Aleš Debeljak (25 December 1961 – 28 January 2016) 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 ...
n
cultural critic
A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions o ...
, poet, and
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 ...
.
Biography
Debeljak was born in the Slovenian capital
Ljubljana
{{Infobox settlement
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, official_name =
, settlement_type = Capital city
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, then part of the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...
, to a family with rural origins; he was the first of the family to attend university.
In his youth he was the junior Slovenian champion in
judo
is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...
, and got a silver medal at the Yugoslav championship. He stopped his sport career after an injury.
He graduated from
comparative literature
Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...
at the
University of Ljubljana
The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...
in 1985. /ref> He continued his studies in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, obtaining a
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in
sociology of culture
The sociology of culture, and the related cultural sociology, concerns the systematic analysis of culture, usually understood as the ensemble of symbolic codes used by a member of a society, as it is manifested in the society. For Georg Simmel, ...
at
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
in 1989. He was later a Senior
Fulbright fellow
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
Ten-Day War
The Ten-Day War (), or the Slovenian War of Independence (), was a brief armed conflict that followed Slovenia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. It was fought between the Slovenian Territorial Defence together wi ...
, and witnessed first-hand the Yugoslav-Slovene armed clashes at the Austrian border in Gornja Radgona. He described the experience as something that changed his point of view, as something that had been deemed impossible was actually taking place, "as if we were in a movie".
He was one of the co-editors of the critical alternative journal '' Nova revija''. He also participated in the
social liberal
Social liberalism is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited g ...
think tank
A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
President of Slovenia
The president of Slovenia, officially the president of the Republic of Slovenia (), is the head of state of Slovenia. The office was established on 23 December 1991 when the National Assembly (Slovenia), National Assembly passed a new ...
Milan Kučan
Milan Kučan (; born 14 January 1941) is a Slovenian former politician who served as the first President of Slovenia from 1991 to 2002. Before being president of Slovenia, he was the 13th President of Slovenia#Socialist Republic of Slovenia, Pres ...
.
He was also, until his death, a professor of cultural studies at the Faculty for Social Studies of the
University of Ljubljana
The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...
.
From 2001 he started the journal ''Sarajevo notebooks'', in order to re-establish communication and linkages between intellectuals and activists throughout former Yugoslavia, and create regional public forums of reconciliation.
He was married to the columnist, translator and American-Slovenian writer Erica Johnson Debeljak, with whom he had three children. He died on 28 January 2016, when he was struck and killed by a truck.
Poetic works
Debeljak began publishing poetry in his college years. He was spotted by the poet Veno Taufer who helped him in the literary scene. His first collection of poetry was well received also by the poet
Tomaž Šalamun
Tomaž Šalamun (July 4, 1941 – December 27, 2014) was a Slovenian poet who was a leading figure of postwar neo-avant-garde poetry in Central EuropeColm Tóibín (2004The comet's trail The Guardian, Guardian and an internationally acclaimed Absu ...
, who declared Debeljak as the best poet of the young generation of Slovene authors.Tomaž Šalamun, "Intervju z Alojzom Ihanom" in '' Sodobnost'', yr. 42, n. 8/9 (1994)
Debeljak's poetry is noted for its melancholy and a new reaffirmation of traditional values such as family and God. An opponent to the everything-goes schools of modern thought, such as
postmodernism
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
, Debeljak's work was informed by an " Enlightenment" ideal of right and wrong, good and bad.
Debeljak was an extremely prolific writer. In addition to poetry and cultural criticism, Debeljak also worked as a columnist for the most important newspaper in Slovenia, ''
Delo
''Delo'' () is a business oriented online media in Ukraine, belonging to ekonomika+ media holding.
''Delo'' was the first daily in Ukraine, publishing its real print circulation (13.000 - 15.000) and trying to introduce Western editorial and b ...
''. His works have been translated in many languages.
List of works
Works published or translated in English:
* The Hidden Handshake: National Identity and Europe in The Post Communist World (Rowman & Littlefield, New York & Oxford 2004).
* Reluctant Modernity: The Institution of Art and its Historical Forms (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham & New York 1998).
* Twilight of the Idols: Recollections of a Lost Yugoslavia (Wite Pine Press, Fredonia & New York 1994).
* Persistence of Modernity: Critical Social Theory of Modern vs. Postmodern Institution of Art (UMI, Ann Arbor, 1994).
* Smugglers (BOA Editions, Ltd., Rochester, 2015)
See also
*
Slovene literature
Slovene literature is the literature written in Slovene. It spans across all literary genres with historically the Slovene historical fiction as the most widespread Slovene fiction genre. The Romantic 19th-century epic poetry written by the ...