Anton Slodnjak

Anton Slodnjak (, June 13, 1899 – March 13, 1983) was a Slovene literary historian, critic, writer, Prešeren scholar, and academy member.

Slodnjak was a full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SAZU) from 1967, and a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy (JAZU) in Zagreb and an associate professor at the University of Zagreb until 1950, when he returned to Ljubljana and taught Slavic studies at the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Arts as a full professor of Slovenian literature of the 19th century until his retirement in 1959.

Life Anton Slodnjak was born in Bodkovci to Martin Slodnjak and Marjeta (née Nigl) Slodnjak in a wealthy farming family as the eldest of three sons. His father was a well-known organizer of ethnic events in Juršinci. Already in the 1870s, they had an educational society there and their own choir, which his father also sang in. He attended elementary school in Juršinci from 1906 to 1912, and in the fall of that year, at the advice of his teachers, his parents enrolled him in the high school in Maribor, where he graduated in 1920. He enrolled in the Slavic studies program at the University of Ljubljana and received his doctorate there in 1925 with a dissertation on Davorin Trstenjak. He also attended lectures in German studies, art history, and national history, and he passed the comprehensive exam in German language and literature and in national history. This was followed by research training as a teacher of Polish literature at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków from 1925 to 1927, where he also taught Slovenian. After returning to Ljubljana, he worked as a professor of Slovenian at the Trade Academy in Ljubljana from 1927 to 1945. During World War II, he collaborated with the Liberation Front and was arrested three times and imprisoned for lengthy periods (in 1941, 1942, and 1945). From 1945 to 1947 he was the acting head and then head of the Vocational Education Department at the Ministry of Trade and Supply. Then, in 1947, he became a professor of Slovene literature at the Department of Slavic Studies in Zagreb,

Selected works

1934: Pregled slovenskega slovstva 1938: Neiztrohnjeno srce 1946: Pogine naj – pes! 1964: Poezije in pisma 1964: Prešernovo življenje 1966: Študije in eseji 1968: Slovensko slovstvo: ob tisočletnici Brižinskih spomenikov 1976: Tujec