- Jože Javoršek
Infobox Writer
name = Jože Javoršek
caption = Jože Javoršek
birth_date = birth date|1920|10|20|mf=y
birth_place =Velike Lašče ,Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (now inSlovenia )
death_date = death date|1990|9|2|mf=y
death_place =Ljubljana ,Slovenia
occupation =Playwright ,Writer ,Essayist
genre =
movement =Existentialism ,Surrealism ,Theatre of the Absurd
magnum_opus =
influences =Edvard Kocbek ,Shakespeare ,Corneille ,Molière ,La Rochefoucauld ,Nietzsche ,Edmond Rostand ,Antonin Artaud ,Alfred Jarry ,Jean Anouilh ,Eugène Ionesco ,Fran Levstik
influenced =Dominik Smole ,Bojan Štih ,Taras Kermauner ,Primož Kozak ,Dušan Jovanović
website =
footnotes =Jože Javoršek was the
pen name of Jože Brejc (October 20 1920 –September 2 1990 ), a Sloveneplaywright ,writer ,poet ,translator andessayist . [http://slo.slohost.net/cgi-bin/stran.pl?id=6&izris=izpisiNovico&st_pod=29&jezik=slo&templ=1 Jože Javoršek: Povečevalno steklo ] ] He is regarded as one of the greatest masters ofstyle and language among Slovene authors. [http://www.velike-lasce.si/vsebina/si/02/joze_javorsek_03/ Občina Velike Lašče ] ] A complex thinker and controversial personality, Javoršek is frequently considered, together with the writerVitomil Zupan , as the paradigmatic example of the war and postwar generation of Sloveneintellectuals . [Franc Zadravec: "Slovenski roman dvajsetega stoletja" (Ljubljana: Znanstveni inštitut Filozofske fakultete, 2002)]Life
Javoršek was born as Jože Brejc in the small
Lower Carniola n town ofVelike Lašče , in what was then theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . He studiedcomparative literature at theUniversity of Ljubljana . During his student years, he became involved withSlovenia nChristian Socialist groups, where he met the poet and thinkerEdvard Kocbek . [http://www.druzina.net/ICD/spletnastran.nsf/all/1780BD57FFDC2CE1C12573150030B72B?OpenDocument] Kocbek had a huge influence on Javoršek, encouraging him to pursue a literary career.During
World War Two , Javoršek joined the partisan resistance, where he fought alongside with later philosopher and literary criticDušan Pirjevec Ahac and writerVitomil Zupan . It was during his underground activity in the Italian-occupiedProvince of Ljubljana that he adopted the pseudonym Jože Javoršek. After the end of the War in 1945, he worked as the personal secretary of Edvard Kocbek, who was appointed Minister for Slovenia in the Yugoslav government. [ [www.ff.uni-lj.si/oddelki/primknjz/zapiski/absurd.doc] ] He continued his studies at the FrenchSorbonne and shortly worked as assistant at the Yugoslav embassy inParis . In the French capital, he frequented the circles of French left-wing intellectuals; among others, he became acquainted withAlbert Camus and established a close friendship withLouis Guilloux ,Gérard Philipe andMarcel Schneider .He returned to Slovenia in 1948. The enxt year, he was imprisoned by the
Communist authorities and sentenced to 12 years in prison at ashow trial . He was released in 1952, but rehabilitated only shortly before his death in 1990.After returning to liberty, he mostly worked as a
playwright andstage director in severalSlovene language theatres inLjubljana . During this time, he was among the first who introduced thesurrealist and absurdist elements on Slovenian and Yugoslav stages. [ [http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-10-05-jesenko-sl.html Eurozine - O tem, kar je, in o tem, kar še bo.Uvod v tematsko številko o mladi slovenski dramatiki - Primoz Jesenko ] ] He established close contacts with the stage director and literary criticBojan Štih who shared some of Javoršek's modernist and progressive esthetic views. Javoršek managed to stage several plays based on the theories ofAntonin Artaud andAlfred Jarry in theDrama Theatre of Ljubljana, directed by Štih. Because of this innovative approach that challanged the cultural policies of theCommunist