On 5 February 2026, the Slovenian government adopted a resolution establishing Slovenian Reading Day, which will be celebrated every year on 5 March as National Reading Day.
The date was chosen in memory of the birthday of Mance Košir, PhD (5 March 1948 – 2 May 2024), an outstanding Slovenian intellectual, publicist, literary creator, columnist, university professor and ambassador of reading, who promoted reading and research into reading practices with her life and work. In the late 1990s, together with the Andragogic Centre of Slovenia, she founded the Reading with Mance Košir study circles, whose mission is to spread the culture of reading. Her legacy symbolically embodies the importance of reading as a personal need, as a space for dialogue and as the foundation of an inclusive society. Therefore, the proclamation of the National Reading Day aims to strengthen the systematic promotion of reading literacy and reading habits in all age groups and to respond to the alarming data on their decline.
On the occasion of the National Reading Day, numerous events will be held throughout Slovenia every year, in which libraries, schools, publishing houses, reading clubs and other cultural and educational institutions will participate. However, I believe that the reading holiday will also come to life everywhere abroad where Slovenian communities live. So this year (March 5, 2026), immediately after the establishment of the new holiday, we experimentally celebrated the reading holiday in Slovenian language classes. With the oldest group of participants, we dedicated Thursday to reading. We read the Manifesto on Reading for the 21st century, we read about Manca Košir and talked about what we had read. Most of the participants had previously selected and read a small part of something (a poem, a passage) from the rich Slovenian literary treasury. I concluded the meeting, which was dedicated to the reading holiday, with the poet Srečko Kosovel, whose 100th anniversary of death is being celebrated this year (Kosovel's year, 2026). We had a great time, we enjoyed reading and listening, and I remembered the famous thought of poet Tone Pavček: "Let's read so we don't disappear", which emphasizes the necessity of reading to maintain mental health, critical thinking and cultural growth. Reading acts as a counterbalance to everyday stress, broadens horizons and preserves humanity.
Therefore, we read to stay healthy, sane, and smiling.
Metoda Perger
