Matej Smolnik

In memoriam

Matej Smolnik, a.k.a. Vain Extract By Klavdij Rebec; from his site: http://www.vaintribute.com Matej was the first and only child of Anna Mori and Bojan Smolnik, an Italian teacher and Slovene diplomat. He spent his first four years in Trieste, his mothers hometown. His father worked there as a secretary at the Yugoslav embassy. In 1979, his father was reassigned to Brasilia, the capital of Brasil. Little Matej visited the American school in Brasilia, a special school for the children of diplomats. Very soon, he could fluently speak four languages: Slovenian, Italian, Portuguese and English. Later on, in his diary, he often stated he 'thinked in esperanto'. In 1983, they moved to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Matej continued with his education at a local elementary school. He was troubled by the abrupt change of environment, loss of friends and the growing fights between his parents. He shut himself away from his problems and recoursed to endless hours of drawing and writing. This is the first time he started using his pseudonym, Vain. His progress was stunning. He won several awards for his works, but he always rejected the prizes claiming his work was 'incomplete'. After attending a concert in 1987, he discovered his inclination for music. He started accumulating musical equipment in the basement. On February 2nd 1991, as stated in his diary, he burned all his drawings and literary work (except for what was found in the school's archives and reproduced on this website) claming he had found 'the new language'. He also regularly writed about the virulent fights between his parents, his father's drinking problem and his mother's violent outbursts. In 1994, he started with his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. His classmates say he rarely spoke and always kept his distance. They nicknamed him 'The Ghost.' He always burned his work after it was finished, so there are no records about his achievements at the Academy. In his diary, he described fine arts as, quote: 'utterly incomplete and superficial, as all things deprived of the time variable undoubtedly are'. Music became the number one priority in his life. The majority of the songs he wrote in this period revolved around Barbara Stritar, a classmate of his he secretly admired. On June 21st 1997, tragedy struck the Smolnik family. Matej's parents were sailing with some friends along the Croatian coast line. According to the police report, they carelessly drifted onto the open sea, where they were caught by a sudden storm. The small vessel capsized, drowning the unfortunate crew. The bodies were never recovered. Matej was grief stricken. The entries in his diary became confusing and incoherent. He quit his studies, rarely left the house and persistantly avoided every contact with the outside world. Neighbours claim he lost weight and became a 'walking skeleton'. He spent endless hours in the basement evolving his so called 'new language'. He often described the music he was making as 'butterflies from a coffin'. He suffered from violent nightmares that always ended with the 'eerie sensation of drowning'. Even though Barbara Stritar was no more than a cursory acquaintance to him, he resented the fact that she didn't help him. On September 19th 1998, Matej's body was found by his aunt. He died in his bed, while sleeping. According to the coroner's report, he had a 'terrified expression on his face'. He broke his nails while violently scratching the wooden frame of the bed in his sleep. The official cause of death: asphyxiation. Certain rumours from within the police claim a considerable amount of water was found in his lungs

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