regime , Javoršek gained a huge influence on the younger generation of Slovene artists and authors, known as theGeneration of '57 , who departed from the prevailing humanistic and intimistic trend in Slovenian culture and literature of the time and embraced moremetaphysical questions. Among those young authors wereDominik Smole ,Taras Kermauner ,Primož Kozak ,Marjan Rožanc ,Veno Taufer and others. [ [http://www2.arnes.si/slg-ce/repertoar/2000-2001/levpozimi/tarkerpis.html Taras Kermauner: Pismo Franciju Križaju ] ] [ [http://www.rtvslo.si/odprtikop/intervju/dr-taras-kermauner/ Odprti kop - Intervju: Dr. Taras Kermauner ] ] Javoršek had nevertheless a critical attitude to the younger generations and often disapproved their radical modenist approaches.Between 1961 and 1967, Javoršek worked as an assistant at the
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and between 1967 and 1982 as secretary in the office of the Academy's presidentJosip Vidmar .He died in
Ljubljana in 1990 and was buried in his hometown of Velike Lašče. A memorial plaque, designed by the famous Slovene sculptorStojan Batič , was placed on his birth house in the 1990s.Work
Javoršek wrote poetry, plays, novels and essays. He started as a poet. Already as a teenager, he published several poems in the left-wing Slovenian magazines of the time, such as "
Mladina " and Kocbek's "Dejanje ". AfterWorld War Two , he a collection of his wartime poems, entitled "Partizanska lirika" ("Partisan Lyrics"), was issued in 1947. After his experience in jail, he turned mostly to plays, essays and prose. During his lifetime, he published another collection of poems under the title "Usoda poezije" ("The Destiny of Poetry" or "The fate of Poetry", 1972), which he himself edited with extensive critical and biographical commentary.Javoršek gained recognition foremost as a playwright. His early plays, based on existential concerns, but filled with irony, playfulness and artistic use of
language game s, largely contributed to the modernization of the Slovene theatre in the 1950s. In his plays, he was critical towards the establishedpolitical power s and socialconformism .He wrote several novels, the most notable being "Hvalnica zemlji" ("An Ode to the Earth", 1971) and Nevarna razmerja ("
Dangerous Liaisons ", 1978). But it was in his essays and memoirs that he gained most recognition and also caused most controversy. One of the first essayistic works that made him famous to the wider public was the book "Kako je mogoče?" ("How Is It Possible?), in which he explored his feelings of desperation after the suicide of his son Svit. The book is written as a dialogue between two generations that fail to comprehend each other. It is also an a strong critique of the younger generation of Slovenes in general - and young intellectuals in particular - whom Javoršek accused of nihilism. He also published a guide of Ljubljana ("Vodnik po Ljubljani") in which he presented the city's sights and history in the light of an ironic, philosophical and existential reflection, linking the monuments to the personal fates of the famous individuals connected with them. Theepistolary novel "Nevarna razmerja", a paraphrase ofPierre Choderlos de Laclos 'es famous book "Les Liaisons dangereuses ", is a written as a serial of partially authentic and partially fictitious letters between the author and several notable figures, both living and death, among whomVitomil Zupan ,Boris Pahor ,Pierre Emmanuel andFrancesco Robba .In his last works, "La Memoire Dangereuse" ("
The Dangerouse Memory "), which was published in French by a Parisian editing house and translated into several European languages, and "Spomini na Slovence" ("Memories on the Slovenes"), published shortly before his death, he explored his memory and gave a sometimes extremely critical accounts of his contemporaries.He wrote influential essays on
