Ludvik Mrzel (pen name Frigid) (28 July 1904 – 29 September 1971) was a Slovene writer, poet, dissident and journalist.

Early life and prewar career

Ludvik Mrzel was born on 28 July 1904 in Loka pri Zidanem Mostu, Slovenia. After completing elementary school he enrolled in a secondary school, from which he was expelled for participating in a miners' strike in

Trbovlje Trbovlje (; german: Trifail''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 4: ''Štajersko''. 1904. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 58.) is Slovenia's tenth-largest town, and the seat of the Municipality ...

. He drew upon this experience for his 1937 collection of short stories ''Bog v Trbovljah'' (God in Trbovlje). Mrzel completed his secondary-school education in

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and

Ćuprija Ćuprija (Serbian Cyrillic: Ћуприја, ) is a town and municipality located in the Pomoravlje District of central Serbia. The population of the town is 19,380, while the municipality has 30,645 inhabitants. History The Romans founded the t ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...

. He then enrolled in medical school, but soon switched his studies to philosophy and Slavic studies. Mrzel found employment as a journalist and worked as an editor for the journals ''Mladina'' and ''Svobodna mladina''. He wrote literary and arts features for the newspaper ''Jutro'' and also wrote lyric verse, novellas, and socially-colored stories. His writing style included Expressionism and

Social realism Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

. He also published book and theater reviews, and reports about cultural events among Slovene emigrants to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

Second World War

During the Second World War Mrzel was a prisoner in Italian and German prisons, including the

Dachau concentration camp Dachau () was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents which consisted of: communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is ...

. Upon the liberation of the camp, he became the editor of a periodical issued at the camp, the ''Dahavski poročevalec'' (Dachau Reporter).

Postwar

After his return to Slovenia, he became the director of the Slovene National Theater and assistant director of the National Theater in Maribor. In 1945,

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...

's communists seized control of Slovenia and established a communist government. As a result, many writers and journalists including Mrzel who were critical of Tito and the communist regime were arrested and jailed. Mrzel was eventually judged to be an "insufficiently cultured person for building socialism." He was charged with "mysticism" and "literary fetishism," and was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1949 during the Dachau trials. He served his sentence in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the a ...

Bileća Bileća ( sr-cyrl, Билећа) is a town and municipality located in Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013, the town has a population of 7,476 inhabitants, while the municipality has 10,807 inhabitants. History ...

, and Goli Otok before being released on parole on 20 October 1955. After his release, he supported himself as a freelance writer and translator. He first lived with his sister in the

Polje A polje, also karst polje or karst field, is a large flat plain found in karstic geological regions of the world, with areas usually . The name derives from the Slavic languages and literally means 'field', whereas in English ''polje'' specifi ...

district of Ljubljana and then in

Piran Piran (; it, Pirano ) is a town in southwestern Slovenia on the Gulf of Piran on the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the three major towns of Slovenian Istria. The town is known for its medieval architecture, with narrow streets and compact houses. ...

and in Zagradec. He was partially pardoned in 1971. Despite his release, Mrzel was kept under surveillance by the communist secret police (UDBA).Mrzel, Ludvik. 1991. ''Luč ob cesti''. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, pp. 272–273. Mrzel's translations include Russian and Ukrainian fairy tales and writings by

Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective a ...

, Alexis Steiner, Theodor Plievier,

Franz Werfel Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of ''The Forty ...

, Antonius Roothaert,

Vasily Chuikov Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ива́нович Чуйко́в; ; – 18 March 1982) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He is best known for commanding the 62nd Army which saw h ...

, Andrey Yeryomenko,

Günther Anders Günther Anders (born Günther Siegmund Stern, 12 July 1902 – 17 December 1992) was a German-Austrian Jewish émigré, philosopher, essayist and journalist. Trained in the phenomenological tradition, he developed a philosophical anthropolog ...

, Jean Rousselot, John Knittel, Sergei Aleksandrovich Tokarev, and

Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main pro ...

. Mrzel died on 29 September 1971 in Ljubljana.

Selected works

* ''Luči ob cesti'' (Lights along the Street; sketches, 1932) * ''Peter se zbudi v življenje'' (Peter Awakens into Life; novel, 1933) * ''Bog v Trbovljah'' (God in Trbovlje; short stories, 1937) * ''Ogrlica'' (The Necklace; poetry, 1962)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mrzel, Ludvik Slovenian journalists Slovenian poets Slovenian male poets Slovenian editors Slovenian translators Slovenian theatre directors Dachau concentration camp survivors Ethnic Slovene people 1904 births 1971 deaths People from the Municipality of Sevnica 20th-century translators 20th-century poets 20th-century journalists