The ethnic territories of Croatia and Slovenia have always been transitional geographic zones that were open to various kinds of cultural and musical migrations and meetings of various musical traditions. One of the most important groups of immigrant musicians was the Bohemians that appeared in Croatia and Slovenia towards the end of the eighteenth century. From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the 1920s, about ninety musicians (violinists) originating from Bohemia were active as violin teachers, orchestra members (concertmasters and conductors), and military music directors that significantly shaped musical life in several cities and towns in Croatia and Slovenia. The most important group of these was the Prague violinists (violin alumni of the Prague Conservatory), whose representatives Václav Huml and Jan Šlais were the founders of the Zagreb and Ljubljana violin schools, respectively.
COBISS.SI-ID: 46002477
Jan Šlais (1893–1975) was one of the last Bohemian violinists active in Slovenia during the twentieth century. Today he is considered a founder of the Ljubljana violin school. He trained an important generation of Slovenian violinists and was the coda to a long tradition of violinists from Bohemia that contributed to the development of violin playing in this region for over one hundred fifty years. He was also one of the most important promoters of Ševčík’s violin system in Ljubljana. It would remain a leading teaching system in schools throughout the twentieth century and it is still today part of violin curricula. Šlais influenced not only violin playing but also viola playing, not only in Ljubljana but all over Slovenia. Among his pupils were: Karlo Rupel (1907–1968), Leon Pfeifer (1907–1986), Albert (Ali) Dermelj (1912–1986), Vida Jeraj Hribar (1902–2002), Uroš Prevoršek (1915–1998), Kajetan Burger, Fran Stanič (1893–1979), Jelka Stanič (1928–2011), Vinko Šušteršič, and Francka Ornik Rojc. Šlais laid in Ljubljana quality foundations of violin training for the next generations of violinists in Slovenia. In the last hundred years, thousands of Slovenian violinists have been trained on those foundations.
COBISS.SI-ID: 46002989
From the end of the nineteenth century until World War I, Prague violinists migrated primarily to Slavic countries instead of German Empire and the United States. The reasons for this change can be found in the awakening of national consciousness in individual Slavic countries, in a strengthening of the Slavic Alliance, and in the need for quality musicians in musically developing regions. Before the war, the Prague Conservatory’s alumni formed the majority of orchestra members in Odessa, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. To the migration stream to Europe was added a second stream to the United States that began in the 1890s and lasted up to the outbreak of World War I. As concertmasters, they served in the most prominent European and American orchestras of the time and contributed to their recognition in the crucial time of their development. They founded string quartets, piano trios, and other ensembles and were members of the most famous chamber ensembles of the time. Several of them also succeeded as violin virtuosos in the United States and played with the best American orchestras of the time. They premiered several chamber works as well as Sibelius’ and Dvořák’s violin concertos. With the outbreak of World War I, migration all but came to a standstill. The careers of many Prague violinists, just like other musicians, were temporarily interrupted. Many young Prague violinists had to go to war and they continued with their work abroad only after the war. Some of them went during the summer before the outbreak of the war to their homeland and were blocked to return to their workplaces, especially to the Russian Empire and to the United States. Travel from Europe to the United States was severely interrupted with the closing of the sea lanes during the war. Nevertheless, several Prague violinists continued with their work in the United States also after the outbreak of the war. Among them were, on one hand, those that were born in the United States and, on the other, those that migrated there long before the war and were already completely assimilated. The spread of the Prague violinists across Europe and to the United States gradually slowed between the two world wars.
COBISS.SI-ID: 14942211