Ferdo Kozak

Who was Ferdo Kozak?

Ferdo Kozak was a Slovenian author, playwright, editor and politician.

He was born as Ferdinand Kozak in an upper-middle-class family in Ljubljana, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His older brother Juš Kozak also became an author and literary critic, while his younger brother Vlado Kozak became a Communist politician.

In 1913, Kozak joined the radical Yugoslavist subversive youth organization Preporod, which was engaged in anti-Austrian and pro-Yugoslav activities, in connection with other organizations of Austro-Hungarian South Slavs, such as Mlada Bosna. During World War I, he was drafted to the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought on the Eastern Front.

After the War, he studied Slavic philology in Prague, where he became friends with many Slovenes living in the Czechoslovak capital, such as the painter Božidar Jakac, philosopher Anton Trstenjak and sociologist Mihajlo Rostohar. In 1926, he moved to Belgrade where he worked as a librarian. In 1929, he returned to Ljubljana, where he worked as professor at the Ljubljana Classical Lyceum until 1942, except for few years in the early 1930s, when he punitively transferred to Novo Mesto because of his public opposition to the dictatorship of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.