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On December 10, 2023, 10 years have passed since the death of our dear colleague Jana Cvetko, director of the Slovenian Religious Museum in Stična between 1994 and 2002.


Although many things have changed in the field of museology and in our museum over the years, we are still grateful to our respected colleague Jana for providing the museum in Stična with a solid foundation for its existence and further development. With her immense energy and dedication, she "put the nascent museum back on its feet" and firmly placed it among Slovenian museums with its program. To those who knew her personally, she remains an example of a good, noble, determined and courageous person.

Jana Cvetko joined the new museum in Stična as a curator on December 1, 1993, and soon became its director. During the period of her management of the institution, she ensured that the extensive renovation of the museum premises was completed.

She obtained funds for an additional position of curator, which increased the collective to four employees. She gave her strength and talents to arrange the legal and formal status of the museum, which was one of the most difficult tasks. Today, our museum is a national museum - the Slovene Museum of Christianity, which is an extraordinary success, and we achieved this success also thanks to her.

Jana Cvetko also held several solo and group exhibitions in Stična. In 2003, she received the museological Valvasor recognition and the Josip Jurčič municipal award as project manager and co-author of the permanent exhibition History of Christianity in Slovenia. She wrote the book: Jana Cvetko, Marija Pomagaj. Brezje: postcards and images through time, Brezje 1996.

In the midst of her most creative years, in 1997, an inexorable illness entered her life. Despite her illness, she gave her strength and talents to the museum even after 2002, when she was already retired. She remained the president of the Society of Friends of the Slovenian Religious Museum until December 27, 2007, when the Society ceased to function.

Time marches on inexorably. Ten years after her death, we can only talk and write about her, visit her grave, and show younger colleagues photos and explain who is recorded on them. Unfortunately, they did not know Jana, but in our stories they can feel that Jana Cvetko left an indelible mark in the museum profession and in the history of the Stiz museum and that she was an exceptional personality.

Text: mag. Nataša Polajnar Frelih, director of Slovene Museum of Christianity

Photo: Archive of MKS.