The year 2026 is also Kette’s year. This week marks the 150th anniversary of Dragotin Kette’s birth (19 January 1876), whose life journey, among other places, led him to Novo mesto. As he wrote in a letter to his friend Ivan Cankar, it was in the town on the Krka River, where he completed his secondary education, that he experienced the happiest years of his life.
Dragotin Kette left an important cultural and literary legacy in Novo mesto. He marked the town through his poetic work during his school years, and today he is remembered through numerous monuments: Kette’s Fountain on the Main Square, featuring a verse from his poem Na trgu; the memorial statue of Kette in front of the Town Hall (Rotovž) on the Main Square, created by Slovenian sculptor Jakob Savinšek; a commemorative plaque on the house under Marof where he lived; Kette Street; Dragotin Kette Primary School; and Kette Avenue. Novo mesto preserves him as one of the key poets of the Slovenian modernist movement and as a town poet whose work is closely connected to its urban space and spirit.
You can learn more about following Kette’s footsteps in Novo mesto, the opera musical Kette, and the dessert – Kette’s Cake, both dedicated to this important figure of Slovenian modernism – in the programme First on the Visit, broadcast from the main square of Novo mesto on Radio Slovenia’s First Programme.
The guests of the show were Aleš Makovac, Director of the Zavod Novo mesto, and tour guide Marjanca Trščinar Antić. The programme was hosted by Luka Bregar.
Listen to the conversation via the link. The conversation is in Slovenian.
