Lojze Bratuž

Lojze Bratuž (February 17, 1902 – February 16, 1937) was a Slovene choirmaster and composer from Gorizia who was killed by Italian Fascist squads. He is regarded as a martyr of the anti-Fascist struggle of the Slovene population in the Slovene Littoral region during Italian rule. Biography Bratuž was born in a Slovene-speaking family in the town of Gorizia, then the center of the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca. He was educated in the town’s Slovene schools and chose a career in music. After the Slovene Littoral and the adjacent regions of Inner Carniola were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy under the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920, Bratuž remained loyal to his Slovene origins and resisted the forced Italianization of the region, which was populated by a Slovene majority. Initially, he taught singing and was a choirmaster in the village of Šmartno in the Gorizia Hills north of Gorizia, and later in a small seminary in Gorizia. In 1929, he was imprisoned for a short time by the Fascist authorities due to his Slovene patriotism. In 1930, he was appointed coordinator of church choirs in the Gorizia region by the archbishop of Gorizia, Frančišek Borgia Sedej. He led the only