Ivo Urbancic
Encyclopedia
Ivo Urbančič is a Slovenia
n philosopher. He is considered to be one of the fathers of the phenomenological school in Slovenia. His role in the development of the philosophical thought is comparable to the one of Mihailo Đurić in Serbia
or Vanja Sutlić
in Croatia
.
near Kobarid
, in what was then the Italian administrative region of Julian March
to a peasant Slovene family. When he was still a child, his family left the region in order to escape Fascist persecution and moved to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. They spent six years in the village of Bistrica in south-west Macedonia
, where a colony of Slovene immigrants from the Julian March was established. In 1937, they moved to Slovenia, in the village of Črešnjevec near Slovenska Bistrica
. There, the young Ivo met with Jože Pučnik
, with whom he established a lifelong friendship.
After finishing the technical high school in Kranj
, he attended a one-year course in communication technology in Belgrade
. In 1960, the friend Jože Pučnik convinced him to enroll to the University of Ljubljana
, where he studied philosophy
. In his student years, he became involved with a group of young intellectuals, known as the Critical generation. Between 1969-1970, he studied at the University of Vienna
, and between 1971-1972 in Cologne
. In 1964, he became a researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. He developed a critical stance towards the Titoist regime which prevented him from getting a job in the pedagogic process at the University. Nevertheless, Urbančič managed to turn the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy into some sort of refuge for critical intellectuals (among the people brought by Urbančič to the Institute was also the philosopher Slavoj Žižek
).
In the late 1980s, he worked as an editor in the prestigious publishing house Slovenska matica
, where he supervised the translation and first edition of many major Western thinkers in Slovene language. Among others, he was instrumental in the publishing of the complete works of Nietzsche.
In the early 1980s, he was one of the co-founders of the alternative review Nova revija
. In 1987, he was among the authors of the Contributions to the Slovenian National Program
, an intellectual manifesto demanding a democratic, pluralistic and independent Slovenia. In 1989. he was among the co-founders of the Slovenian Democratic Union
, one of the first democratic political parties opposing the Communist regime in Slovenia. Although he hasn't participated in active politics since the end of the Slovenian Spring in the early 1990s, he has been known as a supporter of the Slovenian Democratic Party
and its president Janez Janša
. In 2004, Urbančič was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic .
He currently lives in Ljubljana
.
to Slovenia
. He also wrote several monographies on Friedrich Nietzsche
. He has been interested in questions regarding the issue of political power
, the individual existence in the modern and post-modern technological world. He developed an interest in the system theory, namely in the functioning of large social systems in the intersection of culture, politics and technology. He has been preoccupied and fascinated by the issue of modern nihilism
which he sees, following Nietzsche, as the essence of modern society.
Urbančič has also written several works on the history of philosophy in the Slovene Lands
.
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 philosopher. He is considered to be one of the fathers of the phenomenological school in Slovenia. His role in the development of the philosophical thought is comparable to the one of Mihailo Đurić 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...
or Vanja Sutlić
Vanja Sutlić
Vanja Sutlić was a Croatian philosopher. He was regarded as the father of the Heideggerian philosophy in former Yugoslavia and its successor states, especially in Croatia and Slovenia....
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 ...
.
Biography
He was born as Ivan Urbančič in the village of RobičRobic
Robič is a settlement under Matajur on the left bank of the River Nadiža in the Kobarid Municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia. It is the native village of the philosopher Ivan Urbančič.-External links:*...
near Kobarid
Kobarid
Kobarid is a town and a municipality in the upper Soča valley, western Slovenia, near the Italian border.Kobarid is known for the famous Battle of Caporetto, where the Italian retreat was documented by Ernest Hemingway in his novel A Farewell to Arms. The battle is well documented in the museum in...
, in what was then the Italian administrative region of 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...
to a peasant Slovene family. When he was still a child, his family left the region in order to escape Fascist persecution and moved to 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...
. They spent six years in the village of Bistrica in south-west Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, where a colony of Slovene immigrants from the Julian March was established. In 1937, they moved to Slovenia, in the village of Črešnjevec near Slovenska Bistrica
Slovenska Bistrica
Slovenska Bistrica is a town and a municipality south of Maribor in eastern Slovenia. It is one of the largest municipalities in Slovenia. Traditionally the area was part of the Lower Styria region. The municipality is now included in the Drava statistical region. The town was established in the...
. There, the young Ivo met with Jože Pučnik
Jože Pucnik
Jože Pučnik was a Slovenian public intellectual, sociologist and politician. During the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, Pučnik was one of the most outspoken Slovenian critics of dictatorship and lack of civil liberties in former Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned for a total of 7 years, and later...
