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Drago Jančar

January 01, 1970

Drago Jančar (born 13 April 1948) is a Slovenian writer, playwright and essayist. Jančar is one of the most well-known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement. Jančar's novels, essays and short stories have been translated into 21 languages and published in Europe, Asia and the United States.[1] The most numerous translations are into German, followed by Czech and Croatian translations.[2] His dramas have also been staged by a number of foreign theatres, while back home they are frequently considered the highlights of the Slovenian theatrical season. He lives and works in Ljubljana.

Drago Jančar
Born (1948-04-13) 13 April 1948 (age 76)
Maribor, Yugoslavia (now in Slovenia)
Occupation
  • Writer
  • essayist
  • playwright
Literary movementPostmodernism, Magical realism

Life edit

He was born in Maribor, an industrial center in what was then the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Slovenia. His father, originally from the Prekmurje region, joined Slovene Partisans during World War II. Jančar studied law in his home town. While a student, he became chief editor of the student journal Katedra;[3] he soon came in conflict with the Communist establishment because he published some articles critical of the ruling regime. He had to leave the journal. He soon found a job as an assistant at the Maribor daily newspaper Večer.[3] In 1974 he was arrested by Yugoslav authorities for bringing to Yugoslavia a booklet entitled V Rogu ležimo pobiti (We Lie Killed in the Rog Forest), which he had bought in nearby Austria and lent to some friends. The booklet was a survivor's account of the Kočevski Rog massacres of the Slovene Home Guard war prisoners perpetrated by Josip Broz Tito's regime in May 1945.[3] He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for "spreading hostile propaganda" but was released after three months. Immediately after his release he was called up for military service in southern Serbia, where he was subjected to systematic harassment by his superiors due to his "criminal file".

After completing military service, Jančar briefly returned to Večer, but he was allowed to perform only administrative work. He decided to move to Ljubljana, where he came into contact with several influential artists and intellectuals who were also critical of the cultural policies of the Communist establishment, among them Edvard Kocbek, Ivan Urbančič, Alenka Puhar, Marjan Rožanc, and Rudi Šeligo. Between 1978 and 1980, he worked as a screenwriter in the film studio Viba Film, but he quit because his adaptation of Vitomil Zupan's script for Živojin Pavlović's movie See You in the Next War was censored. In 1981, he worked as a secretary for the Slovenska matica publishing house, where he is now an editor. In 1982, he was among the co-founders of the journal Nova revija, which soon emerged as the major alternative and opposition voice in Socialist Slovenia. He also befriended Boris Pahor, the Slovene writer from Trieste who wrote about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. Jančar has frequently pointed out Pahor's profound influence on him, especially in the essay "The Man Who Said No" (1990), one of the first comprehensive assessments of Pahor's literary and moral role in the post-war era in Slovenia.

Early in his career, Jančar was not allowed to publish his works, but when Kardelj's and Tito's deaths in the late 1970s led to gradual liberalisation, he was able to work as a screenwriter and playwright. In the mid-1980s, he gained initial success with his novels and short stories, while his plays earned recognition throughout Yugoslavia. From the late 1980s on, his fame began to grow outside the country, especially in Central Europe.

Since the early 1990s, he has worked as an editor at the Slovenska matica publishing house in Ljubljana.

Work edit

Jančar started writing as a teenager. His first short novels were published by the magazine Mladina.

Jančar's prose is influenced by modernist models. One of the central themes of his works is the conflict between individuals and repressive institutions, such as prisons, galleys, psychiatric hospitals and military barracks. He is famous for his laconic and highly ironic style, which often makes use of tragicomic twists. Most of his novels explore concrete events and circumstances in Central European history, which he sees as an exemplification of the human condition.

