Anton Vratuša

Anton Vratuša (born Vratussa Antal; 21 February 1915 – 30 July 2017) was a Slovenian politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Slovenia from 1978 to 1980, and Yugoslavia's ambassador to the United Nations.

Life

Vratuša was born in Alsócsalogány, Austria-Hungary, today Dolnji Slaveči, Slovenia. His parents were Antal Vratussa and Anna Bokán. He passed the exam for becoming a teacher of stenography. He defended his dissertation in Slavic studies at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana in 1941.

After the outbreak of the World War II in Yugoslavia, Vratuša joined the Yugoslav Partisans, but was interned in the Italian concentration camps at Gonars, Treviso, Padua, and Rab from February 1942 to September 1943. After the concentration camp at Rab was liberated by the Partisans, Vratuša was named deputy commander of their Rab battalion, made up of camp survivors.

After the war, he pursued an academic and diplomatic career. He was chief of staff to Edvard Kardelj (1953–1965) and Yugoslavia's ambassador to the United Nations (1967–1969). From 1985 until 1988, he wrote various UN publications, especially in the fields of the law of the sea and politics in developing countries.