Nationalist “enfant terrible”

Abstract

The relentlessly critical writer Fran Levstik, one of the central figures in Slovenian literature and politics in the decades following the March Revolution of 1848, was also one of the intellectuals of his time who suffered most from censorship. His first volume of poetry, Poems (1854), was harshly suppressed for alleged blasphemy, and his militant nationalist articles in the 1860s led to many publishers receiving lawsuits, heavy fines, and even prison sentences. While Levstik’s literary works were never subject to official censorship during his lifetime this eventually happened after his death with the play Tugomer, originally written by Josip Jurčič, but transformed by Levstik into an opus magnum of Slovenian nationalism.