Tomaž Lazar is a Slovenian historian and museum curator who specializes in medieval and early-modern arms and armor. He is senior curator for arms-and-armour collections at the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana and the author of several monographs, including (2021) and its English translation Armour from the National Museum of Slovenia (2022).
Biography Lazar studied history at the University of Ljubljana from 2000 to 2005, and received his doctorate there in 2010. 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.
Between 2012 and 2014, Lazar was the lead curator of the exhibition (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.
In 2017, he organized (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.
Following this, Lazar curated the interdisciplinary exhibition (The Past Under the Microscope) in 2017–18, for which he and his co-curators received 2017's Valvasor Award.
His expertise is frequently sought by Slovenian broadcasters. A 25-minute interview in the national series focused on his life and work, while invited him to discuss the Counts of Celje in its science program .
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.
Selected works
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