Julius Kugy
Encyclopedia
Julius Kugy was an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n - Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 mountaineer
Mountaineer
-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...

 and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 of Slovene origin. He wrote mostly in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

. He is renowned for his travelogues from the Julian Alps
Julian Alps
The Julian Alps are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretches from northeastern Italy to Slovenia, where they rise to 2,864 m at Mount Triglav. They are named after Julius Caesar, who founded the municipium of Cividale del Friuli at the foot of the mountains...

, in which he reflected on the relationship between man, nature, and culture. During all his life, he opposed competing nationalist ideologies in the northern Adriatic area, insisting on the need of peaceful co-existence among Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

, Italian and German peoples.

Biography

Julius Kugy was born in Gorizia
Gorizia
Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, and it is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin...

, then part of the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

 (now in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

) to Slovene parents. His father was a Carinthian Slovene
Carinthian Slovenes
Carinthian Slovenes are the Slovene-speaking population group in the Austrian State of Carinthia. The Carinthian Slovenes send representatives to the National Ethnic Groups Advisory Council...

 whose original surname was Kogej. His mother was the daughter of the Slovene poet Jovan Vesel Koseski
Jovan Vesel Koseski
205px|thumb|Jovan Vesel KoseskiJanez Vesel, known by his pen name Jovan Koseski , was a Slovene lawyer and poet.Born as Janez Vesel in Spodnje Koseze in the Duchy of Carniola in the...

. Kugy was educated in a multi-lingual environment. From an early age he was fluent in the three major languages of his native Gorizia and Gradisca
Gorizia and Gradisca
The County of Gorizia and Gradisca was a Habsburg county in Central Europe, in what is now a multilingual border area of Italy and Slovenia. It was named for its two major urban centers, Gorizia and Gradisca d'Isonzo.-Province of the Habsburg Empire:...

 region: Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Friulian. During his childhood he would spend the summers in his father's native village of Lipa near Arnoldstein
Arnoldstein
Arnoldstein is a market town in the district of Villach-Land in the Austrian state of Carinthia.-Location:Arnoldstein is located at Austria's southern border between the Carnic Alps and the Karawanken mountain range, near the confluence of the Gailitz and the Gail River...

 in Carinthia
Duchy of Carinthia
The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, then the first newly created Imperial State beside the original German stem duchies....

's Gail Valley, where he developed his interest in nature and mountains.

Julius attended the German language secondary school
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

 and continued his studies at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...

, graduating in law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 in 1882. Upon returning to Trieste, he took over the management of the import-export company Pfeifer & Kugy, co-founded by his father.

He explored large portions of the Eastern Alps
Eastern Alps
Eastern Alps is the name given to the eastern half of the Alps, usually defined as the area east of the Splügen Pass in eastern Switzerland. North of the Splügen Pass, the Posterior Rhine forms the border, and south of the pass, the Liro river and Lake Como form the boundary line.-Geography:The...

, dedicating most of his mountaineering career to climbing in the Julian Alps
Julian Alps
The Julian Alps are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretches from northeastern Italy to Slovenia, where they rise to 2,864 m at Mount Triglav. They are named after Julius Caesar, who founded the municipium of Cividale del Friuli at the foot of the mountains...

, where he discovered and marked more than 50 new routes. Local guides helped him climb many a previously unconquered peak in the Julian Alps: he became famous for climbing Škrlatica
Škrlatica
Škrlatica, historically also known as Suhi plaz , is a mountain in the Slovenian Julian Alps. With its summit at 2,740 m above sea level, it is the second highest peak in Slovenia and the third highest in the Julian Alps as a whole .The mountain's name is the feminine adjectival form...

 and Jôf di Montasio
Jôf di Montasio
Jôf di Montasio or Montaž with the altitude of 2,754 meters is the second highest peak of the Julian Alps, surpassed only by Mount Triglav. The original Slovene name of the mountain is Špik nad Policami or Poliški Špik, however nowadays the most used is Montaž, borrowed from the Italian...

.

