Bronze relief of a woman who covers her eyes with her left arm, in which she holds a scale. In her right hand, she has an owl. The latter
symbolizes the intellectual knowledge, as the symbol of the writer and historian, and the
scale a symbol of a lawyer representing justice. In this grave is a buried writer, historian and lawyer.
Makso Šnuderl born in Rimske Toplice, firstly settled in Maribor, when he became a student of Maribor Classical Gymnasium. He graduated in 1914 and went to study in Vienna. One year later, he was mobilized in the Austro-Hungarian army and later seriously wounded. Šnuderl returned to Maribor in 1918. In the months after the war he was in duty as military officer and participant in the coup of General Maister in Maribor, and later in battles for the Northern border. In the next years, he remained in Maribor and enriched cultural pulse by publishing poems and critique of cultural events.
He successfully finished study of law, got a professional licence and in 1929 opens hiw own law firm in Maribor. In this landmark year, he published his first book. The collection of short stories "A man from solitude" (1929) describes the psychological depth of herein people who came in conflict with law. Three years later he published a historical novel "Lost earth" , where he writes about the struggles for the national border, and the drama "The Story of the Bird of Paradise." In 1937, he published drama "Thief tricks: Three sketches." The Publishing of his following novel about life in Maribor was disturbed by World war II and violently ended his literary period.
Šnuderl joined the partisans, and after the war became a prominent historian, jurist and important political worker specialized for legal issues. After the end of the war, Šnuderl and his family settled in Ljubljana. In the following years, Šnuderl reached the peak of his political and professional career. From April to September 1945 he chaired the national commission for war damage. Then he was in function of federal deputy for the Maribor district for 18 years.
In the meantime, he writes books and articles in many topics: about history of fascist terror, development of socialistic government in Slovenia, social base of the political struggles of the northern border.
Šnuderl's left the biggest impact as lawyer and especially an expert for constitutional law. Since 1947, he was a professor of Constitutional Law at the Law Faculty of Ljubljana, later dean of Law faculty, then elected member of the Slovenian Academy of science and art, and in the sixties rector of the Ljubljana University. Internationally known, Šnuderl was often invited to international conferences (International Political Science Association, Zurich 1951, Stockholm 1955).
All these years he mostly spent outside Maribor, the city in which he became a writer and proud Slovenian. He chose this city as a place, were he spent his last years. Šnuderl was buried near the grave of his general from time of fighting’s for the northern national border.
While Makso was still in Gymnassium...
Yes, another kid was born in the far west Slovenia, lovely town of Tolmin. In just a few decades, that kid quite literally rocked the town of Maribor.