Tomaž Lazar

Lazar studied history at the University of Ljubljana from 2000 to 2005, and received his doctorate there in 2010.^[4] He joined the National Museum of Slovenia in 2008 where he is currently employed as the curator of the Department for History and Applied Art.^[2]

Between 2012 and 2014, Lazar was the lead curator of the exhibition Vitez, dama in zmaj (The Knight, the Lady and the Dragon), a comprehensive presentation of medieval warriors which earned him and his co-curators the Slovenian Museum Association's Valvasor Award of 2012.^[5]

In 2017, he organized Poti samurajev (Paths of the Samurai) in conjunction with the Embassy of Japan in Slovenia. It was the first large-scale exhibition of Japanese armor and martial culture in the country and received coverage from national media outlets such as Mladina and Delo.^[6][7]

Following this, Lazar curated the interdisciplinary exhibition Preteklost pod mikroskopom (The Past Under the Microscope) in 2017–18, for which he and his co-curators received 2017's Valvasor Award.^[8]

His expertise is frequently sought by Slovenian broadcasters. A 25-minute interview in the national Radio Prvi [sl] series Razkošje v glavi focused on his life and work,^[9] while Radio ARS [sl] invited him to discuss the Counts of Celje in its science program Pogled v znanost.^[10]

In addition to the two Valvasor Awards, Lazar sits on the editorial boards of the journals Kronika, Vojaška zgodovina and Argo and his work has appeared in peer-reviewed outlets.^[11][2]

• Lazar, Tomaž (2012). Vitezi, najemniki in smodnik: vojskovanje na Slovenskem v poznem srednjem veku. Ljubljana: Viharnik. ISBN 9789616057868.
• Lazar, Tomaž (2021). Oklepi iz Narodnega muzeja Slovenije: zaščitna oprema od visokega srednjega do zgodnjega novega veka (in Slovenian). National Museum of Slovenia. ISBN 9789616981491.
• Lazar, Tomaž (2022). Armour from the National Museum of Slovenia: Head and Body Defences from the High Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period. National Museum of Slovenia. ISBN 9789616981644.