Izidor Cankar

Izidor Cankar (22 April 1886 – 22 September 1958) was a

interwar

Slovenia.

Early life

Izidor Cankar was born in

Austro-Hungarian Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia (now part of the Serbian province of Vojvodina).^[1] His father, Andrej Cankar, was a Slovene tradesman from Inner Carniola, while his mother, Marija Huber, was from a mixed Danube Swabian–Croat family. Izidor was a cousin of the famous writer Ivan Cankar. At the age of seven, his father went bankrupt. Young Izidor was taken into foster care by his aunt Karolina Hofberg.^[2] Cankar grew up in a multicultural environment, and spoke Croatian, German, and Hungarian from a young age. He attended Croatian-language schools, and throughout his life he claimed his Croatian was better than his Slovene.^[3] In 1897, his cousins Ivan and Karlo Cankar convinced him to move to Ljubljana, where he attended the Classical Lyceum.^[4] In 1905, after finishing high school, he decided to become a priest and enrolled in the Roman Catholic seminary in Ljubljana. There, he met the theologian Andrej Kalan, who had a decisive influence on Cankar's future intellectual development.^{[citation needed}

]

After finishing the study of

Giulio Quaglio, which he wrote under the supervision of the Slovene art historian France Stele.^{[citation needed]} The same year he returned to Ljubljana, where he became the editor of the Catholic journal Dom in svet, transforming it into the most prestigious literary magazine in the Slovene Lands.^[4] Between 1918 and 1919, he worked as the chief editor of the conservative daily Slovenec, the most widespread Slovenian newspaper of the time. During the same period, he became active in the Slovene People's Party, taking part in the negotiations for the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the Kingdom of Serbia.^{[citation needed}

]

After the formation of a

Slovenian National Gallery. In 1923, he became a professor at the University of Ljubljana. During the same period, he decided to leave the priesthood. He did so in 1926, and married Ana Hribar, who came from a wealthy Ljubljana family.^[5]^[6] His departure from the priesthood and the Catholic Church and subsequent marriage surprised and outraged Ljubljana.^[7]

In 1933, he founded the Slovenian section of the

Nazi writers from the organization, in contrast to the Croatian and Serbian representatives. At the same time, he became a close friend of the Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Meštrović and served as the godfather of his second daughter. In the late 1930s, he convinced his wife's family to donate money for the construction of the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana, of which he served as supervisor.^{[citation needed}

]

Diplomatic and political career

In 1936, Cankar was named Yugoslav ambassador to

Liberation Front of the Slovenian People and join forces with the Yugoslav Partisans.^{[citation needed}

]

In February 1945, he went to liberated Belgrade and was named ambassador to Greece. In 1947, he returned to Ljubljana, where he worked as a consultant for the National Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art.^{[citation needed]} He was critical of the communist regime, but did not engage in any political action. In 1953, he became a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He died in Ljubljana in 1958, age 72, and was buried in Žale Cemetery.

Writing

In his early years, Cankar wrote several renowned essays, mostly related to esthetic issues. In 1911, he published the book Obiski (Encounters), a collection of interviews with contemporary Slovene authors and artists (Ivan Cankar, Rihard Jakopič, Fran Saleški Finžgar, Ivan Tavčar, Oton Župančič, Franc Ksaver Meško, and others). In 1913, he wrote his only major literary work, the essayistic novel, S poti (On the Way), written as a travelogue through Italy. ^{[citation needed]}

In 1926, Cankar published a major treatise in art history, Uvod v umevanje likovne umetnosti (An Introduction to the Understanding of Figurative Art), where he developed a systematic stylistic typology based on the theories of Heinrich Wölfflin. In the same year, he started publishing his magnum opus, Zgodovina likovne umetnosti v zahodni Evropi (History of Figurative Art in Western Europe), in which he applied his own esthetic theory in the overview of western art between late antiquity and the Renaissance. Between 1926 and 1936, he published the first critical edition of collected works of the writer Ivan Cankar, his cousin. In 1948, he also published Ivan Cankar's correspondence. ^{[citation needed]}

Izidor Cankar was also a translator: among other, he translated works of Jonathan Swift, Patrick Augustine Sheehan, André Maurois and Immanuel Kant. ^{[citation needed]}

Publications

Cankar Iz. S poti. Ljubljana: Nova knjižnica / Nova založba, 1919. 3, 117 s.; Z cesty // Návštěvy. Sv. 5. Eva, 1921. 131 s. (czech); 2nd ed. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1996. 252 s.
Cankar Iz. Uvod v umevanje likovne umetnosti. Sistematika stila. Izdaja 3.,. V Ljubljani: Karantanija, 1995. 185 s.
Cankar Iz. Obisk na Rožniku In: Ivan Cankar, slovenski pisatelj: (1876-1918). Ljubljana: Mestni muzej, 1956.

Translations

Lewis S. Babbitt / prevedel Izidor Cankar. Ljubljana : Državna založba Slovenije, 1953. 362 s.
Swift J. Guliverjeva potovanja / prevedel Izidor Cankar. Ljubljana : Cankarjeva založba, 1967. 335 s.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Stanko Janež (1971). Živan Milisavac (ed.). Jugoslovenski književni leksikon [Yugoslav Literary Lexicon] (in Serbo-Croatian). Novi Sad (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia): Matica srpska. p. 59.
^ Alenka Puhar, Prvotno besedilo življenja (Zagreb: Globus, 1982), p. 346
^ Alenka Puhar, Prvotno besedilo življenja, p. 347
^ ^a ^b slo.slohost.net
^ 13. Izidor Cankar
^ Ana (Niča) Cankar (Hribar) (8 Jul 1907 – 8 Jan 1988), married 14 July 1926, Geneanet [1]
^ Izredna civilna poroka v Ljubljani Jutro. 1926. Št. 2 (18 July). S.3. [2]

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