He also writes essays and columns on the current political and cultural situation. During the war in Bosnia, he voiced his support for the Bosnian cause and personally visited the besieged Sarajevo to take supplies collected by the Slovene Writers' Association to the civilian population. In his essay "Short Report from a City Long Besieged" (Kratko poročilo iz dolgo obleganega mesta), he reflected on the war in Yugoslavia and the more general question of the ambiguous role of intellectuals in ethnic, national and political conflicts.

Throughout the 1990s, he engaged in polemics with the Austrian writer Peter Handke regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

The public intellectual edit

Between 1987 and 1991 Jančar served as president of the Slovene PEN Center and through this role also actively supported the emergence of Slovenian democracy.[3] In 1987, he was among the authors of the Contributions to the Slovenian National Program, a manifesto calling for a democratic, pluralistic and sovereign Slovenian state. During the Ljubljana trial in spring and summer 1988, he was one of the organizers of the first opposition political rally in Slovenia since 1945, which was held on the central Congress Square in Ljubljana. In the run-up to the first democratic elections in April 1990, Jančar actively campaigned for the oppositional presidential candidate Jože Pučnik. During the Slovenian War of Independence, he and several other writers helped rally international support for Slovenia's independence.

Since 1995, he has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.[3]

In 2000, Slovenia's most widely read daily newspaper, Delo, published his controversial essay "Xenos and Xenophobia", which accused the Slovenian liberal media of inciting xenophobia and Anti-Catholicism (Jančar himself is an agnostic). He had been accusing the liberal media of similar attitudes since 1994, when his essay "The Fleshpots of Egypt" blamed the media for having helped the rise of the chauvinistic Slovenian National Party.

Although Jančar has never actively participated in politics, he publicly supported the Slovenian Democratic Party during the general elections of 2000 and 2004.

In 2004, he was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic (Slovene: Zbor za republiko).

Awards and honors edit

  • 1993: Prešeren Award (1993) for his narratives, plays and essays
  • 1994: European Short Story Award (Augsburg)
  • 1999: Kresnik Award for best novel of the year (for "Ringing In The Head", Zvenenje v glavi)
  • 2001: Kresnik Award for best novel of the year (for "Catherine, The Peacock And The Jesuit", Katarina, pav in jezuit)
  • 2003: Herder Prize for literature
  • 2007: Jean Améry Prize for European essay-writing
  • 2011: Kresnik Award for best novel of the year (for "I Saw Her That Night," To noč sem jo videl)
  • 2011: European Prize for Literature
  • 2021: Honorary Doctor of the University of Maribor[4]

Selected bibliography edit

Novels

  • Petintrideset stopinj (1974). Thirty-Five Degrees
  • Galjot (1978). The Galley Slave, trans. Michael Biggins (2011).
  • Severni sij (1984). Northern Lights, trans. Michael Biggins (2001).
  • Pogled angela (1992). Angel's Gaze
  • Posmehljivo poželenje (1993). Mocking Desire, trans. Michael Biggins (1998).
  • Zvenenje v glavi (1998). Ringing in the Head
  • Katarina, pav in jezuit (2000). Katarina, the Peacock and the Jesuit
  • Graditelj (2006). The Builder
  • Drevo brez imena (2008). The Tree with No Name, trans. Michael Biggins (2014).
  • To noč sem jo videl (2010). I Saw Her That Night, trans. Michael Biggins (2016).
  • In ljubezen tudi (2017). And Love Itself
  • Ob nastanku sveta (2022). At the Creation of the World

Short story collections

  • Romanje gospoda Houžvičke (1971). The Pilgrimage of Houžvičke
  • O bledem hudodelcu (1978). About a Pale Criminal
  • Smrt pri Mariji Snežni (1985). Death at Mary of the Snows
  • Pogled angela (1992). The Look of an Angel
  • Augsburg in druge resnične pripovedi (1994). Augsburg and Other True Stories
  • Ultima kreatura (1995)
  • Prikazen iz Rovenske (1998). The Specter from Rovenska
  • Človek, ki je pogledal v tolmun (2004). The Man Who Looked into a Tarn
  • Joyce's Pupil (2006). Trans. Alasdair MacKinnon, Lili Potpara and Andrew Baruch Wachtel. Selections from Smrt pri Mariji Snežni, Pogled angela, Augsburg, Ultima kreatura, and others.
  • The Prophecy and Other Stories (2009). Trans. Andrew Baruch Wachtel. Selections from Smrt pri Mariji Snežni, Prikazen iz Rovenske, and Človek, ki je pogledal v tolmun.

