Davorin Jenko (9 November 1835 - 25 November 1914) was a Slovene composer. He is sometimes considered as the father of Slovenian national Romantic music.[1][2][3] He also composed the melody for the Serbian national anthem Bože pravde and the former Slovenian national anthem Naprej, zastava Slave.
He was born in the Upper Carniolan village of Dvorje, in what was then the Austrian Empire. After graduating from high school in Trieste, he went to Vienna, where he studied law. During his Viennese stay, he founded the Slovene Choir Society in Vienna, which was sponsored by the national liberal politician Valentin Zarnik.
In 1862, he moved to the town of Pančevo in southern Vojvodina, where he worked as the choirmaster of the local Serbian Orthodox Church. He later moved on the other side of the Austrian-Serbian border to Belgrade, where he worked as a composer in the Serbian National Theatre.
Jenko was named among the first four members of the Academy of Arts of the Royal Serbian Academy of Sciences, named by King Milan I of Serbia on 5 April 1887.
He lived in the Serbia until 1897, when he moved to Ljubljana in his native Carniola.
During his life, Jenko composed several pieces both in Slovene and Serbian.[4] He wrote the first Serbian operetta (The Sorceress, Врачара 1882).,[5] and composed the music for the Serbian national anthem, based on the lyrics of Jovan Đorđević.
Most of his Slovene pieces were composed during his stay in Vienna. In 1860, he composed the music for the patriotic song Naprej, zastava Slave (Forward, Flag of Glory!) for the lyrics written by his cousin Simon Jenko. He also composed several other Slovene patriotic poems, which later became a crucial part of the Slovenian national canon.
He died in Ljubljana, and was buried in the Žale cemetery in the Bežigrad district.