Veno Taufer

Veno Taufer (born 19 February 1933) is a Slovenian poet, essayist, translator and playwright. Under the Communist regime, he was a driving force behind alternative cultural and intellectual projects in Socialist Slovenia, which challenged the cultural policies of the Titoist system. During the Slovenian Spring (1988–1990), he actively participated in the efforts for the democratization and independence of Slovenia.(14 July 2011)
Stari sloni, do zadnjega diha na okopih
''Dnevnik (Slovenia)'' (in Slovenian)

Biography

Taufer was born Venčeslav Taufer in Ljubljana, Slovenia, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. His father was a left liberal activist, and prominent member of the Sokol athletic movement. Due to his political activities, he was transferred by the Yugoslav conservative regime to the heavily industrialized Central Sava Valley in central Slovenia, where Veno spent his childhood. In 1943, during the German occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II, his father was killed by the Nazis as one of the leaders of the local partisan resistance.

In 1944, he moved to Ljubljana, where he attended high school. He enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied comparative literature and graduated in history and literary theory in 1960. In the late 1950s, he became one of the initiators, together with Taras Kermauner, of a circle of young Slovene artists and intellectuals who challenged the rigid cultural policies of the Yugoslav Communist regime. In 1957, he became one of the co-editors of the literary journal '' Revija 57'', the first autonomous journal in Slovenia prior to the Communist takeover in 1945. Due to its open criticism of the Communist regime, the journal was soon censored by the authorities and several of its collaborators, like Jože Pučnik and Taufer himself, were imprisoned.

In 1961, he briefly worked as an editor for the Slovenian Television service, but soon resigned in the face of political pressures. Between 1962 and 1964, he worked as the director of the alternative theatre Oder 57, staging innovative and subversive plays by Slovenian and foreign modernist authors, among them Dominik Smole, Primož Kozak and Marjan Rožanc. In the mid 1960s, he also collaborated on the alternative journal '' Perspektive'', although he never joined its editorial board.

After the prohibition of the journal ''Perspektive'' in 1964, Taufer withdrew from public life, dedicating most of his time to translating. In 1966, he moved to London, where he worked at the Yugoslav section of the BBC
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