Vladimir Bartol
Encyclopedia
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.
(now in Italy
), as the third child of seven children of a middle class Slovene family. His father Gregor Bartol was a post office clerk, and his mother Marica Bartol Nadlišek was a teacher, a renowned editor and feminist
author. Vladimir's parents offered their children extensive education. His mother introduced him to painting
, his father to biology
. In his autobiographical short stories
, Bartol described himself as an oversensitive and slightly odd child with a rich fantasy life. He was interested in many things: biology and philosophy
, psychology
, art
, as well as theatre
and literature
. As a scientist, he collected and researched butterflies
.
Vladimir Bartol began his elementary and secondary schooling in Trieste
and concluded it in Ljubljana
, where he enrolled at the University of Ljubljana
to study biology and philosophy. In Ljubljana, he met the young Slovene philosopher Klement Jug
who introduced him to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche
. Bartol also gave special attention to the works of Sigmund Freud
. He graduated in 1925 and continued his studies at Sorbonne
in Paris
(1926–1927), for which he obtained a scholarship. In 1928 he served the army in Petrovaradin
(now in Serbia
). From 1933 to 1934, he lived in Belgrade
, where he edited the Slovenian Belgrade Weekly. Afterward, he returned to Ljubljana where he worked as a freelance writer until 1941. During World War II
he actively participated in the resistance movement. After the war he moved to his hometown Trieste, where he spent an entire decade, from 1946 to 1956. Later he was elected to the Slovenian Academy of Sciences And Arts
as an associate member, moved to Ljubljana and continued to work for the Academy until his death on September 12, 1967. He is buried in the Žale
cemetery in Ljubljana.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, most famous for his novel Alamut
Alamut (1938 novel)
Alamut is a novel by Vladimir Bartol, first published in 1938 in Slovenian, dealing with the story of Hassan-i Sabbah and the Hashshashin, and named after their Alamut fortress....
. 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 Austro-Hungarian city of TriesteTrieste
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...
(now in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
), as the third child of seven children of a middle class Slovene family. His father Gregor Bartol was a post office clerk, and his mother Marica Bartol Nadlišek was a teacher, a renowned editor and feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
author. Vladimir's parents offered their children extensive education. His mother introduced him to painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, his father to biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
. In his autobiographical short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, Bartol described himself as an oversensitive and slightly odd child with a rich fantasy life. He was interested in many things: biology and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, as well as theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. As a scientist, he collected and researched butterflies
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
.
Vladimir Bartol began his elementary and secondary schooling in 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...
and concluded it 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...
, where he 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:...
to study biology and philosophy. In Ljubljana, he met the young Slovene philosopher Klement Jug
Klement Jug
Klement Jug was a Slovene philosopher, essayist and mountaineer who died while climbing Mount Triglav. Although he did not publish many works during his lifetime, he became one of the most influential thinkers of the younger generations of Slovenian intellectuals in the interwar period.- Life :Jug...
who introduced him to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. Bartol also gave special attention to the works of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
. He graduated in 1925 and continued his studies at Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1926–1927), for which he obtained a scholarship. In 1928 he served the army in Petrovaradin
Petrovaradin
Petrovaradin , is part of the agglomeration of Novi Sad in Serbia...
(now in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
). From 1933 to 1934, he lived in 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 edited the Slovenian Belgrade Weekly. Afterward, he returned to Ljubljana where he worked as a freelance writer until 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 actively participated in the resistance movement. After the war he moved to his hometown Trieste, where he spent an entire decade, from 1946 to 1956. Later he was elected to the Slovenian Academy of Sciences And Arts
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members of the academy....
as an associate member, moved to Ljubljana and continued to work for the Academy until his death on September 12, 1967. He is buried in the Žale
Žale
Žale Central cemetery , often abbreviated to Žale, is the largest and the central cemetery in Ljubljana. It is located in the Bežigrad district and operated by the Žale Public Company.- History :...
cemetery in Ljubljana.
Works
- Lopez (1932, a play)
- Al Araf (1935, a collection of short stories)
- AlamutAlamut (1938 novel)Alamut is a novel by Vladimir Bartol, first published in 1938 in Slovenian, dealing with the story of Hassan-i Sabbah and the Hashshashin, and named after their Alamut fortress....
(1938, a novel), translated into CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
(1946), SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
(1954), FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(1988), SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
(1989), GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
(1992), TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
(1995), EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(2004), HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
(2005), ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
and other languages. it is being translated into HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. - Tržaške humoreske (1957, a collection of short stories)
- Don Lorenzo (1985, a story)
- Mladost pri Svetem Ivanu (2001, an autobiography)