Klement Jug
Encyclopedia
Mountaineer
-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...
who died while climbing Mount Triglav
Triglav
Triglav is the highest mountain in Slovenia and the highest peak of the Julian Alps. While its name, meaning "three-headed", can describe its shape as seen from the Bohinj area, the mountain was most probably named after the Slavic god Triglav. The mountain is the preeminent symbol of the Slovene...
. 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
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
.
Life
Jug was born in a wealthy peasant-merchant family in SolkanSolkan
Solkan is a suburb of the town of Nova Gorica in the Goriška region of western Slovenia, close to the border with Italy. Although it is nowadays completely integrated into Nova Gorica, with which it forms a single urban area, it has maintained the status of a separate urban settlement, due to its...
, 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...
, then a suburb of the Austro-Hungarian town of Gorizia
Gorizia
Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, and it is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin...
. He attended the grammar school in Gorizia and then 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:...
where he studied philosophy under the supervision of the Slovene phenomenologist philosopher France Veber. A fervent reader of Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, Nietzsche and Freud, Jug developed his own philosophy based on the supremacy of the will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
and the unappealable adherence to ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
and personal responsibility.
Since young age, Jug also practiced extreme alpinism, in which he saw a way to practice the effort self-control. In one of his solitary excursions to the Julian Alps
Julian Alps
The Julian Alps are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretches from northeastern Italy to Slovenia, where they rise to 2,864 m at Mount Triglav. They are named after Julius Caesar, who founded the municipium of Cividale del Friuli at the foot of the mountains...
, he died by falling from the northern face of Mount Triglav
Triglav
Triglav is the highest mountain in Slovenia and the highest peak of the Julian Alps. While its name, meaning "three-headed", can describe its shape as seen from the Bohinj area, the mountain was most probably named after the Slavic god Triglav. The mountain is the preeminent symbol of the Slovene...
.
Legacy
Jug left very few written works. During his lifetime, he published only a few essays, while several philosophic and ethical reflections have been found as manuscripts after his death and published posthumously by his closest friends. Nevertheless, his influence has been relatively big. He was considered to be the ideological leader of the younger generations of Slovene students from the Julian MarchJulian March
The Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
, the western Slovenian region which came under Italian administration after 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...
. These youngsters rejected any compromises with Italian Fascists and urged for a radical and organized resistance against the policies of Fascist Italianization. Many of them found in Jug the source for their intellectual and personal inspiration.
Among Jug's direct disciples were the famous novelist Vladimir Bartol
Vladimir Bartol
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.-Biography:Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in San Giovanni , a suburb of the...
and Zorko Jelinčič, one of the co-founders of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR
TIGR
TIGR, abbreviation for Trst , Istra , Gorica and Reka , with the full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R. was a militant anti-Fascist and insurgent organization active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the eastern Italian border region known as the Julian March.The...
. Already in 1925, the two organized the first seminar dedicated to Jug's memory in the village of Krn
Krn (village)
Krn is a small village under the Krn mountain in the Kobarid Municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia.It is the birthplace of the Slovene historian Simon Rutar.-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 which they discussed the issues of Jug's voluntaristic
Voluntarism
Voluntarism is a descriptive term for a school of thought that regards the will as superior to the intellect and to emotion. This description has been applied to various points of view, from different cultural eras, in the areas of metaphysics, psychology, sociology, and theology.The term...
world view. Due to the effort of Jug's colleagues, his posthumous fame spread in the intellectual circles of interwar Slovenia. The list of his admirors included the author, politician and diplomat Anton Novačan
Anton Novacan
Anton Novačan was a Slovene politician, diplomat, author, and playwright.Novačan was born in a modest peasant family in the village of Zadobrova , in the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
, the poet Oton Župančič
Oton Župancic
Oton Župančič was a Slovene poet, translator and playwright.Župančič is regarded, alongside Ivan Cankar, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn, as the beginner of modernism in Slovenian literature...
, the playwrights Pavel Golia
Pavel Golia
Pavel Golia was a Slovenian poet and dramatist.Between 1907 and 1915, he served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Later, he worked as a dramaturge or manager of the national theaters in Ljubljana, Osijek, and Belgrade. His works include two collections of poetry and a christmas children...
and Ivan Mrak, and the poet and political activist 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...
.
Many prominent Slovene thinkers and artists have published their reflections over Jug's fate, including 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...
, the novelist Vladimir Bartol, philosopher Milan Komar
Milan Komar
Milan Komar, also known as Emilio Komar was a Slovene Argentine Catholic philosopher and essayist.-Life:...
, essayist Jože Javoršek
Jože Javoršek
Jože Javoršek was the pen name of Jože Brejc , a Slovenian playwright, writer, poet, translator and essayist. He is regarded as one of the greatest masters of style and language among Slovene authors...
, and philosopher and literary critic Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner was a Slovenian literary historian, critic, philosopher, essayist, playwright and translator.- Life :...
. Jug has also influenced the strong Slovenian mountaineer subculture and the literature which emerged from it; authors who have been influenced by Klement Jug include Igor Škamperle
Igor Škamperle
Igor Škamperle is a Slovenian sociologist, cultural theorist, novelist, essayist, mountaineer and translator.He was born in a Slovene-speaking family in Trieste, Italy. He studied comparative literature and cultural sociology at the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1990...
and Dušan Jelinčič
Dušan Jelinčič
Dušan Jelinčič is an Slovene writer, essayist and mountaineer from Trieste, Italy.He was born in an influential Slovene intellectual family in Trieste; his father, Zorko Jelinčič, was among the co-founders of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR, and a close personal friend of prominent...
. The controversial Slovenian psychologist and therapist Janez Rugelj also wrote on Jug, taking him as a positive example of a self-made man. The sociologist Lev Milčinski, on the other hand, analyzed Jug as an example of a self-destructive and suicidal personality.
In 1988, the writer and playwright 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:...
portraited Jug in the play "Klement's Fall" (Klementov padec). In 2006, a documentary on Klement Jug was filmed and broadcast on Slovenian National Television. A popular Alpine lodge in the upper Soča
Soca
The Soča or Isonzo is a 140 km long river that flows through western Slovenia and northeastern Italy. An Alpine river in character, its source lies in the Trenta Valley in the Julian Alps in Slovenia, at an elevation of around 1,100 metres...
Valley is named after him.
Sources
- Marko Klavora, Ljubezen in hrepenenje po večnosti: osebnost Klementa Juga ("Love and the Yearning for Eternity: the Personality of Klement Jug"; Ljubljana, 2006);
- Branko MarušičBranko MarušičBranko Marušič is a Slovenian historian.Born to an upper middle class Slovene family in Gorizia, Italy, he moved with the family to the Yugoslav side of the Yugoslav-Italian border in 1947, and has been living in Solkan since...
, Dr. Klement Jug : 1898-1924 (Ljubljana & Nova Gorica, 1998); - Polona Puc, Klement Jug v slovenski literaturi ("Klement Jug in the 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:...
"; Ljubljana, 2007); - The script of the documentary on Jug on the Slovenian National Broadcast