Viktor Blažič (19 July 1928 – 25 June 2014) was a

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

and former

anti-Communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...

. He was born in the village of Smolenja Vas near

Novo Mesto Novo Mesto (; ; also known by #Name, alternative names) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, seventh-largest city of Slovenia. It is the economic and cultural centre of the traditional region of Lower Carniola (southeastern Slovenia) and ...

in south-eastern Slovenia, then part of the

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...

. In 1944, he joined the partisan resistance. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he became a journalist. In the early 1960s, he was member of the editorial board of the alternative journal '' Perspektive''. In the early 1970s, he was one of the founders of the environmentalist movement in Slovenia.

Arrest

Due to his critical articles on behalf of the

Titoist Titoism is a Types of socialism, socialist political philosophy most closely associated with Josip Broz Tito and refers to the ideology and policies of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) during the Cold War. It is characterized by a br ...

regime, Blažič was arrested in May 1976 together with the judge Franc Miklavčič, and sentenced to three years in prison for "enemy propaganda". Later it was disclosed that Blažič's and Miklavčič's arrest was meant as a retaliation against the poet and thinker Edvard Kocbek who was too famous abroad to be arrested by the regime. Instead two of his friends and collaborators were arrested in order to "bring Kocbek back to order", that is to intimidate him in order to ensure his conformity with the Communist regime. Blažič was released in 1978, and found a job in the National and University Library of Slovenia, where he befriended the intellectual and historian Lojze Ude. Since the 1980s, Blažič has published several essays dealing with the nature of the Communist regimes and of

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...

regimes in general. He has also worked as a translator, mainly from Russian.

Slovene Christian Social Movement

In 1989, Blažič was one of the co-founders of the Slovene Christian Social Movement (later renamed to Slovene Christian Democrats), but has not been involved in active politics. By the mid 1990s, he distanced himself from the Christian Democrats and assumed a position close to the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (now

Slovenian Democratic Party The Slovenian Democratic Party (, SDS), formerly the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (, SDSS), is a conservative parliamentary party; it is also one of the largest parties in Slovenia, with approximately 30,000 reported members in 2013. It ...

, not to be confused with the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

), although he never became a member of the party, nor publicly endorsed its candidates. In 2004, he was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform

Rally for the Republic The Rally for the Republic ( ; RPR ) was a Gaullist and conservative political party in France. Originating from the Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR), it was founded by Jacques Chirac in 1976 and presented itself as the heir of Gaul ...

(). Most of his life, he lived in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

External links

Slovenian Spring: Viktor Blažič

References

Slovenian journalists Slovenian translators Russian–Slovene translators Yugoslav Partisans members Slovenian Roman Catholics People from the Urban Municipality of Novo Mesto 1928 births 2014 deaths Ethnic Slovene people 20th-century Slovenian translators 20th-century Slovenian essayists Child soldiers in World War II {{slovenia-writer-stub

Arrest

Slovene Christian Social Movement

See also

External links

References