Sergij Vilfan (also incorrectly spelled as Sergej Vilfan), was 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 jurist

Jurist

A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...

 and historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, part of the so-called Ljubljana school of historiography, and member of 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....

.

He was born as Sergij Wilfan in a wealthy Slovene family 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...

, 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...

. His uncle, Josip Vilfan

Josip Vilfan

Josip Vilfan or Wilfan was a Slovene lawyer, politician, and human rights activist from Trieste. In the early 1920s, he was one of the political leaders of the Slovene and Croatian minority in the Italian-administered Julian March...

, was a famous politician, lawyer and human rights activist. His cousin Joža Vilfan became an influential Communist official and Yugoslav diplomat, while his other cousin Draško Vilfan was a renowned physician. Sergij's father was a naval engineer and Yugoslav diplomat who moved around Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 because of his work, while his mother Ide Jeanrenaud was a 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...

 citizen. Sergij thus grew up in a bilingual environment. Besides Slovene and 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...

, he also learned Italian

Italian language

Italian 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...

, 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...

 since a young age. He lived with his family in Bratislava

Bratislava

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...

, Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...

. In 1931, he settled 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...

. Sergij studied law 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:...

. After graduation in 1941, he served as lawyer. In June 1942, he was arrested by the Italian Fascist

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...

 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...

 and interned in the concentration camp in Gonars

Gonars

Gonars is a town and comune near Palmanova in the province of Udine, Friuli, northeastern Italy.-World War II:On February 23, 1942 the fascist regime established a concentration camp in the town, mostly for prisoners from present day Slovenia and Croatia...

.

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...

, he covered several posts in the state administration before becoming the head of the City Historical Archives of Ljubljana. In 1961, he went to Paris, where he studied economic history

Economic history

Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...

 at the École pratique des hautes études

École pratique des hautes études

The École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....

. In 1971, he returned to Ljubljana, becoming a professor of legal history

Legal history

Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and is set in the wider context of social history...

 at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. Vilfan eventually became one of the most renowned experts for the legal and economic history of 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.-...

. He also wrote about early medieval settlement patterns.

He died in Ljubljana in 1996.

Major works

• Pravna zgodovina Slovencev ("Legal History of Slovenes". Ljubljana: 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...
  
  , 1961).
• Die deutsche Kolonisation nordöstlich der oberen Adria und ihre sozialgeschichten Grundlagen ("The German Colonisation of the North-Eastern Part of the Upper Adriatic and its Social-historical Basis". Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1974).
• Wirtschaftsgeschichte und Rechtsgeschichte ("Economic History and Legal History. Graz: University of Graz, 1985).
• Les communautés rurales entre l'occident et les Balkans : formes Slovenes jusqu'au debut du XXe siecle ("Rural Communities between the West and the Balkans: Slovene Formes until Early 20th Century". Paris: Dessain et Tolra, 1986).
• L'individu face au pouvoir à la fin du moyen age : essai de comparaison entre l'Empire serbe et les provinces alpines du

Sud-Est ("The Individual and Power in Late Middle Ages: A Comparative Essay between the Serbian Empire and the Southeastern Alpine Areas". Brussels: Editions de la libraire encyclopédique, 1989).

• Crown, Estates and the Financing of Defence in Inner Austria, 1500-1630 (London: Macmillan & School of Slavonic and East European Studies University of London, 1991)
• Towns and States at the Juncture of the Alps, the Adriatic, and Pannonia (Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994).