Ivan Tavcar

(http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Tav%C4%8Dar)

Ivan Tavčar was a Slovenian writer, lawyer, politician and journalist.

He was born into a poor peasant family. He went to school in Poljane, Ljubljana and in Novo Mesto. When he finished high school in 1871, he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study law. In 1875 he became a barrister at law in Ljubljana and soon (1877) went to Kranj, where he was employed by Dr. Mencinger. In 1880 he returned to Ljubljana, where he remained until his death. Here he 1884 opened his own law firm. He began his political career in Kranj at the provincial assembly, where, together with another politician, he formed the centre of a radical liberal group. Until the collapse of Austria-Hungary, he was one of the leading liberal politicians of National Advanced Party (NNS). For some time he also edited the party's newsletter. Besides, he was also the Mayor of Ljubljana for 10 years. He remained in office until 1921, when he withdrew from public life after falling ill. He spent his last years on his estate in Visoko near Škofja Loka.

He began his writing career with poetry. He wrote and published quite a few poems such as Jesenske pesmi, Moj dom, Rože, Slavec, Poldne na deželi, Pomlad, Stari stolp, Duh slavljanski se je zbudil, and Gazela. He tried himself as a playwright but, but he nurtured drama only as a beginner, his true love was the theatre. His stage work is only a sketch called Erazem iz jame.

However, the main features of his youthful period are short stories and novels, which are written according to the light social prose of that time, that is, following the German writers of the mid-19th century. The plots take place in partly in castles, partly in villages and also among educated people. His early works show an interplay of strong sentiment, liberal ideas, the criticism of noble circles as well as the middle-class sense of democracy.

During his mature period, he focused mainly on peasant and historical prose, which he continued in his late period. It is interesting that the older he got, the less he wrote, but he created his best works during his late period.

A special value is Tavčar's style of writing, which may be objectively rational, or more subjective and poetically colored. His late works present the top of the Slovenian prose during the time between the Age of Romanticism and Realism.

His most important work is Visoška Chronicle, which is about life in the 17th century, during which the Thirty Years' War ended. This work gave Slovenians our first truly sophisticated, ideologically and aesthetically shaped novel with a higher spiritual ground.

He is my hero because he wrote poetry and created a lot of top narrative prose in the period between Romanticism and Realism.