Himalayan leader Aleš Kunaver

The exhibition that the National Museum of Contemporary History has prepared to mark the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Aleš Kunaver has been created in cooperation with his wife, Dušica Kunaver, and his mountaineering friends. The purpose of the exhibition is to reawaken memory of Aleš Kunaver, an excellent Himalayan leader, the first Slovene to film the Himalayas, a mountain rescuer, writer and lecturer. The exhibition aims above all to highlight how much credit is due to him that, in the pioneer period of Slovene Himalayan activity, as leader of six Himalayan expeditions he led our mountaineers from Himalayan beginners to the very top of the world. From 1960 to 1975, a mere fifteen years, our mountaineers matured into the best mountaineering team in the world. This achievement has no parallel in world mountaineering history. The »balance » of the pioneer period of Slovene Himalayan activity is unbelievable: three paramount directions on the faces of three eight thousand metre mountains, which are considered among mountaineers to be the »Earth's third pole« - Makalu, Everest, Lhotse.  Aleš led the expedition to the south faces of Makalu and Lhotse and was expedition planner to the western crest of Everest. Three paramount directions on three eight thousand metre mountains is a great achievement for a small nation.

The photographs presented in the exhibition were selected mainly from the collection of around 5,800 colour slides by Aleš Kunaver from the period between 1959 and 1984, which the Kunaver family donated to the National Museum of Contemporary History by deed of gift. The selection of photographs is intended to show moments of life in Nepal, from the six Yugoslav expeditions to the Indian and Nepalese Himalayas and one expedition to the Hindukush and from the School for Nepalese Guides in Manang, and similarly to show Aleš Kunaver as a person gifted with many talents, which he developed to the full to be a model for mountaineers of both older and younger generations. The author of most of the photographs in the expedition is Aleš Kunaver; some of them were taken by members of the mentioned expeditions. In addition, some original items from the collections of the family Kunaver and the National Museum of Contemporary History are displayed in three showcases and additional 700 photos can be seen in a computer video projection.

Authors of the exhibition: Jožica Šparovec and Dušica Kunaver

Guided tour of the exhibition: January 4, 2015 at 10.00 a.m. (by Jožica Šparovec)