Matej Bor was the pen name of Vladimir Pavšič (14 April 1913 – 29 September 1993), who was a Slovene poet, translator, playwright, journalist and partisan.
Matej Bor was born as Vladimir Pavšič in the village of Grgar near Gorizia, in what was then the Austrian County of Gorizia and Gradisca and is today part of the Slovenian municipality of Nova Gorica. After the Italian annexation of the Julian March in 1920, the family moved to Celje, which was then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. After finishing his studies at the Celje High School, Vladimir enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied Slovene and Slavic philology. After graduation, he worked as a journalist and professor in Maribor.
When the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, he escaped from Nazi-occupied Maribor to the Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. In the summer of the same year he joined the Communist-led partisan resistance, where he worked in the area of culture and propaganda. During the People's Liberation War he emerged as one of the major poets of the Slovene resistance. Several of his battle songs became hugely popular. One of them, Hey, Brigades, became the unofficial anthem of Slovene partisan forces during World War II. It was during this period that he started to use the pseudonym Matej Bor, which he continued to use also after the war.