Plays

  • Disident Arnož in njegovi (1982). Dissident Arnož and His Band
  • Veliki briljantni valček (1985). The Great Brilliant Waltz
  • Vsi tirani mameluki so hud konec vzeli ... (1986). All Mameluk Tyrants Had a Bad End...
  • Daedalus (1988)
  • Klementov padec (1988). Klement's Fall
  • Zalezujoč Godota (1988). Stakeout at Godot's, trans. Anne Čeh (1997).
  • Halštat (1994)
  • Severni sij (2005). Northern Lights
  • Niha ura tiha (2007). The Silently Oscillating Clock

Essays

  • Razbiti vrč (1992). The Broken Jug
  • Egiptovski lonci mesa (1994). The Fleshpots of Egypt
  • Brioni (2002)
  • Duša Evrope (2006). Europe's Soul

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ . Archived from the original on 2011-04-23. Retrieved 2011-04-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ . Archived from the original on 2011-04-23. Retrieved 2011-04-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ a b c d e "Drago Jančar". sigledal.org.
  4. ^ "Congratulations on the awarded honorary title of "Honorary Doctor" of the University of Maribor". Main Site. University of Maribor. Retrieved 2021-10-22.


External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Drago Jančar.
  • Jean Améry-Prize to Drago Jančar[permanent dead link] (in English)
  • (in English)
  • (in English)
  • Video of Drago Jančar in a public reading on the 1988 demonstration against the repressive policies of the Yugoslav regime on YouTube
  • January 2010 (in English)

