Jože Javoršek
Encyclopedia
Jože Javoršek was the pen name
of Jože Brejc (20 October 1920 – 2 September 1990), a Slovenia
n playwright
, writer
, poet
, translator and essayist. He is regarded as one of the greatest masters of style
and language among Slovene authors. A complex thinker and controversial personality, Javoršek is frequently considered, together with the writer Vitomil Zupan
, as the paradigmatic example of the World War II
and postwar
generation of Slovene intellectuals.
n town of Velike Lašče
, in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He studied comparative literature
at the University of Ljubljana
. During his student years, he became involved with Slovenia
n Christian Socialist groups, where he met the poet and thinker Edvard Kocbek
. Kocbek had a huge influence on Javoršek, encouraging him to pursue a literary career.
During World War II
, Javoršek joined the partisan resistance
, where he fought alongside with later philosopher and literary critic Dušan Pirjevec Ahac and writer Vitomil Zupan
. It was during his underground activity in the Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana
that he adopted the pseudonym Jože Javoršek. After the end of the War in 1945, he worked as the personal secretary of Edvard Kocbek, who was appointed Minister for Slovenia in the Yugoslav
government. He continued his studies at the French
Sorbonne
and shortly worked as assistant at the Yugoslav embassy in Paris
. In the French capital, he frequented the circles of French left-wing intellectuals; among others, he became acquainted with Albert Camus
and established a close friendship with Louis Guilloux
, Gérard Philipe
and Marcel Schneider.
He returned to Slovenia
in 1948. The next year, he was imprisoned by the Communist authorities and sentenced to 12 years in prison at a show trial
. He was released in 1952, but rehabilitated only shortly before his death in 1990.
After returning to liberty, he mostly worked as a playwright
and stage director in several Slovene language theatres in Ljubljana
. During this time, he was among the first who introduced the surrealist and absurdist
elements on Slovenian and Yugoslav stages. He established close contacts with the stage directors Žarko Petan
and Bojan Štih
who both shared some of Javoršek's modernist and progressive esthetic views. Javoršek managed to stage several plays based on the theories of Antonin Artaud
and Alfred Jarry
in the Drama Theatre of Ljubljana, directed by Štih. Because of this innovative approach that challenged the cultural policies of the Communist regime, Javoršek gained influence on the younger generation of Slovene artists and authors, known as the Critical generation, who departed from the prevailing humanistic and intimistic trend in Slovenian culture
and literature
of the time and embraced more metaphysical
questions. Among those young authors were Dominik Smole
, Taras Kermauner
, Primož Kozak
, and others. Javoršek had nevertheless a critical attitude to the younger generations and often disapproved their radical modernist approaches.
Between 1961 and 1967, Javoršek worked as an assistant at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
and between 1967 and 1982 as secretary in the office of the Academy's president Josip Vidmar
.
He died in Ljubljana
in 1990 and was buried in his hometown of Velike Lašče. A memorial plaque, designed by the famous Slovene sculptor Stojan Batič
, was placed on his birth house in the 1990s.
and Kocbek
's Dejanje. After World War II
, a collection of his wartime poems, entitled Partizanska lirika ("Partisan Lyrics"), was issued in 1947. After his experience in jail, he turned mostly to plays, essays and prose. During his lifetime, he published another collection of poems under the title Usoda poezije ("The Fate of Poetry", 1972), which he himself edited with extensive critical and biographical commentary.
Javoršek gained recognition foremost as a playwright. His early plays, based on existential concerns, but filled with irony, playfulness and artistic use of language game
s, largely contributed to the modernization of the Slovene theatre in the 1950s. In his plays, he was critical towards the established political power
s and social conformism.