In addition to mountaineering, Kugy was interested in many other subjects such as literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

 and music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

. One of the riddles he tried to solve was a mysterious plant species Scabiosa trenta
Scabiosa
Scabiosa is a genus in the teasel Family Dipsacaceae of flowering plants. Many of the species in this genus have common names that include the word scabious; however some plants commonly known as scabious are currently classified in related genera such as Knautia and Succisa; at least some of...

, described by Belsazar Hacquet
Belsazar Hacquet
Belsazar de la Motte Hacquet, was an Austrian physician and scientist who was born in Le Conquet, France. He studied in Vienna, and was a surgeon during the Seven Years' War. Later he was an instructor of anatomy and natural sciences in Laibach , and in 1788 was a professor at the University of...

 and later proven by Anton Kerner von Marilaun
Anton Kerner von Marilaun
Anton Kerner von Marilaun was an Austrian botanist and professor at the University of Vienna.-Career:Kerner was born in Mautern, Lower Austria, and studied medicine in Vienna followed by an education in natural history, for which he carried out phytosociologic studies in Central Europe...

 to be a specimen of the already known Cephalaria leucantha. Together with his friend Albert Bois de Chesne he created an Alpine botanical garden
Botanical garden
A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

 near Bovec
Bovec
Bovec is a small city and municipality in northwestern Slovenia. The city of Bovec lies in the Bovec Basin in the Soča Valley below the Kanin mountain in the Julian Alps.-Geographical location:...

. He was among the founders of two amateur music societies in Trieste: the Philharmonic Society and the Palestrinian
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...

 Chorus. He also donated an organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

 to the Mekhitarist
Mechitarists
The Mechitarists , are a congregation of Benedictine monks of the Armenian Catholic Church founded in 1712 by Abbot Mechitar of Sebastia. They are best known for their series of scholarly publications of ancient Armenian versions of otherwise lost ancient Greek texts.-History:Their eponymous...

 church in Trieste.

After Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 in 1915, Kugy volunteered to the Austro-Hungarian Army
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...

. In the Battles of the Isonzo
Battles of the Isonzo
The Battles of the Isonzo were a series of 12 battles between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies in World War I. They were fought along the Soča River on the eastern sector of the Italian Front between June 1915 and November 1917...

 his mountaineering knowledge and experience proved to be extremely valuable and he was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...

. He was demobilized after the Battle of Caporetto
Battle of Caporetto
The Battle of Caporetto , took place from 24 October to 19 November 1917, near the town of Kobarid , on the Austro-Italian front of World War I...

.

After the War he closed down his company and dedicated his time to writing and lecturing throughout the Slovene
Slovene Lands
Slovene Lands or Slovenian Lands is the historical denomination for the whole of the Slovene-inhabited territories in Central Europe. It more or less corresponds to modern Slovenia and the adjacent territories in Italy, Austria and Hungary in which autochthonous Slovene minorities live.-...

 and German speaking lands
German-speaking Europe
The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in West, Central and Eastern Europe...

.

During the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Kugy rescued several Slovene alpine climbers from the Dachau concentration camp, and collaborated with the Slovene partisan underground resistance in Trieste. He died in Trieste in 1944. He is buried in the central city cemetery.

Literary work and influence

Together with Henrik Tuma, Kugy is considered the father of modern mountaineering in the Julian Alps. He wrote several books based on his experiences, in which he expressed his humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 ideals and the love for nature. His books were very influential and created a specific genre of mountaineering literature within Slovene literature. His neo-Romantic style, which merged scientific and naturalist descriptions of nature and popular customs with a highly personalized reflections, influenced several important authors, mostly from the Slovenian Littoral
Slovenian Littoral
The Slovenian Littoral is a historical region of Slovenia. Its name recalls the historical Habsburg crown land of the Austrian Littoral, of which the Slovenian Littoral was a part....

. Among those influenced by Kugy's poetic and reflective mountaineering travelogues were Klement Jug
Klement Jug
Klement Jug was a Slovene philosopher, essayist and mountaineer who died while climbing Mount Triglav. Although he did not publish many works during his lifetime, he became one of the most influential thinkers of the younger generations of Slovenian intellectuals in the interwar period.- Life :Jug...

, Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol was a Slovene writer, most famous for his novel Alamut. Alamut was published in 1938 and translated into numerous languages, becoming the most popular work of Slovene literature around the world.-Biography:Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in San Giovanni , a suburb of the...

, Igor Škamperle
Igor Škamperle
Igor Škamperle is a Slovenian sociologist, cultural theorist, novelist, essayist, mountaineer and translator.He was born in a Slovene-speaking family in Trieste, Italy. He studied comparative literature and cultural sociology at the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1990...

 and Dušan Jelinčič
Dušan Jelinčič
Dušan Jelinčič is an Slovene writer, essayist and mountaineer from Trieste, Italy.He was born in an influential Slovene intellectual family in Trieste; his father, Zorko Jelinčič, was among the co-founders of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR, and a close personal friend of prominent...

. He was also influential in some Italian-speaking circles of Trieste. Among his admirors were the writers Giani Stuparich
Giani Stuparich
Giani Stuparich was an Italian author.He was born in Trieste, then in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.In 1948 he won a gold medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his "La Grotta" ....

, Claudio Magris
Claudio Magris
Claudio Magris is an Italian scholar, translator and writer.Magris graduated from the University of Turin, where he studied German studies, and has been a professor of modern German literature at the University of Trieste since 1978.He is an essayist and columnist for the Italian newspaper...

, Livio Isaak Sirovich, Marco Albino Ferrari and Paolo Rumiz.

There is a monument to Julius Kugy in the Trenta Valley
Trenta Valley
Trenta is a valley in the Julian Alps in the northern part of the Goriška traditional region of Slovenia. The source of the river Soča and the settlements of Soča, Lepena and Trenta are located in Trenta. The Vršič pass connects the valley with the Upper Carniola to the east. The Soča flows...

 near the road to Vršič
Vršic
Vršič is a high mountain pass across the Julian Alps in northwestern Slovenia.The road across the pass was built for military purposes, to supply the Isonzo front of World War I. Opened in late 1915, it was originally named after archduke Eugen of Austria-Hungary...

 with a sculpture of Kugy by Jakob Savinšek
Jakob Savinšek
Jakob Savinšek, was a Slovene sculptor, illustrator and poet.- Life :Savinšek was born in the Upper Carniolan town of Kamnik, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , where he spent his youth. After finishing secondary school in Ljubljana, he studied medicine at the University of...

. A number of mountain routes are also named after him, including the famous one in Nabrežina
Nabrežina
Nabrežina is a village in the karst part of the comune of Duino-Aurisina near Trieste in a region of Slovene minority in Italy. It lies 15 kilometres north-west from Trieste and has a total of 2406 inhabitants , according to the census 60% of them Slovenes.-Overview:The village of Nabrežina was...

 near Duino
Duino
Duino is a town at the Adriatic coast in the municipality of Duino-Aurisina, part of the region of Friuli – Venezia Giulia in the province of Trieste, north-eastern Italy....

.

In 2008, a Slovenian postal stamp was dedicated to him.

Major works

  • Aus dem Leben eines Bergsteigers ("The Life of a Mountaineer". Munich, 1925).
  • Arbeit, Musik, Berge ("Work, Music, Mountains". Munich, 1931).
  • Die Julischen Alpen im Bilde ("The Julian Alps in Images". Graz, 1933).
  • Anton Ditzinger, ein Bergführerleben ("Anton Ditzinger: The Life of a Mountain Guide". Graz, 1935).
  • Fünf Jahrhunderte Triglav ("Five Centuries of Triglav
    Triglav
    Triglav is the highest mountain in Slovenia and the highest peak of the Julian Alps. While its name, meaning "three-headed", can describe its shape as seen from the Bohinj area, the mountain was most probably named after the Slavic god Triglav. The mountain is the preeminent symbol of the Slovene...

    ").
  • Im göttliche Lächeln des Monte Rosa ("The Divine Smile of Monte Rosa
    Monte Rosa
    The Monte Rosa Massif is a mountain massif located in the eastern part of the Pennine Alps. It is located between Switzerland and Italy...

    ").
  • Aus vergangener Zeit ("From Days Past". Graz, 1943).
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