Anton Novacan
Encyclopedia
Anton Novačan was a Slovene politician
, diplomat
, author, and playwright
.
Novačan was born in a modest peasant family in the village of Zadobrova
(now part of the Lower Styria
n town of Celje
), in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He attended the prestigious First Celje Grammar School
and later went to school in the Croatian towns of Zagreb
, Karlovac
, and Varaždin
. In Croatia, he met several young poets, such as Ivan Novak and Ljubo Wiesner
, with whom he established a close friendship. During this period, he also contributed to many Croatian literary magazine
s. In 1908, he enrolled at the Charles University in Prague
, where he studied law. Between 1910 and 1913, he spend three years traveling around Europe, spending much time in Paris, Munich
, and Moscow. During World War I, he was imprisoned by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as a potentially dangerous political radical. He finished his studies in 1918, and moved back to Slovenia, which had just became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In the early 1920s, Novačan became politically active. In 1921, he founded the Slovenian section of the Agrarian Party
, which already the following year became independent under the name Slovenian Republican Party with Novačan as its chairman. The party advocated the establishment of an autonomous Slovenian Free State
within a confederation of South Slavic peoples, which would include Yugoslavia
and Bulgaria. They opposed clericalism
and social conservativism and promoted agrarian ideals based on the Catholic values of the Slovene peasant population. In the parliamentary elections of 1923
, the party suffered a devastating defeat and dissolved itself soon afterward. According to his own testimony, Novačan asked for an audience with King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, where he promised the monarch that he would dissolve the party and became a monarchist if he were accepted into the diplomatic service of the Kingdom. Novačan thus became a consul in Warsaw
, Brăila
, Cairo
, Bari
, and Klagenfurt
.
During all this period, he continued to write prose and poems, many of which were published in the prestigious literary magazine Ljubljanski zvon
. In the late 1920s, he published his best-known work, the play Herman Celjski ("Hermann of Cilli"), based on the story of the Renaissance Styrian
nobleman Hermann II of Cilli, whom Novačan portrayed as a Nietzschean Übermensch
in tragic conflict with his environment.
In the 1930s, he moved to Belgrade
, where he worked as a freelance writer and journalist. There he also met many Slovenes living in the Yugoslav capital, among them the writer Vladimir Bartol
, with whom he developed a close friendship, Ivan Marija Čok, leader of the Slovene and Croatian political exiles from the Julian March
, and Albert Rejec, unofficial leader and ideologue of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR
. After the Axis
invasion of Yugoslavia
in April 1941, he managed to escape to Jerusalem. After a short period of British internment, he joined the Yugoslav Government in exile stationed in Cairo, Egypt
, where he worked as a clerk in the diplomatic office.
After the end of World War II in 1945, he moved to Trieste
, where he wrote his most important poetic work, Peti evangelij ("The Fifth Gospel"), a cycle of 240 sonnets. In Trieste, he met Vladimir Bartol
, who tried to convince him to return to Yugoslavia
. However, Novačan rejected the Communist ideology of the new Titoist regime and in 1948 he chose to emigrate to Argentina
with the help of Miha Krek
, Ivan Ahčin
, and Ciril Kotnik
. He settled in Buenos Aires
, where he met the Slovene Roman Catholic intellectual Tine Debeljak, who introduced Novačan to the local community of Slovene immigrants.
He died in the Argentine city of Posadas
in 1951.
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
, author, and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
.
Novačan was born in a modest peasant family in the village of Zadobrova
Zadobrova
Zadobrova is a settlement in the Celje municipality in eastern Slovenia. The area was traditionally part of Lower Styria. It is now included with the rest of the municipality into the Savinja statistical region.-External links:*...
(now part of the Lower Styria
Lower Styria
Lower Styria or Slovenian Styria is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of Lower Styria in its historical boundaries amounts to around 705,000 inhabitants, or 34.5% of the population of Slovenia...
n town of Celje
Celje
Celje is a typical Central European town and the third largest town in Slovenia. It is a regional center of Lower Styria and the administrative seat of the Urban Municipality of Celje . The town of Celje is located under Upper Celje Castle at the confluence of the Savinja, Ložnica, and Voglajna...
), in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He attended the prestigious First Celje Grammar School
First Grammar School, Celje
First Grammar School in Celje is a coeducational nondenominational state secondary general education school for students aged between 15 to 19 in Celje, Slovenia. It was the first high school built in the region, established in 1808 by the Austrian Empire. Initially, the language of instruction...
and later went to school in the Croatian towns of Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
, and Varaždin
Varaždin
Varaždin is a city in north Croatia, north of Zagreb on the highway A4. The total population is 47,055, with 38,746 on of the city settlement itself . The centre of Varaždin county is located near the Drava river, at...
. In Croatia, he met several young poets, such as Ivan Novak and Ljubo Wiesner
Ljubo Wiesner
Ljubo Wiesner was a Croatian poet. He was a follower of Antun Gustav Matoš's work.He founded the publications Grič, Kritika and Savremenik. His introduction to Hrvatska mlada lirika in 1914 defined the poetic style of the followers of Matoš. Wiesner was also active musically, and played gusle...