, with whom he established a lifelong friendship.
After finishing the technical high school in Kranj
Kranj
' is the third largest municipality and fourth largest city in Slovenia, with a population of 54,500 . It is located approximately 20 km north-west of Ljubljana...
, he attended a one-year course in communication technology 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...
. In 1960, the friend Jože Pučnik convinced him to enroll to 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:...
, where he studied 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...
. In his student years, he became involved with a group of young intellectuals, known as the Critical generation. Between 1969-1970, he studied at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, and between 1971-1972 in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
. In 1964, he became a researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. He developed a critical stance towards the Titoist regime which prevented him from getting a job in the pedagogic process at the University. Nevertheless, Urbančič managed to turn the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy into some sort of refuge for critical intellectuals (among the people brought by Urbančič to the Institute was also the philosopher Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
).
In the late 1980s, he worked as an editor in the prestigious publishing house Slovenska matica
Slovenska matica
Slovenska matica , also known as Matica slovenska, is the second-oldest publishing house in Slovenia, founded in the 19th century as an institution for the scholarly and cultural progress of Slovenes...
, where he supervised the translation and first edition of many major Western thinkers in Slovene language. Among others, he was instrumental in the publishing of the complete works of Nietzsche.
In the early 1980s, he was one of the co-founders of the alternative review Nova revija
Nova revija
Nova revija is a Slovenian publishing house and cultural institute that developed from the literary journal with the same name.- The magazine :...
. In 1987, he was among the authors of the Contributions to the Slovenian National Program
Contributions to the Slovenian National Program
Contributions to the Slovenian National Program , also known as Nova revija 57 or 57th edition of Nova revija was a special issue of the Slovenian opposition intellectual journal Nova revija, published in January 1987...
, an intellectual manifesto demanding a democratic, pluralistic and independent Slovenia. In 1989. he was among the co-founders of the Slovenian Democratic Union
Slovenian Democratic Union
The Slovenian Democratic Union was a Slovenian liberal political party, active between 1989 and 1991, during the democratization and the secession of the Republic of Slovenia from Yugoslavia....
, one of the first democratic political parties opposing the Communist regime in Slovenia. Although he hasn't participated in active politics since the end of the Slovenian Spring in the early 1990s, he has been known as a supporter of the Slovenian Democratic Party
Slovenian Democratic Party
The Slovenian Democratic Party , known until 2003 as the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia is a Slovenian centre-right liberal conservative and Christian democratic party...
and its president Janez Janša
Janez Janša
Janez Janša is a Slovenian politician who was Prime Minister of Slovenia from November 2004 to November 2008. He has also been President of the Slovenian Democratic Party since 1993...
. In 2004, Urbančič was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic .
He currently lives 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...
.
Work
Urbančič was one of the first who introduced the thought of Martin HeideggerMartin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
to 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...
. He also wrote several monographies on Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. He has been interested in questions regarding the issue of political power
Political power
Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
, the individual existence in the modern and post-modern technological world. He developed an interest in the system theory, namely in the functioning of large social systems in the intersection of culture, politics and technology. He has been preoccupied and fascinated by the issue of modern nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
which he sees, following Nietzsche, as the essence of modern society.
Urbančič has also written several works on the history of philosophy in the Slovene Lands
Slovene Lands
Slovene Lands or Slovenian Lands is the historical denomination for the whole of the Slovene-inhabited territories in Central Europe. It more or less corresponds to modern Slovenia and the adjacent territories in Italy, Austria and Hungary in which autochthonous Slovene minorities live.-...
.
Selected works
- Evropski nihilizem ("The European Nihilism". Ljubljana, 1971);
- Leninova "filozofija" ("Lenin's "Philosophy"". Maribor, 1971);
- Vprašanje umetnosti in estetike na prelomu sodobne epohe: estetska in filozofska misel Dušana Pirjevca ("The Question of Art and Esthetics at the Turning Point of Our Epoch: the Ethetic and Philosophic Thought of Dušan Pirjevec". Ljubljana: 1980);
- Uvod v vprašanje naroda ("Introduction on the Question of Nation". Maribor, 1981);
- Neosholastika na Slovenskem ("Neoscholasticism in the Slovene Lands". Ljubljana, 1983);
- Zaratustrovo izročilo I & II ("Zarathursta's Legacy I & II". Ljubljana, 1993 & 1996);
- Moč in oblast ("Power and Authority". Ljubljana, 2000);
- Nevarnost biti ("The Danger of Being". Ljubljana, 2003).