Subtitle: historical play with singing in four acts
Jože Debevec (1867-1938) was a priest, writer and translator. He was the first to translate Dante's The Divine Comedy.
Text Heroic Blejka was published in the Collection of Folk Plays. The collection was intended for Catholic stages, where women and men performed separately. For this purpose, the authors wrote plays in which only female or male characters performed. Jože Debevec wrote the drama Heroic Blejka published under the pseudonym Jože z Jezera. He used a play written in German by Ludwig Germonik as a template Brave Gorenjka, which was first staged at the Ljubljana Provincial Theatre in 1872. Debevec filled the basic story with new characters, themes and plots. An extensive summary of the events is also published in Alenka Goljevšček's book From A(bram) to Ž(upančič): contents of 765 Slovenian dramas.
The drama takes place in the last year of the French occupation (1813). French soldiers intend to rob the Church of Mary on the Island. The Blejke stand against them and in the end the French plan is thwarted. Austrian soldiers have made their way to Bled and the hated occupiers are forced to flee. The emotions in the drama are undoubtedly dominated by exalted patriotism. The Austrian army is not only the savior and ally of the Slovenes: it also represents true values that are the opposite of Jacobin violence.