Molière ,Shakespeare , the Slovenian poetessLili Novy and the Sloveneprotestant preacher and pioneer of Slovenian literaturePrimož Trubar . He was also an admirer of the 19th-century Slovene authorFran Levstik and helped to republish new editions of his works. Shortly before his death in 1990, he also contributed to the monograph "Histoire et littérature slovènes" ("Slovenian History and Literature", published by theCentre Georges Pompidou ofParis .He was also translated several important authors to Slovene, mostly from French and
Serbo-Croatian , among themCorneille ,Molière ,Hippolyte Taine ,Eugène Ionesco ,Jean Anouilh ,Edmond Rostand ,Jean Paul Sartre ,Albert Camus , andMeša Selimović .Personality
During his lifetime, Javoršek was considered a controversial and unique personality. His dubious relationship with the establishment, as well as his sometimes extremely acrimonious attacks on the contemporary literary circles, both Slovene and French, gained him the nickname "The Lonely Rider". [
Ciril Zlobec , "Samotni jezdec Javoršek: v spomin" in "Dnevnik", yr. 38, n.243 (September 6, 1990), 8] [Ivan Zoran, "Odšel je samotni jezdec" in "Dolenjski list", yr.41, n.37 (September 13, 1990)] [ [http://www.velike-lasce.si/vsebina/si/02/prireditev_20ob_20kulturnem_20prazniku_33/ Občina Velike Lašče ] ] His last work, "Memories on the Slovenes", published partly poshumous in three parts, created a controversy and shed a new light on the Slovene literary and cultural scene of the War and Postwar period. [Igor Grdina , "Med dolžnostjo spomina in razkošjem pozabe: kulturnozgodovinske študije" (Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU, 2006)] [Bojan Godeša , "Kdor ni z nami, je proti nam: slovenski izobraženci med okupatorji, Osvobodilno fronto in protirevolucionarnim taborom" (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1995)] Among the several scabrous details described by Javoršek in the copious work, are the misdeeds of the influential thinkerDušan Pirjevec Ahac allegedly perpetrated during the war resistance, as well as the conduct of notable personalities such as the literary criticJosip Vidmar and the poetEdvard Kocbek , for whom Javoršek worked as a personal secretary. The work also includes details about the personal lives of Slovenian Communist leadersEdvard Kardelj andBoris Kidrič .Despite his negative experience in jail, Javoršek remained a convinced supporter of
Socialism . Although he started as a Christian Socialist, he later rejectedChristianity , as can be seen from his writings, and embraced anietzschean style ofvitalism andskepticism .Javoršek regarded himself as being primarily a theater manager and not an intellectual or a writer. As such, he often claimed he had the license of a
court jester and loved drawing parallels between himself and the famous playwrights in history who were also theatre managers, such as Shakespeare, Moliere orCarlo Goldoni . He probably best explained the way in which he saw his own role in the essay "Shakespeare and Politics", which was written in 1965 for a volume entitled "Shakespeare among the Slovenes", edited by the famous literary criticFrance Koblar and published by the renowned "Slovenska matica " publishing house. In the essay, he made the following assessment of Shakespeare:If Shakespeare had been a slightly more important person during his lifetime, at least as important as
Ben Jonson , history would have provided us with more details about his life. But Shakespeare was not at the top of the social ladder, he was little more than a parasite of contemporary magnates. Nor did he belong to the great minds of his time. He was too uneducated to achieve such a position, as it is known. The romantic ideas according to which Shakespeare was a great wit, a great historian or a great thinker, are nowadays completely rejected […] . Today, it is evident that Shakespeare was first of all a true dodger of his era. He used the various materials from history or from the contemporary circumstances inEngland in order to create attractive theatrical masterpieces. First of all, we have to understand that Shakespeare never thought of theatre as literature. The theatre was a dangerous and slightly indecent institution, which every respectful and truly honored member of the society would rather avoid. [ [http://www2.arnes.si/~ceslg7/repertoar/2000-2001/kraljlear/ Repertoar SLG Celje 2000-2001: Kralj Lear ] ]Influence and legacy
