Vanja Sutlić was a 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 ...

n philosopher. He was regarded as the father of the Heideggerian philosophy in former Yugoslavia

Former Yugoslavia

The former Yugoslavia is a term used to describe the present day states which succeeded the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia....

 and its successor states, especially in Croatia and 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 was born in Karlovac

Karlovac

Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...

, Croatia, in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He graduated from philosophy at the University of Zagreb

University of Zagreb

The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...

, where he also obtained his PhD. In, he was hired as an assistant professor at the University, but in 1952 he was removed by the Yugoslav Communist authorities and forcibly transferred to Nova Gradiška

Nova Gradiška

Nova Gradiška is a city located in the Brod-Posavina County of Croatia, population 14,196 . It is located in the historic region of Slavonia, near the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina....

. Already in 1953, he could return to Zagreb, continuing his teaching position. Between 1956 and 1964, he taught at the University of Sarajevo

University of Sarajevo

The University of Sarajevo is the first university in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was originally established in 1531 as a Madrasah or Islamic Law college, with a modern university being established and expanded on top of that in 1949. Today, with 23 faculties and around 55,000 enrolled students, it...

. Between 1964 until his death, he worked as a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Zagreb. He died in Zagreb

Zagreb

Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...

 in 1989.

Sutlić's main philosophical preoccupation was the thought of the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 philosopher Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

. Through Hedeggerian phenomenology, Sutlić engaged in reflections on the modern epoch, which he frequently referred to as "the world of Work". In dialogue with the philosophies of Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 and Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

, he reflected on the meaning 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...

, and the possibilities of its overcoming.

Sutlić's thought influenced several Yugoslav philosophers, including the Slovenes Ivo Urbančič

Ivo Urbancic

Ivo Urbančič is a Slovenian philosopher. He is considered to be one of the fathers of the phenomenological school in Slovenia...

, Veljko Rus

Veljko Rus

Veljko Rus is a Slovenian sociologist, writer and academic.He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia to a prominent upper middle class family...

 and Tine Hribar

Tine Hribar

Tine Hribar is a Slovenian philosopher and public intellectual, notable for his interpretations of Heidegger and his role in the democratization of Slovenia between 1988 and 1990, known as the Slovenian Spring...

, and the Serb Mihailo Đurić.

His son, also called Vanja Sutlić, is a renowned film director and former chairman of the Croatian Radiotelevision

Croatian Radiotelevision

Croatian Radiotelevision is a Croatian public broadcasting company. It operates several radio and television channels, over a domestic transmitter network as well as satellite...

.

Major works

• Bit i suvremenost (Being and Modernity, 1967)
• Praksa rada kao znanstvena povijest (The Praxis of Work as History of Science, 1974)
• Kao čitati Heideggera (How to Read Heidegger, 1988)
• Uvod u povijesno mišljenje (Introduction into Historical Thought, published posthumously in 1994)