Life and work of the Slovenian physician and politician Dr. Ivan Oražen (1869-1921) is clo­sely related to the period during which he lived. As illegitimate child his youth was marked with poverty. When he got married into the brewing family Auer from Ljubljana, he beca­me wealthy. But despite this he remained loyal to his own principles, he remained a patriot and he fought against Austro-Hungarian domination over South Slavs, first as the head of the Slovenian Sokol organization, later the Yugoslavian one. He represented the idea of equal integration of Southern Slavs, Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, but he soon realized the hegemo­nic tendencies of Serbs. As a physician, he worked first in the Ljubljana hospital, then in a pri­vate practice and during the Balkan War in 1912 in a hospital in Niš (Serbia), on which he published his memories. He was also the Ljubljana city councillor and he fought for health care and doctor’s profession. After the First World War this successful work led him on the position of the first president of the Counsil of Health of Slovenia and Istria. He was a figh­ter for the first Medical School of Slovenes. Many disappointments in politics, the sadness because of the death of his wife Eugenia due to tuberculosis, the lack of descendants and the rest contributed to his decision to commit suicide. However, after his wife’s family which had no descendants he inherited a large wealth. Since he wanted to make life easier to the emerging Slovenian intelligence, mainly medical students and those who were illegitimate children, he left a large part of this wealth to the Medical School of Ljubljana in a carefully couched testament. Around 850 students of the University of Ljubljana lived in the Oražen’s dormitories for free since 1925. Ivan Oražen is a great Slovene benefactor in Ljubljana simi­lar to Luka Knafelj in Vienna.