of each box of these “cult” cigarettes - Prešeren’s verses about how Ljubljana has always been known for its beautiful girls - probably hinted at the tradition and quality of cigarettes made by the Ljubljana tobacco company. Filter 57 was a symbol of the Tobacco Company Ljubljana after the Second World War; it was its only brand that was preserved after the liquidation of the company and its production in the 1990s. Filter 57 became a “phenomenon” for various reasons. It was the first filter cigarette produced in Yugoslavia. Its name breached the Yugoslav tradition that cigarettes (i.e. types of cigarettes with regard to their quality and price) be given geographical names, names of rivers in particular. Filter 57 was the cigarette with which Yugoslavia joined the new trend of making smoking less harmful for the health. Filter 57 thus not only was a product of tobacco history, but also earned itself a place in our history.