, with whom he established a close friendship. During this period, he also contributed to many Croatian literary magazine
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
s. In 1908, he enrolled at the Charles University in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, where he studied law. Between 1910 and 1913, he spend three years traveling around Europe, spending much time in Paris, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, and Moscow. During World War I, he was imprisoned by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as a potentially dangerous political radical. He finished his studies in 1918, and moved back to Slovenia, which had just became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In the early 1920s, Novačan became politically active. In 1921, he founded the Slovenian section of the Agrarian Party
Agrarian Party (Yugoslavia)
The Agrarian Party was a political party within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1919....
, which already the following year became independent under the name Slovenian Republican Party with Novačan as its chairman. The party advocated the establishment of an autonomous Slovenian Free State
Free State
The Free State is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Orange Free State Boer republic and later Orange Free State Province. The current borders of the province date from 1994 when the Bantustans...
within a confederation of South Slavic peoples, which would include Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
and Bulgaria. They opposed clericalism
Clericalism
Clericalism is the application of the formal, church-based, leadership or opinion of ordained clergy in matters of either the church or broader political and sociocultural import...
and social conservativism and promoted agrarian ideals based on the Catholic values of the Slovene peasant population. In the parliamentary elections of 1923
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes parliamentary election, 1923
The 1923 election in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for the National Assembly took place on March 18, 1923. The seats were divided up by the political borders which existed before the Kingdom's formation and distributed using the population statistics of 1910.According to a TIME Magazine...
, the party suffered a devastating defeat and dissolved itself soon afterward. According to his own testimony, Novačan asked for an audience with King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, where he promised the monarch that he would dissolve the party and became a monarchist if he were accepted into the diplomatic service of the Kingdom. Novačan thus became a consul in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Brăila
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
, Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
, and Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt
-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...
.
During all this period, he continued to write prose and poems, many of which were published in the prestigious literary magazine Ljubljanski zvon
Ljubljanski zvon
Ljubljanski zvon was a journal published in Ljubljana in Slovene between 1881 and 1941. It was considered one of the most prestigious literary and cultural magazines in Slovenia.- Early period :...
. In the late 1920s, he published his best-known work, the play Herman Celjski ("Hermann of Cilli"), based on the story of the Renaissance Styrian
Duchy of Styria
The history of Styria concerns the region roughly corresponding to the modern Austrian state of Styria and the Slovene region of Styria from its settlement by Germans and Slavs in the Dark Ages until the present...
nobleman Hermann II of Cilli, whom Novačan portrayed as a Nietzschean Übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
in tragic conflict with his environment.
In the 1930s, he moved to Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, where he worked as a freelance writer and journalist. There he also met many Slovenes living in the Yugoslav capital, among them the writer Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol was a Slovene writer, most famous for his novel Alamut. Alamut was published in 1938 and translated into numerous languages, becoming the most popular work of Slovene literature around the world.-Biography:Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in San Giovanni , a suburb of the...
, with whom he developed a close friendship, Ivan Marija Čok, leader of the Slovene and Croatian political exiles from the Julian March
Julian March
The Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
, and Albert Rejec, unofficial leader and ideologue of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR
TIGR
TIGR, abbreviation for Trst , Istra , Gorica and Reka , with the full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R. was a militant anti-Fascist and insurgent organization active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the eastern Italian border region known as the Julian March.The...
. After the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
in April 1941, he managed to escape to Jerusalem. After a short period of British internment, he joined the Yugoslav Government in exile stationed in Cairo, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, where he worked as a clerk in the diplomatic office.
After the end of World War II in 1945, he moved to Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, where he wrote his most important poetic work, Peti evangelij ("The Fifth Gospel"), a cycle of 240 sonnets. In Trieste, he met Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol was a Slovene writer, most famous for his novel Alamut. Alamut was published in 1938 and translated into numerous languages, becoming the most popular work of Slovene literature around the world.-Biography:Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in San Giovanni , a suburb of the...
, who tried to convince him to return to Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. However, Novačan rejected the Communist ideology of the new Titoist regime and in 1948 he chose to emigrate to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
with the help of Miha Krek
Miha Krek
Miha Krek was a Slovenian lawyer and conservative politician. Between 1941 and 1969, he was the informal leader of the Slovenian anti-Communist emigration....
, Ivan Ahčin
Ivan Ahcin
Ivan Ahčin was a Slovene sociologist, publicist, journalist, author and politician.He studied theology at the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1925. He later worked as a professor of sociology at the University of Ljubljana...
, and Ciril Kotnik
Ciril Kotnik
Ciril Kotnik was a Yugoslav diplomat of Slovene ethnicity.He was born in Ljubljana, then part the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Carinthian Slovene parents...
. He settled in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, where he met the Slovene Roman Catholic intellectual Tine Debeljak, who introduced Novačan to the local community of Slovene immigrants.
He died in the Argentine city of Posadas
Posadas, Misiones
Posadas is the capital city of the Argentine province of Misiones, located at the south of the province, on the left-hand shore of the Paraná River, opposite Encarnación, Paraguay. The city has an area of 965 km² and a population of 323,739 ....
in 1951.