Although he tried to avoid direct clashes with the Communist establishment after his release from jail, Javoršek was one of the main driving force behind the establishment of the
Stage '57 , an alternative theatre created in 1957 by the younger generations of Slovene artists, which had a crucial role in shaping their generation against the pressures of the repressive cultural policies of the Communist regime. Already during his lifetime, he gained recognition in other parts of Yugoslavia, especially inSerbia . Some consider him to be one of the best essayists in the Slovene language, together withIvan Cankar ,Marjan Rožanc andDrago Jančar . [Miran Štuhec, "Aristokracija duha in jezika" (Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2005)] . His book "La Memoire Dangereuse ", published in the 1980s by the French publishing houseArléa , gained him an important recognition beyond Yugoslav borders. The book has been translated also to German andSerbo-Croatian .Essential bibliography
Poetry
* "Partizanska lirika" ("Partisan Lyrics", 1947)
* "Usoda poezije" ("The Fate of Poetry", 1972)Plays
* "Odločitev" ("The Decision", 1953)
* "Kriminalna zgodba" ("Criminal Story", 1955)
* "Konec hrepenenja" ("The End of Yearning", 1955)
* "Povečevalno steklo" ("Amplifying Glass", 1956)
* "Veselje do življenja" ("Joy of Life", 1958)
* "Manevri" ("Maneuvers", 1960)
* "Dežela gasilcev" ("A Land of Firemen", 1973)
* "Improvizacija v Ljubljani" ("An Improvisation inLjubljana ", 1977)Essays
* "Srečanja" ("Encounters", 1958)
* "Okus sveta" ("The Flavour of the World", 1961)
* "Indija Koromandija" ("The Neverland", 1962)
* "Vodnik po Ljubljani" ("A Guide to Ljubljana", 1965)
* "Shakespeare in politika" ("Shakespeare and Politics", 1965)
* "Kako je mogoče?" ("How Is It Possible", 1969)
* "Esej o Molieru" ("An Essay onMolière ", 1974)
* "Primož Trubar " (1977)
* "Lili Novy " (1984)
* "La Memoire Dangereuse" ("The Dangerous Memory", 1987)
* "Spomini na Slovence" ("Memories on the Slovenes", 1989)Prose
* "Obsedena tehtnica" ("An Obsessed Scales", 1961)
* "Spremembe" ("Changes", 1967)
* "Hvalnica zemlji" ("An Ode to the Earth", 1971)
* "Nevarna razmerja" ("Dangerous Liaisons", 1978)References
Sources
*Jože Horvat, "Umrl je Jože Javoršek" in "
Delo ", yr.32, n.206 (November 4, 1990), 1.
*Milenko Karan, "Nasprotnika ni nikoli doživljal kot sovražnika" in "Delo ", yr.32,n.238 (October 11, 1990), 14.
*Jože Kastelic, "Jože Brejc (Jože Javoršek)" (Ljubljana: Literarni klub, 1999).
*Dušan Mevlja, "Jože Javoršek: in memoriam" in "Večer ", yr. 46, n.207 (September 5, 1990), 15.
*Aleksij Pregarc, "Jože Javoršek: in memoriam" in "Primorski dnevnik ", yr.46, n.203 (September 9, 1990), 17.
*Barbara Rančigaj, "Jože Javoršek in drama absurda" (Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani, 2004).
*Jože Šifrer, "Jože Javoršek" in "Delo", yr.32, n.208 (September 6, 1990), 7.
*Slobodan Selenić , "Jože Javoršek" in "Scena: časopis za pozorišnu umetnost" (Belgrade , 1990).
*Franc Zadravec, "Jože Javoršek: Nevarna razmerja. Slovenski roman dvajsetega stoletja" (Ljubljana: Znanstveni inštitut Filozofske fakultete, 1997-2002).
*Ciril Zlobec , "Samotni jezdec Javoršek: v spomin" in "Dnevnik", yr. 38, n.243 (September 6, 1990), 8.
*Ivan Zoran, "Odšel je samotni jezdec" in "Dolenjski list", yr.41, n.37 (September 13, 1990).See also
*
Slovenian literature
*Culture of Slovenia
*Liberation Front of the Slovenian People
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