He wrote several novels, the most notable being Hvalnica zemlji ("An Ode to the Earth", 1971) and Nevarna razmerja ("Dangerous Liaisons
", 1978). But it was in his essays and memoirs that he gained most recognition and also caused most controversy. One of the first essayistic works that made him famous to the wider public was the book Kako je mogoče? ("How Is It Possible?), in which he explored his feelings of desperation after the suicide of his son Svit. The book is written as a dialogue between two generations that fail to comprehend each other. It is also an a strong critique of the younger generation of Slovenes in general - and young intellectuals in particular - whom Javoršek accused of nihilism. He also published a Guide Through Ljubljana (Vodnik po Ljubljani) in which he presented the city's sights and history in the light of an ironic, philosophical and existential reflection, linking the monuments to the personal fates of the famous individuals connected with them. The epistolary novel
Nevarna razmerja, a paraphrase of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
'es famous book Les Liaisons dangereuses
, is written as a serial of partially authentic and partially fictitious letters between the author and several notable figures, both living and dead, among whom Vitomil Zupan
, Boris Pahor
, Pierre Emmanuel
, Taras Kermauner
, Dusan Pirjevec
, and Francesco Robba
.
In his last works, La Memoire Dangereuse ("The Dangerouse Memory"), which was published in French by a Parisian editing house and translated into several European languages, and Spomini na Slovence ("Memories About the Slovenes"), published shortly before his death, he explored his memory and gave a sometimes extremely critical accounts of his contemporaries.
He wrote influential essays on Molière
, Shakespeare, the Slovenian poetess Lili Novy
and the Slovene protestant preacher and pioneer of Slovenian literature Primož Trubar
. He was also an admirer of the 19th-century Slovene author Fran Levstik
and helped to republish new editions of his works. Shortly before his death in 1990, he also contributed to the monograph Histoire et littérature slovènes ("Slovenian History and Literature", published by the Centre Georges Pompidou
of Paris
.
He also translated several important authors into Slovene, mostly from French
and Serbo-Croatian
, among them Corneille
, Molière
, Hippolyte Taine
, Eugène Ionesco
, Jean Anouilh
, Edmond Rostand
, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus
, and Meša Selimović
.
. Among the several scabrous details described by Javoršek in the copious work, are the misdeeds of the influential thinker Dušan Pirjevec Ahac allegedly perpetrated during the war resistance, as well as the conduct of notable personalities such as the literary critic Josip Vidmar
and the poet Edvard Kocbek
, for whom Javoršek worked as a personal secretary. The work also includes details about the personal lives of Slovenian Communist leaders Edvard Kardelj
and Boris Kidrič
.
Despite his negative experience in jail, Javoršek remained a convinced supporter of Socialism
. Although he started as a Christian Socialist, he later rejected Christianity
, as can be seen from his writings, and embraced a nietzschean style of vitalism
and skepticism
.
Javoršek regarded himself as being primarily a theater manager and not an intellectual or a writer. As such, he often claimed he had the license of a court jester
and loved drawing parallels between himself and the famous playwrights in history who were also theatre managers, such as Shakespeare, Molière or Carlo Goldoni
. He probably best explained the way in which he saw his own role in the essay Shakespeare and Politics, which was written in 1965 for a volume entitled "Shakespeare among the Slovenes", edited by the famous literary critic France Koblar
and published by the renowned Slovenska matica
publishing house. In the essay, he made the following assessment of Shakespeare:
The is a description of Javoršek's perception of his own role in the society.
. Some consider him to be one of the best essayists in the Slovene language, together with Ivan Cankar
, Marjan Rožanc
and Drago Jančar
. His book La Memoire Dangereuse, published in the 1980s by the French publishing house Arléa, gained him an important recognition beyond Yugoslav borders. The book has been translated also to German
and Serbo-Croatian
.
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
of Jože Brejc (20 October 1920 – 2 September 1990), a 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...
n 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...
, writer
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....
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, translator and essayist. He is regarded as one of the greatest masters of style
Style (fiction)
In fiction, style is the manner in which the author tells the story. Along with plot, character, theme, and setting, style is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction.-Fiction-writing modes:...
and language among Slovene authors. A complex thinker and controversial personality, Javoršek is frequently considered, together with the writer Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan , who also wrote under the pseudonym Langus, was a Slovenian writer, poet, playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He is considered one of the most important authors in the Slovene language of the second half of the 20th century.-Biography:Vitomil Zupan was born in Ljubljana, then part...
