Marija Hladnik Berden

She was born on 30 March 1892 into a Slovenian family in Novo Mesto, where she was baptised on 2 April in the Novo Mesto Cathedral. At the time of her birth, her father held the poorly paid post of chapter organist. Because of this, he had the right to use a small plot of church-owned farmland, which he cultivated together with her mother, whose parents were farmers. Of her surviving sisters, one devoted herself to teaching, another, Štefanija Hladnik Hanak, was employed as a piano teacher and founded the Ignacij Hladnik Music School in Novo Mesto, while another was a milliner. Of all the children, she was the most musically gifted and therefore her father's favourite. Her classmate was also the future doctor of philosophy and painter Frančiška Pija Garantini. During holidays, she often played the organ in the chapter church in Novo Mesto in place of her father. She graduated in 1911. == Career ==

On 17 November 1913, at the teacher-training college in Ljubljana, she passed the qualifying examination for a teacher in elementary schools with Slovenian and German as languages of instruction. After graduating, she obtained a job as a teacher in Kostanjevica na Krki, where she worked until 1923. She was an excellent soprano and frequently appeared as a soloist. Her church composition Hrepenenje po Jezusu (Longing for Jesus) was published in 1916 in the newspaper Cerkveni glasbenik (Church Musician). On 2 February 1923, she married the teacher Franc Berden (1895–1971) from Filovci. The couple moved to Stopiče, where she obtained a job of a teacher, which she held until her death. In November 1923, she gave birth to her only child, a son, Vasilij Berden (1923–2009), who later became a lawyer. == Death ==

On 2 April 1924, her maid, the thirty-two-year-old Marija Golobič from Plemberk, made pancakes with jam for supper. == Trial ==

The doctors at the Novo Mesto hospital concluded that Marija Hladnik Berden died of phosphorus poisoning. Her maid said that an entire box of matches had accidentally fallen into the milk and boiled in it. She said that she had used this milk to prepare omelettes, which her mistress ate. The forensic autopsy showed that there was a greater quantity of poison in her body than could have come from one box of matches. The police became suspicious of the maid and placed her under surveillance. A few days after Marija's funeral, Marija Golobič told the deceased's sister that she had dreamed that her dead mistress had entrusted her son to her care and ordered her to remain in the household. She allegedly told the widower that his wife had ordered in a dream that the two of them must marry. As a result of these statements, the police searched her suitcase. They found two packets of rat poison inside. Golobič at first denied using poison, but later stated that on the morning of 2 April she had spread phosphorus paste on corn mush to set out for rats, and that in the evening she had used the same knife, without wiping it because it seemed perfectly clean to her, to spread jam on the pancakes. The police arrested her and took her to prison in Novo Mesto. In December 1924, she was convicted before a Novo Mesto jury of poisoning her mistress. Because the act could not be proven with certainty, since the examination of the deceased's stomach was delayed too long, she was sentenced only to ten months’ imprisonment for negligent handling of poison. This already included seven months of pre-trial detention. A few years later, the widower of Marija Hladnik Berden married her sister Milka Hladnik (1900–1974), a milliner. == In literature ==

The writer and composer as wrote a poetic short story about her life and death, titled Ena Marija, dve Mariji, nobene Marije (One Marija, Two Marijas, No Marija), which was published in 2025 by Beletrina in the author's collection of short stories about Slovenian women composers, entitled Nemogoče (Impossible). For this short story, in its radio adaptation, the author received the 2025 Lastovka Award of Ars program of Radiotelevizija Slovenija for best short story. The entire book was among the ten nominees for the Grand Prize of the Slovene book fair in 2025. == References ==