Ivo Brncic
Encyclopedia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n author, essayist and literary critic of Croat origin, particularly notable for his assessment of the midwar Slovenian literature
Slovenian literature
Slovene literature, meaning the literature in the Slovene language, starts with Freising manuscripts around 1000. From first printed Slovene religious books in 1550 it is followed by these literary periods and notable authors:-Middle Ages:-Folk poetry:...
. Most of his works were published posthumously.
Biography
Brnčić was born in the village of Gradišče, OrmožOrmož
Ormož is a town and municipality in northeastern Slovenia. It lies on the left bank of the Drava River and borders with Croatia on the opposite bank of the river....
municipality, 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...
, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was an Austrian public servant from Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. His mother came from a notable Slovene left wing intellectual family: her brother was the writer Lojz Kraigher, and Ivo Brnčić's cousins were the Communist politicians Boris and Sergej Kraigher
Sergej Kraigher
Sergej Kraigher was a Yugoslav Communist politician from Slovenia who served as the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia from 1981 to 1982.Kraigher was born in Postojna, Austria-Hungary...
. After finishing the high school in Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, Brnčić enrolled at the University of Ljubljana
University of Ljubljana
The University of Ljubljana is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. With 64,000 enrolled graduate and postgraduate students, it is among the largest universities in Europe.-Beginnings:...
, later switching to the University of Zagreb
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...
, where he studied Slavic philology. Because of his openly Marxist convictions, he could not find a job for a long time. He made his living mostly from writing and translating. In 1940, he got employed as a professor in an elementary school in Drniš
Drniš
Drniš is a town in Croatia, located in inland Dalmatia at halfway between Šibenik and Knin. Its municipality population is 8,595 , with 3,332 in the town itself and the rest in two dozen surrounding villages...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
(then also part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
).
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he was mobilized in the Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard
Croatian Home Guard or also, known as the "Homeland Defenders," was the name used for the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia which existed during World War II.- Formation :...
. In 1942 he tried to escape and join the Yugoslav partisans. He was captured and imprisoned in Zenica
Zenica
Zenica is an industrial city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the capital of the Zenica-Doboj Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity...
, but was later acquitted of charges of desertion and mobilized again into the armed forces of the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
. In May 1943, Brnčić escaped for the second time, but before he could join the partisans he was captured by the Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
, who killed him and buried in an unknown location.
Work and legacy
Brnčić wrote several lyrical poems, short stories and theatre plays, but he is most known for his works in literary criticism and essayism. He became known mostly for his articles in journals, but he didn't publish a single book during his lifetime. Only in the 1950s, the literary historians Herbert Grün and Janko KosJanko Kos
Janko Kos is a Slovenian literary historian, theoretician and critic.He was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the son of the painter and sculptor Tine Kos...
edited his collected works. The first volume, which included his essays and critiques, was published in 1954 under the title A Generation in front of the Closed Doors . This expression, used in one of his earlier essays from the 1930s, became a popular and widespread designation of the generation of left wing Slovenian authors in the 1930s and early 1940s who embraced a lyrical version of neorealism
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
(notably Ciril Kosmač
Ciril Kosmač
Ciril Kosmač was a Slovenian novelist and screenwriter.- Life :He was born in a Slovene family in the village of Slap ob Idrijci near Sveta Lucija , in what was then the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca . He attended high school in Tolmin and Gorizia...
, Miško Kranjec
Miško Kranjec
Miško Kranjec was a Slovene writer.Kranjec was born in the village of Velika Polana in what was then the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the son of the village tailor Mihalj Kranjec...
, Ludvik Mrzel, Karel Destovnik Kajuh
Karel Destovnik Kajuh
Karel Destovnik, pen name and nom de guerre Kajuh was a Slovenian poet, translator, resistance fighter, and Yugoslav national hero.- Life and work :...
and others).
Since the publication of his collected works in the 1950s, Brnčić has been frequently considered as the foremost theorist of the social realist and neorealist literary movements in Slovenia in the 1930s. His name has been strongly linked to the critical Marxist intellectual scene in the midwar period. Together with the left liberal Josip Vidmar
Josip Vidmar
Josip Vidmar was a prominent Slovenian literary critic and essayist. Vidmar is remembered because of his role in the Slovenian resistance during World War II, and for his influence in the cultural policies of the Titoist regime in Slovenia from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s.He was born in...
and the Catholic France Vodnik
France Vodnik
France Vodnik was a Slovenian literary critic, essayist, translator and poet from Ljubljana. He was mostly active in the interwar period, when Slovenia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia...
, Brnčić was considered as the foremost Slovene literary critic of the 1930s.
See also
- Croats of SloveniaCroats of SloveniaThe Croats are an ethnic group in Slovenia. In the 2002 census 35,642 citizens of Slovenia identified themselves as being ethnically Croats.- History :...