January 01, 1970
drago, jančar, this, biography, living, person, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, adding, reliable, sources, contentious, material, about, living, persons, that, unsourced, poorly, sourced, must, removed, immediately, from, article, tal. This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification Please help by adding reliable sources Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page especially if potentially libelous Find sources Drago Jancar news newspapers books scholar JSTOR January 2013 Learn how and when to remove this message Drago Jancar born 13 April 1948 is a Slovenian writer playwright and essayist Jancar is one of the most well known contemporary Slovene writers In Slovenia he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement Jancar s novels essays and short stories have been translated into 21 languages and published in Europe Asia and the United States 1 The most numerous translations are into German followed by Czech and Croatian translations 2 His dramas have also been staged by a number of foreign theatres while back home they are frequently considered the highlights of the Slovenian theatrical season He lives and works in Ljubljana Drago JancarBorn 1948 04 13 13 April 1948 age 76 Maribor Yugoslavia now in Slovenia OccupationWriter essayist playwrightLiterary movementPostmodernism Magical realism Contents 1 Life 2 Work 3 The public intellectual 4 Awards and honors 5 Selected bibliography 6 See also 7 References 8 External linksLife editHe was born in Maribor an industrial center in what was then the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Slovenia His father originally from the Prekmurje region joined Slovene Partisans during World War II Jancar studied law in his home town While a student he became chief editor of the student journal Katedra 3 he soon came in conflict with the Communist establishment because he published some articles critical of the ruling regime He had to leave the journal He soon found a job as an assistant at the Maribor daily newspaper Vecer 3 In 1974 he was arrested by Yugoslav authorities for bringing to Yugoslavia a booklet entitled V Rogu lezimo pobiti We Lie Killed in the Rog Forest which he had bought in nearby Austria and lent to some friends The booklet was a survivor s account of the Kocevski Rog massacres of the Slovene Home Guard war prisoners perpetrated by Josip Broz Tito s regime in May 1945 3 He was sentenced to a year s imprisonment for spreading hostile propaganda but was released after three months Immediately after his release he was called up for military service in southern Serbia where he was subjected to systematic harassment by his superiors due to his criminal file After completing military service Jancar briefly returned to Vecer but he was allowed to perform only administrative work He decided to move to Ljubljana where he came into contact with several influential artists and intellectuals who were also critical of the cultural policies of the Communist establishment among them Edvard Kocbek Ivan Urbancic Alenka Puhar Marjan Rozanc and Rudi Seligo Between 1978 and 1980 he worked as a screenwriter in the film studio Viba Film but he quit because his adaptation of Vitomil Zupan s script for Zivojin Pavlovic s movie See You in the Next War was censored In 1981 he worked as a secretary for the Slovenska matica publishing house where he is now an editor In 1982 he was among the co founders of the journal Nova revija which soon emerged as the major alternative and opposition voice in Socialist Slovenia He also befriended Boris Pahor the Slovene writer from Trieste who wrote about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps Jancar has frequently pointed out Pahor s profound influence on him especially in the essay The Man Who Said No 1990 one of the first comprehensive assessments of Pahor s literary and moral role in the post war era in Slovenia Early in his career Jancar was not allowed to publish his works but when Kardelj s and Tito s deaths in the late 1970s led to gradual liberalisation he was able to work as a screenwriter and playwright In the mid 1980s he gained initial success with his novels and short stories while his plays earned recognition throughout Yugoslavia From the late 1980s on his fame began to grow outside the country especially in Central Europe Since the early 1990s he has worked as an editor at the Slovenska matica publishing house in Ljubljana Work editJancar started writing as a teenager His first short novels were published by the magazine Mladina Jancar s prose is influenced by modernist models One of the central themes of his works is the conflict between individuals and repressive institutions such as prisons galleys psychiatric hospitals and military barracks He is famous for his laconic and highly ironic style which often makes use of tragicomic twists Most of his novels explore concrete events and circumstances in Central European history which he sees as an exemplification of the human condition He also writes essays and columns on the current political and cultural situation During the war in Bosnia he voiced his support for the Bosnian cause and personally visited the besieged Sarajevo to take supplies collected by the Slovene Writers Association to the civilian population In his essay Short Report from a City Long Besieged Kratko porocilo iz dolgo obleganega mesta he reflected on the war in Yugoslavia and the more general question of the ambiguous role of intellectuals