Anton Novačan

Who was Anton Novačan?

Anton Novačan was a Slovene politician, diplomat, author, and playwright.

Novačan was born in a modest peasant family in the village of Zadobrova, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He attended the prestigious First Celje Grammar School and later went to school in the Croatian towns of Zagreb, Karlovac, and Varaždin. In Croatia, he met several young poets, such as Ivan Novak and Ljubo Wiesner, with whom he established a close friendship. During this period, he also contributed to many Croatian literary magazines. In 1908, he enrolled at the Charles University in Prague, where he studied law. Between 1910 and 1913, he spend three years traveling around Europe, spending much time in Paris, Munich, and Moscow. During World War I, he was imprisoned by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as a potentially dangerous political radical. He finished his studies in 1918, and moved back to Slovenia, which had just became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

In the early 1920s, Novačan became politically active.