, as the paradigmatic example of the 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...
and postwar
Socialist Republic of Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1943 until 1990...
generation of Slovene intellectuals.
Life
Javoršek was born as Jože Brejc in the small Lower CarniolaLower Carniola
Lower Carniola was a kreis of the historical Habsburg crown land of Carniola from 1849 till 1919 and is nowadays a traditional region of Slovenia. Its center is Novo Mesto, while other urban centers include Kočevje, Grosuplje, Krško, Trebnje, Mirna, Črnomelj, Semič, and Metlika.-See also:* Upper...
n town of Velike Lašče
Velike Lašce
Velike Lašče is a town and municipality in Slovenia. It is part of the traditional region of Lower Carniola and is now included in the Central Slovenia statistical region...
, in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He studied comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
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:...
. During his student years, he became involved with 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...
n Christian Socialist groups, where he met the poet and thinker Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...
. Kocbek had a huge influence on Javoršek, encouraging him to pursue a literary career.
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...
, Javoršek joined the partisan resistance
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
, where he fought alongside with later philosopher and literary critic Dušan Pirjevec Ahac and writer Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan , who also wrote under the pseudonym Langus, was a Slovenian writer, poet, playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He is considered one of the most important authors in the Slovene language of the second half of the 20th century.-Biography:Vitomil Zupan was born in Ljubljana, then part...
. It was during his underground activity in the Italian-occupied 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...
that he adopted the pseudonym Jože Javoršek. After the end of the War in 1945, he worked as the personal secretary of Edvard Kocbek, who was appointed Minister for Slovenia in the Yugoslav
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
government. He continued his studies at the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
and shortly worked as assistant at the Yugoslav embassy 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...
. In the French capital, he frequented the circles of French left-wing intellectuals; among others, he became acquainted with Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
and established a close friendship with Louis Guilloux
Louis Guilloux
Louis Guilloux was a French writer born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, where he lived throughout his life. He is known for his Social Realist novels describing working class life and political struggles in the mid-twentieth century...
, Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe was a prominent French actor, who had appeared in 34 films between 1944 and 1959.-Career:...
and Marcel Schneider.
He returned to Slovenia
Socialist Republic of Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1943 until 1990...
in 1948. The next year, he was imprisoned by the Communist authorities and sentenced to 12 years in prison at a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
. He was released in 1952, but rehabilitated only shortly before his death in 1990.
After returning to liberty, he mostly worked as a 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...
and stage director in several Slovene language theatres 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...
. During this time, he was among the first who introduced the surrealist and absurdist
Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work...
elements on Slovenian and Yugoslav stages. He established close contacts with the stage directors Žarko Petan
Žarko Petan
thumb|Žarko PetanŽarko Petan is a Slovenian writer, essayist, screenwriter, and theatre and film director. He is most famous as writer of aphorisms....
and Bojan Štih
Bojan Štih
Bojan Štih , was a Slovene literary critic, stage director, and essayist. He was one of the most influential figures in modern Slovene theatre after 1945....
who both shared some of Javoršek's modernist and progressive esthetic views. Javoršek managed to stage several plays based on the theories of Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
and Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
in the Drama Theatre of Ljubljana, directed by Štih. Because of this innovative approach that challenged the cultural policies of the Communist regime, Javoršek gained influence on the younger generation of Slovene artists and authors, known as the Critical generation, who departed from the prevailing humanistic and intimistic trend in Slovenian culture
Culture of Slovenia
Slovenia's first book was printed by the Protestant reformer Primož Trubar . It was actually two books, Katekizem and Abecednik, which was published in 1550 in Tübingen, Germany....
and 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:...
of the time and embraced more metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
questions. Among those young authors were Dominik Smole
Dominik Smole
Dominik Smole was a Slovenian writer and playwright.-Biography:Smole was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia...
, Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner was a Slovenian literary historian, critic, philosopher, essayist, playwright and translator.- Life :...
, Primož Kozak
Primož Kozak
Primož Kozak was a Slovenian playwright and essayist. He was, together with Dominik Smole, Dane Zajc and Taras Kermauner, the most visible representative of the so-called Critical generation, a group of Slovenian authors and intellectuals that reflected on the paradoxes of the Communist regime,...
, and others. Javoršek had nevertheless a critical attitude to the younger generations and often disapproved their radical modernist approaches.
Between 1961 and 1967, Javoršek worked as an assistant at 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....
and between 1967 and 1982 as secretary in the office of the Academy's president 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...
.
He died 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 1990 and was buried in his hometown of Velike Lašče. A memorial plaque, designed by the famous Slovene sculptor Stojan Batič
Stojan Batic
Stojan Batič is a Slovene sculptor.Batič was born in a working-class family in Trbovlje, Slovenia, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.Already as a teenager, he worked in the cocal coal mine....
, was placed on his birth house in the 1990s.
Work
Javoršek wrote poetry, plays, novels and essays. He started as a poet. Already as a teenager, he published several poems in the left-wing Slovenian magazines of the time, such as MladinaMladina
Mladina is a Slovenian weekly left-wing current affairs magazine. It was first published in the 1920s as the youth magazine of the Slovenian Communist Party...
and Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...
's Dejanje. After 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...
, a collection of his wartime poems, entitled Partizanska lirika ("Partisan Lyrics"), was issued in 1947. After his experience in jail, he turned mostly to plays, essays and prose. During his lifetime, he published another collection of poems under the title Usoda poezije ("The Fate of Poetry", 1972), which he himself edited with extensive critical and biographical commentary.
Javoršek gained recognition foremost as a playwright. His early plays, based on existential concerns, but filled with irony, playfulness and artistic use of language game
Language game
A language game is a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear. Language games are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others...
s, largely contributed to the modernization of the Slovene theatre in the 1950s. In his plays, he was critical towards the established 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...
s and social conformism.
He wrote several novels, the most notable being Hvalnica zemlji ("An Ode to the Earth", 1971) and Nevarna razmerja ("Dangerous Liaisons
Dangerous Liaisons
Dangerous Liaisons is a 1988 drama film based upon Christopher Hampton's play, Les liaisons dangereuses, which in turn was a theatrical adaptation of the 18th-century French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos....
", 1978). But it was in his essays and memoirs that he gained most recognition and also caused most controversy. One of the first essayistic works that made him famous to the wider public was the book Kako je mogoče? ("How Is It Possible?), in which he explored his feelings of desperation after the suicide of his son Svit. The book is written as a dialogue between two generations that fail to comprehend each other. It is also an a strong critique of the younger generation of Slovenes in general - and young intellectuals in particular - whom Javoršek accused of nihilism. He also published a Guide Through Ljubljana (Vodnik po Ljubljani) in which he presented the city's sights and history in the light of an ironic, philosophical and existential reflection, linking the monuments to the personal fates of the famous individuals connected with them. The epistolary novel
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
Nevarna razmerja, a paraphrase of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos was a French novelist, official and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses ....
'es famous book Les Liaisons dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782....
, is written as a serial of partially authentic and partially fictitious letters between the author and several notable figures, both living and dead, among whom Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan , who also wrote under the pseudonym Langus, was a Slovenian writer, poet, playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He is considered one of the most important authors in the Slovene language of the second half of the 20th century.-Biography:Vitomil Zupan was born in Ljubljana, then part...
, Boris Pahor
Boris Pahor
Boris Pahor is a Slovene writer from Italy. He is considered to be one of the most influential living authors in the Slovene language and has been nominated for the Nobel prize for literature by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
, Pierre Emmanuel
Pierre Emmanuel
Noël Mathieu better known under his pseudonym Pierre Emmanuel, was a French poet of Christian inspiration...
, Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner was a Slovenian literary historian, critic, philosopher, essayist, playwright and translator.- Life :...
, Dusan Pirjevec
Dušan Pirjevec
Dušan Pirjevec, known by his battle name Ahac , was a Slovenian resistance fighter, literary historian and philosopher...
, and Francesco Robba
Francesco Robba
Francesco Robba was an Italian sculptor of the Baroque period. Even while he is regarded as the leading Baroque sculptor of marble statues in the south-east Central Europe, he has remained practically unknown to the international scholarly public.-Life:Francesco Robba was born in Venice...
.
In his last works, La Memoire Dangereuse ("The Dangerouse Memory"), which was published in French by a Parisian editing house and translated into several European languages, and Spomini na Slovence ("Memories About the Slovenes"), published shortly before his death, he explored his memory and gave a sometimes extremely critical accounts of his contemporaries.
He wrote influential essays on Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, Shakespeare, the Slovenian poetess Lili Novy
Lili Novy
Lili Novy née Haumeder was a Slovene poet and translator of poetry. She is considered the first Slovene female lyric poet as well as one of the most important Slovene female poets in general....
and the Slovene protestant preacher and pioneer of Slovenian literature Primož Trubar
Primož Trubar
Primož Trubar or Primož Truber was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of the Slovene Lands, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first Slovene-language printed book...
. He was also an admirer of the 19th-century Slovene author Fran Levstik
Fran Levstik
Fran Levstik was a Slovene writer, political activist, playwright and critic. he was one of the most prominent exponents of the Young Slovene political movement.-Life and work:...
and helped to republish new editions of his works. Shortly before his death in 1990, he also contributed to the monograph Histoire et littérature slovènes ("Slovenian History and Literature", published by the Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
of 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...
.
He also translated several important authors into Slovene, mostly from French
French language
French 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...
and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
, among them Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
, Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
, Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
, Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
, Edmond Rostand
Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...
, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, and Meša Selimović
Meša Selimovic
Mehmed "Meša" Selimović was a Yugoslav writer. His novel Death and the Dervish is one of the most important literary works in post-war Yugoslavia. Some of the main themes in his works are relations between individual and authority, life and death, and other existential problems...
.
Personality
During his lifetime, Javoršek was considered a controversial and unique personality. His dubious relationship with the establishment, as well as his sometimes extremely acrimonious attacks on the contemporary literary circles, both Slovene and French, gained him the nickname The Lonely Rider. His last work, "Memories About the Slovenes", published partly posthumously in three parts, created a controversy and shed a new light on the Slovene literary and cultural scene of the War and Postwar periodSocialist Republic of Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1943 until 1990...
. Among the several scabrous details described by Javoršek in the copious work, are the misdeeds of the influential thinker Dušan Pirjevec Ahac allegedly perpetrated during the war resistance, as well as the conduct of notable personalities such as the literary critic 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 poet Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...
, for whom Javoršek worked as a personal secretary. The work also includes details about the personal lives of Slovenian Communist leaders Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj also known under the pseudonyms Sperans and Krištof was a Yugoslav communist political leader, economist, partisan, publicist, and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
and Boris Kidrič
Boris Kidric
Boris Kidrič was a leading Slovenian Communist who was, jointly with Edvard Kardelj, one of the chief organizers of the Partisan struggle in Slovenia from 1941 to 1945....
.
Despite his negative experience in jail, Javoršek remained a convinced supporter of Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. Although he started as a Christian Socialist, he later rejected Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, as can be seen from his writings, and embraced a nietzschean style of vitalism
Vitalism
Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
and skepticism
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
.
