Ivan Hribar

Ivan Hribar (19 September 1851 – 18 April 1941) was a Slovene and Yugoslav banker, politician, diplomat and journalist. During the start of the 20th century, he was one of the leaders of the National Progressive Party, and one of the most important figures of Slovene liberal nationalism. Between 1896 and 1910, he was the mayor of Ljubljana (nowadays the capital of Slovenia), and greatly contributed to its rebuilding and modernisation after the 1895 earthquake.

Ivan Hribar was born in the Carniolan town of Tersain in what was then the Austrian Empire (now in Slovenia). He studied law at the University of Vienna, and made a professional career as the representative of a Czech bank in Ljubljana between 1876 and 1919.

In the 1880s he became involved in politics, soon emerging as one of the leading figures of the Slovene national liberalism in Austria-Hungary. Together with his close political ally Ivan Tavčar he founded the National Party of Carniola, later renamed to National Progressive Party. From 1882 he served as city councillor of Laibach. In 1896 he was elected mayor of Ljubljana and became famous for implementing a large scale reconstruction of the town after the Ljubljana earthquake of 1895. He invited the architect Max Fabiani to make a new urban development plan for the town. This included the complete renovation of Prešeren Square and the area around the Triple Bridge (the Kresija Palace and the Philip Mansion), as well as the construction of the Dragon Bridge: all of these buildings are nowadays considered as central symbols of Ljubljana. Hribar's aim was to transform Ljubljana into a representative centre of all Slovene Lands and thus create a cultural and economic capital for the Slovenian people. He carried out a radical modernization of the city's infrastructure, including electrification and the introduction of trams. He also cleaned up the city's public finances. During his time in office Hribar often clashed with the ethnic German minority of Ljubljana on a number of issues.

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