in ethnic national and political conflicts Throughout the 1990s he engaged in polemics with the Austrian writer Peter Handke regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia The public intellectual editBetween 1987 and 1991 Jancar served as president of the Slovene PEN Center and through this role also actively supported the emergence of Slovenian democracy 3 In 1987 he was among the authors of the Contributions to the Slovenian National Program a manifesto calling for a democratic pluralistic and sovereign Slovenian state During the Ljubljana trial in spring and summer 1988 he was one of the organizers of the first opposition political rally in Slovenia since 1945 which was held on the central Congress Square in Ljubljana In the run up to the first democratic elections in April 1990 Jancar actively campaigned for the oppositional presidential candidate Joze Pucnik During the Slovenian War of Independence he and several other writers helped rally international support for Slovenia s independence Since 1995 he has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts 3 In 2000 Slovenia s most widely read daily newspaper Delo published his controversial essay Xenos and Xenophobia which accused the Slovenian liberal media of inciting xenophobia and Anti Catholicism Jancar himself is an agnostic He had been accusing the liberal media of similar attitudes since 1994 when his essay The Fleshpots of Egypt blamed the media for having helped the rise of the chauvinistic Slovenian National Party Although Jancar has never actively participated in politics he publicly supported the Slovenian Democratic Party during the general elections of 2000 and 2004 In 2004 he was among the co founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic Slovene Zbor za republiko Awards and honors edit1993 Preseren Award 1993 for his narratives plays and essays 1994 European Short Story Award Augsburg 1999 Kresnik Award for best novel of the year for Ringing In The Head Zvenenje v glavi 2001 Kresnik Award for best novel of the year for Catherine The Peacock And The Jesuit Katarina pav in jezuit 2003 Herder Prize for literature 2007 Jean Amery Prize for European essay writing 2011 Kresnik Award for best novel of the year for I Saw Her That Night To noc sem jo videl 2011 European Prize for Literature 2021 Honorary Doctor of the University of Maribor 4 Selected bibliography editNovels Petintrideset stopinj 1974 Thirty Five Degrees Galjot 1978 The Galley Slave trans Michael Biggins 2011 Severni sij 1984 Northern Lights trans Michael Biggins 2001 Pogled angela 1992 Angel s Gaze Posmehljivo pozelenje 1993 Mocking Desire trans Michael Biggins 1998 Zvenenje v glavi 1998 Ringing in the Head Katarina pav in jezuit 2000 Katarina the Peacock and the Jesuit Graditelj 2006 The Builder Drevo brez imena 2008 The Tree with No Name trans Michael Biggins 2014 To noc sem jo videl 2010 I Saw Her That Night trans Michael Biggins 2016 In ljubezen tudi 2017 And Love Itself Ob nastanku sveta 2022 At the Creation of the World Short story collections Romanje gospoda Houzvicke 1971 The Pilgrimage of Houzvicke O bledem hudodelcu 1978 About a Pale Criminal Smrt pri Mariji Snezni 1985 Death at Mary of the Snows Pogled angela 1992 The Look of an Angel Augsburg in druge resnicne pripovedi 1994 Augsburg and Other True Stories Ultima kreatura 1995 Prikazen iz Rovenske 1998 The Specter from Rovenska Clovek ki je pogledal v tolmun 2004 The Man Who Looked into a Tarn Joyce s Pupil 2006 Trans Alasdair MacKinnon Lili Potpara and Andrew Baruch Wachtel Selections from Smrt pri Mariji Snezni Pogled angela Augsburg Ultima kreatura and others The Prophecy and Other Stories 2009 Trans Andrew Baruch Wachtel Selections from Smrt pri Mariji Snezni Prikazen iz Rovenske and Clovek ki je pogledal v tolmun Plays Disident Arnoz in njegovi 1982 Dissident Arnoz and His Band Veliki briljantni valcek 1985 The Great Brilliant Waltz Vsi tirani mameluki so hud konec vzeli 1986 All Mameluk Tyrants Had a Bad End Daedalus 1988 Klementov padec 1988 Klement s Fall Zalezujoc Godota 1988 Stakeout at Godot s trans Anne Ceh 1997 Halstat 1994 Severni sij 2005 Northern Lights Niha ura tiha 2007 The Silently Oscillating Clock Essays Razbiti vrc 1992 The Broken Jug Egiptovski lonci mesa 1994 The Fleshpots of Egypt Brioni 2002 Dusa Evrope 2006 Europe s SoulSee also edit nbsp Novels portal List of Slovenian writers Slovenian literature Culture of Slovenia Simona SkrabecReferences edit Archived copy Archived from the original on 2011 04 23 Retrieved 2011 04 20 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Archived copy Archived from the original on 2011 04 23 Retrieved 2011 04 20 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link a b c d e Drago Jancar sigledal org Congratulations on the awarded honorary title of Honorary Doctor of the University of Maribor Main Site University of Maribor Retrieved 2021 10 22 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Drago Jancar Jean Amery Prize to Drago Jancar permanent dead link in English Drago Jancar Critical Observer of Society Article in Slovenia News in English Short Biography in the Journal Transcript with picture in English Video of Drago Jancar in a public reading on the 1988 demonstration against the repressive policies of the Yugoslav regime on YouTube dB or a Brief History of Noise essai by Drago Jancar January 2010 in English Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Drago Jancar amp oldid 1218391376, 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