Javoršek regarded himself as being primarily a theater manager and not an intellectual or a writer. As such, he often claimed he had the license of a court jester
Court jester
A jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster, or buffoon was a person employed to tell jokes and provide general entertainment, typically for a European monarch. Jesters are stereotypically thought to have worn brightly colored clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern...
and loved drawing parallels between himself and the famous playwrights in history who were also theatre managers, such as Shakespeare, Molière or Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
. He probably best explained the way in which he saw his own role in the essay Shakespeare and Politics, which was written in 1965 for a volume entitled "Shakespeare among the Slovenes", edited by the famous literary critic France Koblar
France Koblar
France Koblar was a Slovene literary historian, editor and translator.Koblar was born in Železniki in what was then Austria-Hungary and is now in Slovenia. He studied Slavic languages and Latin at Vienna...
and published by the renowned 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...
publishing house. In the essay, he made the following assessment of Shakespeare:
If Shakespeare had been a slightly more important person during his lifetime, at least as important as Ben JonsonBen JonsonBenjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
, history would have provided us with more details about his life. But Shakespeare was not at the top of the social ladder, he was little more than a parasite of contemporary magnates. Nor did he belong to the great minds of his time. He was too uneducated to achieve such a position, as it is known. The romantic ideas according to which Shakespeare was a great wit, a great historian or a great thinker, are nowadays completely rejected […]. Today, it is evident that Shakespeare was first of all a true dodger of his era. He used the various materials from history or from the contemporary circumstances in EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in order to create attractive theatrical masterpieces. First of all, we have to understand that Shakespeare never thought of theatre as literature. The theatre was a dangerous and slightly indecent institution, which every respectful and truly honored member of the society would rather avoid.
The is a description of Javoršek's perception of his own role in the society.
Influence and legacy
Although he tried to avoid direct clashes with the Communist establishment after his release from jail, Javoršek was one of the main driving force behind the establishment of the Stage '57, an alternative theatre created in 1957 by the younger generations of Slovene artists, which had a crucial role in shaping their generation against the pressures of the repressive cultural policies of the Communist regime. Already during his lifetime, he gained recognition in other parts of Yugoslavia, especially in SerbiaSerbia
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...
. Some consider him to be one of the best essayists in the Slovene language, together with Ivan Cankar
Ivan Cankar
Ivan Cankar was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature...
, Marjan Rožanc
Marjan Rožanc
Marjan Rožanc was a Slovenian author, playwright and journalist. He is mostly known for his essays, and is considered one of the foremost essayists in the Slovene language, along with Ivan Cankar, Jože Javoršek and Drago Jančar, and as a great master of style.He was born in a working-class suborb...
and Drago Jančar
Drago Jancar
Drago Jančar is a Slovenian writer, playwright and essayist. Jančar is one of the most known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement.-Life:...
. His book La Memoire Dangereuse, published in the 1980s by the French publishing house Arléa, gained him an important recognition beyond Yugoslav borders. The book has been translated also to German
German language
German 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....
and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
.
Poetry
- Partizanska lirika ("Partisan Lyrics", 1947)
- Usoda poezije ("The Fate of Poetry", 1972)
Plays
- Odločitev ("The Decision", 1953)
- Kriminalna zgodba ("Criminal Story", 1955)
- Konec hrepenenja ("The End of Yearning", 1955)
- Povečevalno steklo ("Amplifying Glass", 1956)
- Veselje do življenja ("Joy of Life", 1958)
- Manevri ("Maneuvers", 1960)
- Dežela gasilcev ("A Land of Firemen", 1973)
- Improvizacija v Ljubljani ("An Improvisation in LjubljanaLjubljanaLjubljana 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...
", 1977)
Essays
- Srečanja ("Encounters", 1958)
- Okus sveta ("The Flavour of the World", 1961)
- Indija Koromandija ("The Neverland", 1962)
- Vodnik po Ljubljani ("A Guide to Ljubljana", 1965)
- Shakespeare in politika ("Shakespeare and Politics", 1965)
- Kako je mogoče? ("How Is It Possible", 1969)
- Esej o Molieru ("An Essay on MolièreMolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
", 1974) - Primož TrubarPrimož TrubarPrimož Trubar or Primož Truber was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of the Slovene Lands, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first Slovene-language printed book...
