Taras Kermauner (13 April 1930 – 11 June 2008) was a

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

n literary historian, critic, philosopher,

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, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

, playwright and

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 ''transl ...

Life

Taras Kermauner was born 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 are ...

as the son of the Slovene communist politician and intellectual Dušan Kermauner. His younger brother, Aleš, was a poet and artist. Taras Kermauner attended the Ljubljana Classical Lyceum and later studied philosophy at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

, where he graduated in 1954. From 1957-58 he studied in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

under the supervision of

Henri Lefebvre Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of s ...

. During his college years, Kermauner started collaborating with a group of Slovene intellectuals and artists who became known as the Critical generation. They published several magazines, such as '' Revija 57'' and '' Perspektive'', which challenged the cultural policies of the

Titoist Titoism is a political philosophy most closely associated with Josip Broz Tito during the Cold War. It is characterized by a broad Yugoslav identity, workers' self-management, a political separation from the Soviet Union, and leadership in the ...

system in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. Among Kermauner's closest collaborators during this period were the writer and playwright

Dominik Smole Dominik Smole (24 August 1929 – 29 July 1992) was a Slovenian writer and playwright. Biography Smole was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He attended school in Ljubljana and after the end of World War II he was emp ...

, poet

Dane Zajc Dane Zajc () (26 October 1929 – 20 October 2005) was a Slovenian poet and playwright. He served as president of the Slovene Writers' Association (1991–1995), and was awarded the prestigious Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement (1981). To ...

, essayist and playwright

Primož Kozak Primož Kozak (11 September 1929 – 22 December 1981) was a Slovenian playwright and essayist. Together with Dominik Smole, Dane Zajc and Taras Kermauner, he was the most visible representative of the so-called Critical generation, a group o ...

, literary historian

Janko Kos Janko Kos (born 9 March 1931) is a Slovenian literary historian, theoretician, and critic. He was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the son of the painter and sculptor Tine Kos. His father was a liberal and freethi ...

, and sociologist and dissident

Jože Pučnik Jože Pučnik (9 March 1932 – 11 January 2003) was a Slovenian public intellectual, sociologist and politician. During the communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, Pučnik was one of the most outspoken Slovenian critics of dictatorship and la ...

. In the early 1960s, Kermauner started a long personal friendship with philosopher and literary theoretician

Dušan Pirjevec Dušan Pirjevec, known by his nom de guerre Ahac (20 March 1921 – 4 August 1977), was a Slovenian Partisan, literary historian and philosopher. He was one of the most influential public intellectuals in post–World War II Slovenia. Earl ...

, who strongly influenced Kermauner's intellectual development. After the mid-1970s, Kermauner grew closer to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

and in the mid-1980s he converted to Roman Catholicism and left public life. He spent his last twenty years in a small village in the Karst region of the

Slovene Littoral The Slovene Littoral ( sl, Primorska, ; it, Litorale; german: Küstenland) is one of the five traditional regions of Slovenia. Its name recalls the former Austrian Littoral (''Avstrijsko Primorje''), the Habsburg possessions on the upper Adria ...

, dedicating his time to writing and study. He obtained his PhD at the

University of Sarajevo The University of Sarajevo ( Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: ''Univerzitet u Sarajevu'' / Sveučilište u Sarajevu / Универзитет у Сарајеву) is a public university located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the largest ...

in 1981 with a thesis on the plays of

Ivan Cankar Ivan Cankar (, ) (10 May 1876 – 11 December 1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet, and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slov ...

. He dedicated most of his later study to the development of Slovenian theatre and dramatic works, in which he looked for deeper ideological and existential elements. During the same period, he expanded his intellectual interests to the sociological works of

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...

, Gilles Deleuze and

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...

. He returned to public life shortly before his death in early 2008. Among other things, he publicly supported the newly founded social liberal party ''

Zares Zares – Social Liberals ( sl, Zares – socialno-liberalni) was a social-liberal political party in Slovenia. Its first president was Gregor Golobič, former Secretary General of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia and former close advisor to ...

''. He died in Ljubljana in the spring of the same year. He was married to the writer Alenka Goljevšček. Their daughter is poet Aksinja Kermauner. Taras Kermauner was also the father of Matjaž Hanžek, political activist, poet and Slovenian Ombudsman (2001–07).

Work

Kermauner was considered the greatest researcher and expert on Slovene

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

. His life work was a series of monographs, published under the common title ''Reconstruction and/or reinterpretation of Slovene drama'', in which he analyzed all Slovene plays. He also translated several works by

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aesth ...

, and

Tzvetan Todorov Tzvetan Todorov (; ; bg, Цветан Тодоров; 1 March 1939 – 7 February 2017) was a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist. He was the author of many books and essays, whi ...

's book ''The Spirit of Enlightenment''.

References

Obituary by the Slovenian Press Agency
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kermauner, Taras 1930 births 2008 deaths University of Ljubljana alumni Slovenian literary historians Slovenian literary critics Slovenian essayists Slovenian dramatists and playwrights Slovenian translators German–Slovene translators French–Slovene translators Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Slovenian Roman Catholics Converts to Roman Catholicism Writers from Ljubljana University of Sarajevo alumni 20th-century dramatists and playwrights 20th-century translators 20th-century essayists 20th-century Slovenian philosophers 21st-century Slovenian philosophers