Dušan Pirjevec
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Dušan Pirjevec, known by his
Early years and revolutionary activity
Dušan Pirjevec was born in
Already in his teenage years, Pirjevec developed an interest in literature, especially in the French
In the early 1940s, he took part of the "Conflict on the Literary Left", a polemics involving the critical Croatian left-wing writer Miroslav Krleža against the Communist Party's ideological hardliners around Boris Ziherl and Edvard Kardelj. In the polemics, was largely evolving around the relation between personal artistic freedom and collective revolutionary engagement, Pirjevec defended Krleža's insistence on artistic freedom, trying to show that it is not in conflict with a Marxist Leninist position.
Partisan
Soon after the Axis
His talent in organization was spotted by the communist leader
After the end of the War, Pirjevec was placed in the propaganda units of the newly established communist regime in Slovenia. Between 1945 and 1947, he worked as the editor of the daily newspaper Ljudska pravica (People's Justice), the main communist newspaper in Slovenia. There, he met the literary critic Bojan Štih, who introduced him to contemporary trends in literature. In 1947, Pirjevec became the chairman of the Agitprop section at the University of Ljubljana. During this period, he became a close personal friend with Vitomil Zupan, with whom he engaged in several provocations of what they saw as the "reactionary and petit bourgeoise" cultural scene in Ljubljana. In summer 1948, he was arrested and trialed in a show trial for numerous severe crimes, such as subversive activity, immoral acts and rape. Unlike his close personal friend who was arrested and accused of the same crimes in the same trial, Pirjevec was sentenced to a relatively mild sentence of two years in prison. He was released already after half a year, and put on probation. He was excluded from the Communist Party and stripped of all his war honours.
The scholar
Between 1948 and 1952, Pirjevec studied French language and comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana under the supervision of the famous literary historian Anton Ocvirk. Between 1952 and 1961, he was employed as a clerk at the Institute for Literature of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, later rising to the position of personal assistant to the Institute's president Josip Vidmar.
In 1958, Pirjevec became an assistant at the Department for Comparative Literature of the University of Ljubljana. In 1959, he was actively involved the so-called "Slodnjak affair", when the conservative-minded literary historian Anton Slodnjak was dismissed from his post of professor of Slovene literature for having published an anthology of Slovene literature in Germany, which included several authors who were not well viewed by the communist regime.[4] The same year, Pirjevec was admitted again to the Communist Party.
Between 1961 and 1962, Pirjevec started a long polemic with the Serbian writer Dobrica Ćosić regarding the cultural policies in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In contrast to Ćosić, who argued for a more unified and centralized cultural policy in Yugoslavia, Pirjevec defended the cultural autonomy of the single republics in the Yugoslav federation. The polemic gave Pirjevec a high degree of public visibility.
In 1961, Pirjevec achieved his PhD in comparative literature and in 1963 he became a professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. In the late 1960s, he rose to prominence among students as a charismatic professor. The Department of Comparative Literature, where he taught, became one of the most vibrant centers of Slovene intellectual scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Among Pirjevec's pupils were Dimitrij Rupel, Niko Grafenauer, Rudi Šeligo, Andrej Inkret and many other intellectuals who later formed the core of the intellectual movement focused around the alternative journal Nova revija. In this period, Pirjevec also developed a close friendship with literary historian Taras Kermauner and philosopher Ivo Urbančič, who represented critical positions towards the communist system. In 1964, Pirjevec criticized the regime's decision to prohibit the publication of the alternative journal Perspektive, and was again expulsed from the Party for this reason.
In the 1960s, Pirjevec published several monographs on modern Slovene literature, focusing especially on the
During this period, Pirjevec maintained close contacts with the Praxis School, which was trying to formulate an alternative and humanist vision of Marxism. He was also member of the Committee of the famous Korčula Summer School organized by the Praxis group. Between 1969 and 1971, he served as editor of the Slovenian journal Sodobnost.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pirjevec was sympathetic to the
From the 1970s, Pirjevec gradually left his previous Marxist positions. Under the influence of the philosopher
He died in Ljubljana on August 4, 1977 and was buried in the cemetery in Šmartno pod Šmarno Goro.
Personal life
Pirjevec was married twice. His first wife was his partisan co-fighter, the university professor of French language Marjeta Vasič, the second was the actress and later writer Nedeljka Kacin. His daughter Alenka Pirjevec is a famous theatre actress and puppeteer. His second daughter with Slovenian journalist Olga Ratej is a Slovenian dramaturg Ira Ratej.
Influence and legacy
Together with
Pirjevec's view on the national question, articulated in polemics with the ideologue of Yugoslav Socialism
In 1997, a bust of Pirjevec was erected in the hall of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. In 1998, a memorial plaque was placed in his native house in Nova Gorica.
References
- ^ Dušan Pirjevec: slovenska kultura in literarna veda (Ljubljana: FF, 2011), 312
- ^ "Uživajmo zdravo - Izlet na Sveti Ahac na Dolenjskem". Archived from the original on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
- ^ Jože Javoršek, Spomini na Slovence III. Ljubljana: Adit, 1990. 92
- ^ "O Kmeclu". lit.ijs.si. 1 November 2004.
- ^ "Pirjevec aktualen – na Hrvaškem". pogledi.delo.si.
Sources
- Aleš Gabrič, Socialistična kulturna revolucija (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1995).
- Mihailo Đurić, Das Denken am Ende der Philosophie. In memoriam Dušan Pirjevec (Ljubljana: 1982).
- Taras Kermauner, Skupinski portret z Dušanom Pirjevcem (Ljubljana: Znanstveno in publicistično središče, 2002).
- Martin Brecelj, Rivoluzione e catarsi. Il pensiero filosofico di Dušan Pirjevec (Trieste: Mladika 2000).
- Janko Kos, Slovenska književnost (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1982), 267-268.
- ISBN 978-953-225-124-1
- Seta Knop (ed.), Dušan Pirjevec, slovenska kultura in literarna veda (Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, 2011). ISBN 978-961-237-462-4