Josip Ribičič was a Slovene writer, mostly famous as an author of popular children literature.

Life

He was born as Josip Ribičić in the town of Baška

Baška

At only a few hours distance from the centres of European major cities, lies Baška , a hidden gem of the Croatian Adriatic. This cultural and historical centre famous for its inscribed stone monument from 1100 and a hundred year tradition in tourism, has developed into a popular resort for a great...

 on the island Krk

Krk

Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county....

 (now in 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 part of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

). His father Juraj was a Croat

Croats

Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

 from Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

 who worked on Krk as an Austro-Hungarian public servant, while his mother Marija Križanič was a Slovene from Gorenja vas

Gorenja vas, Kanal

Gorenja vas is a settlement on the right bank of the river Soča opposite Kanal in the Littoral region of Slovenia.-External links:*...

 near Kanal ob Soči

Kanal ob Soci

Kanal ob Soči is a town and municipality in Slovenia, established in 1995 by secession from Nova Gorica.The town itself is an important crossing point over the River Soča. The first bridge was built by the Romans. The current bridge was built after World War I. The center of the town was fortified...

 in what was then the County of Gorizia and Gradisca (now in Slovenia

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...

). Josip attended elementary school in Lig

Lig

Lig is a dispersed settlement in the hills to the northwest of Kanal in the Littoral region of Slovenia. It lies on the border with Italy and is made up of the smaller settlements of Lig, Kostanjevica and Strmec as well as a few mote farmsteads in the Kanalski Kolovrat range.The Parish Church in...

, and then enrolled to a teacher's college in Koper. Between 1909 and 1911, he worked as teacher in several elementary schools in the Austrian Littoral

Austrian Littoral

The Austrian Littoral was established as a crown land of the Austrian Empire in 1849. In 1861 it was divided into the three crown lands of the Imperial Free City of Trieste and its suburbs, the Margraviate of Istria, and the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, which each had separate...

, before settling in Trieste in 1911, where he worked as a teacher in a private Slovene-language school in the district of San Giacomo . He married a local Slovene woman in 1913.

In 1925, he moved to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in order to escape Fascist Italian

Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...

 persecution. He first worked as a teacher in Rakek

Rakek

Rakek is a settlement in the Municipality of Cerknica in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia.In 1857 the Austrian Southern Railway line was built through the settlement and it became an important collection point for timber from surrounding forests....

, and from 1929 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...

. In 1942, 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 arrested by the Italian occupation authorities of the Province of Ljubljana

Province of Ljubljana

The Province of Ljubljana was a province of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Nazi German Adriatic Littoral during World War II. It was created on May 3, 1941 from territory occupied and annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia, and it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when...

, accuswed of collaboration with the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People

Liberation Front of the Slovenian People

On 26 April 1941 in Ljubljana the Anti-Imperialist Front was established. It was to promote "an international massive movement" to "liberate the Slovenian nation" whose "hope and example was the Soviet Union"...

 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was released in 1944 by the Nazi German authorities. After the end of the war, he continued shortly his teaching profession; in 1949, he was employed in the Slovenian Ministry of Education.

He died in Ljubljana. He was the father of the Communits official and Yugoslav statesman Mitja Ribičič

Mitja Ribičič

Mitja Ribičič is a former Slovenian Communist official and Yugoslav politician. He was the only Slovenian prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...

, and the grandfather of the Slovenian jurist and politician Ciril Ribičič

Ciril Ribičič

Ciril Ribičič is a Slovenian jurist, politician and author. Since 2000, he has served as member of the Constitutional Court of Slovenia....

.

Work

Most of Ribičič's work, written in the fin-de-siecle estheticism, is children literature. An expception is the book Ruins (Razvaline), published in 1917, which is a collection of short stories and humoresques dealing with World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. In 1976, the publishing house Mladinska knjiga published his collected works in 7 volumes.