The article surveys Ivan Tavčar's knowledge of Protestantism in the sixteenth century as he received it in school and current publications, then considers how nineteenth-century historians evaluated the Reformation and Slovene liberals' view of Trubar's importance from the 1870s on. Tavčar's novellas "Vita vitae meae" and "Grajski pisar," which feature characters that Tavčar adapted from August Dimitz and Johann Weikhard Valvasor's histories, are analyzed. The article concludes that Tavčar missed the opportunity to pose the question of identity from a modern, liberal standpoint and moved away from the rationalism that he espoused as a young man, as he came closer to a belief in national identity based on Slovene nature and Catholicism. This move over the course of his career caused him to view Trubar primarily as a figure of cultural importance, one who contributed to the development of the Slovene language.
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