Ksaver Šandor Gjalski

Ksaver Šandor Gjalski (October 26, 1854 - February 6, 1935) was a Croatian writer and civil servant.

His real name was Ljubo Babićref|ljubobabic and he was born in Gredice castle (Zabok), in Hrvatsko Zagorje, in a family of petty aristocrats. He finished high school in Varaždin and earned law degrees in Zagreb and Vienna. He was involved in politics and had a seat in Croatian Parliament.

He wrote novels, but his best known work is "Pod starim krovovima" (Under Old Roofs), collection of short stories in which he described the economic decline of the Croatian aristocracy. Gjalski managed to combine the realism and the poetry because he was an aristocrat and was strongly emotionally connected with the region of Hrvatsko zagorje. His greatness for the Croatian modern literature was proved in the words of a Croatian historiographer of literaure named Antun Barac: "His appearance in literature and political life of Croatia was destined and a strong link between romantic orientation of Croatia in sixties and seventies (19.century) and moderna in the times when Croatian writers discovered wider and stronger European cultural life."

His major art works are: Pod starim krovovima(1886.), U noći (1887.), Janko Borislavić (1887.), Đurđica Agićeva (1889.), Osvit (1892.), Radmilović (1894.), Za materinsku riječ (1902.), etc.

Not to be confused with the painter Ljubo Babić (1890-1974)