Josip Vidmar
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Josip Vidmar (October 14, 1895 -April 11, 1992) was a prominent Slovenian literary critic and essayist. Vidmar is remembered because of his role in the Slovenian resistance during World War II, and for his influence in the cultural policies of the Titoist regime in Slovenia from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s.
He was born in Ljubljana, in a progressive middle class family. His older brother was Milan Vidmar, the famous engineer and chess player. In the interwar period, he rose to prominence with his critical essays on literature and politics. In 1933, he published the essay The Cultural Problem of Slovene Idenitity, in which he rejected the centralist policies in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, aimed at the creation of a Yugoslav cultural and political nation.
Shortly after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he was among the co-founders of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People (Osvobodilna fronta) and served as its formal chairman until the end of the war. After the war he was president of the Yugoslav Federal Chamber of Peoples (later the Chamber of Republics and Provinces). From 1945 to 1953 he was chairman of the Slovenian Parliament. From 1952 to 1976 Vidmar was President of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and head of the Research Centre of the Academy (1950-1964).
He translated works from Russian, French, German, Czech, Croatian and Serbian to Slovenе, mostly plays; works of dramatists: Aleksey Arbuzov, Gogol, Griboyedov, Krleža, Molière, Nušić, Pushkin, Aleksey Tolstoy and other authors.
He died in Ljubljana.
Essays
- Literarne kritike
- Meditacije
- Polemike
- Dnevniki
- Obrazi
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