(1977) - Lili NovyLili NovyLili Novy née Haumeder was a Slovene poet and translator of poetry. She is considered the first Slovene female lyric poet as well as one of the most important Slovene female poets in general....
(1984) - La Memoire Dangereuse ("The Dangerous Memory", 1987)
- Spomini na Slovence ("Memories on the Slovenes", 1989)
Prose
- Obsedena tehtnica ("An Obsessed Scales", 1961)
- Spremembe ("Changes", 1967)
- Hvalnica zemlji ("An Ode to the Earth", 1971)
- Nevarna razmerja ("Dangerous Liaisons", 1978)
See also
- Slovenian literatureSlovenian literatureSlovene 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:...
- Culture of SloveniaCulture of SloveniaSlovenia's first book was printed by the Protestant reformer Primož Trubar . It was actually two books, Katekizem and Abecednik, which was published in 1550 in Tübingen, Germany....
- Liberation Front of the Slovenian PeopleLiberation Front of the Slovenian PeopleOn 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"...
Sources
- Jože Horvat, "Umrl je Jože Javoršek" in DeloDeloDelo is the largest national daily newspaper in Slovenia. It was established on May 1st, 1959, when two newspapers Ljudska pravica and Slovenski poročevalec merged. Nowadays, it is the most influential and credible daily newspaper in Slovenia...
, yr.32, n.206 (November 4, 1990), 1. - Milenko Karan, "Nasprotnika ni nikoli doživljal kot sovražnika" in DeloDeloDelo is the largest national daily newspaper in Slovenia. It was established on May 1st, 1959, when two newspapers Ljudska pravica and Slovenski poročevalec merged. Nowadays, it is the most influential and credible daily newspaper in Slovenia...
, yr.32,n.238 (October 11, 1990), 14. - Jože Kastelic, Jože Brejc (Jože Javoršek) (Ljubljana: Literarni klub, 1999).
- Dušan Mevlja, "Jože Javoršek: in memoriam" in VečerVečer (Maribor)Večer is a daily newspaper published in Maribor, Slovenia. It was officially established on May 9 1945 as a publication declaring the liberation of Maribor called Maribor svoboden . Regular circulation started on May 25 1945 under the name Vestnik. But it wasn't before 1949 that it became a daily...
, yr. 46, n.207 (September 5, 1990), 15. - Aleksij Pregarc, "Jože Javoršek: in memoriam" in Primorski dnevnikPrimorski dnevnikPrimorski dnevnik is a Slovene language daily newspaper published in Trieste, Italy. It is the only Slovene daily in any country other than Slovenia, and one of the three newspapers in Italy published in a language other than Italian...
, yr.46, n.203 (September 9, 1990), 17. - Barbara Rančigaj, Jože Javoršek in drama absurda (Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani, 2004).
- Jože Šifrer, "Jože Javoršek" in Delo, yr.32, n.208 (September 6, 1990), 7.
- Slobodan Selenić, "Jože Javoršek" in Scena: časopis za pozorišnu umetnost (BelgradeBelgradeBelgrade 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...
, 1990). - Franc Zadravec, Jože Javoršek: Nevarna razmerja. Slovenski roman dvajsetega stoletja (Ljubljana: Znanstveni inštitut Filozofske fakultete, 1997–2002).
- Ciril ZlobecCiril ZlobecCiril Zlobec is a Slovene poet, writer, translator, journalist and former politician. He is best known for his poems and has published several volumes of poetry...
, "Samotni jezdec Javoršek: v spomin" in DnevnikDnevnik (Ljubljana)Dnevnik is a daily newspaper published in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was first issued in June 1951 as Ljubljanski dnevnik but was renamed to Dnevnik in 1968....
, yr. 38, n.243 (September 6, 1990), 8. - Ivan Zoran, "Odšel je samotni jezdec" in Dolenjski list, yr.41, n.37 (September 13, 1990).