OSANA, Marij
* 18. 6. 1880, Trieste, Italy
† 10. 12. 1958, Ljubljana, Slovenia
electrotechnician
After attending the gymnasium in Trieste, O. studied electrotechnics at the Technical College of Vienna from 1900 to 1904. He received the title engineer in 1906. Until the beginning of World War I, O. worked at the Postal and Telegraph Directorate in Trieste. During the war, he was also active at the Italian front (1917) as a specialist for works on communication networks. After Trieste passed to Italy in 1918, O. left for Ljubljana, where he was once again active at the Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone Directorate until 1926. From 1923 onwards, he taught at the University of Ljubljana as an associate professor, and after 1932 and until 1957 as full professor, namely telecommunications and the technology of low-tension current.
O. is considered a pioneer of telegraphy, telephony, radio and television technology in Slovenia. From 1912 to 1922, several submarine cables were placed in the Adriatic Sea under his leadership. Between 1919 and 1928, he modernised and internationalised the telephone network in Yugoslavia, especially in Slovenia and Serbia. At the end of the 1920s, he was working on a foundation for a project of an international cable telephone connection from Austria to India, which encountered opposition from numerous countries. From 1922 onwards, he planned a network of radio stations in Yugoslavia. The first larger test station was built in Belgrade in 1926. In 1932, he started up a transmitter in Domžale near Ljubljana, which was destroyed by bombing in 1941. After World War II, O. was one of the first experts in USW technology. He was engaged in television from 1935 onwards.
