Anton Aškerc

Anton Aškerc (pronounced [anˈtoːn ˈaːʃkɛrts] (listen); 9 January 1856 – 10 June 1912) was an Slovenian poet and Roman Catholic priest who worked in Austria, best known for his epic poems. Aškerc was born into a peasant family near the town of Rimske Toplice in the Duchy of Styria, then part of the Austrian Empire (now in Slovenia). His exact birthplace is unknown because his family was on the move at the time of his birth. After graduating from high school in Celje he entered the Roman Catholic theological seminary in Maribor. He was ordained a priest in 1880. The same year he published his first poem entitled Trije popotniki ("The Three Travelers") in the progressive literary magazine Ljubljanski zvon. He started his literary career by writing lyric poetry, but after 1882 moved to more epic themes. His post-romantic poems express his patriotism, love and religious doubt. The themes of his ballades and romances come from Slovene and Slavic history, the Bible, folk traditions as well as contemporary life. He became strongly influenced by literary realism, writing some of his best known poems in this style, but never fully rejected post-romanticism. Aškerc published his poems in the journal Ljubljanski zvon under the pseudonym Gorázd from 1881, but used his real name in his first poetry collection, Balade in romance ("Ballades and Romances") published in 1890. The collection was warmly accepted by the reading public and critics, but was criticized from the emerging Catholic political activists, such as the bishop Anton Mahnič, who disapproved of Aškerc's national, freethinking and progressive social ideals. Aškerc took an early retirement from his priesthood service. Soon afterwards, he was appointed by Ivan Hribar, the liberal mayor of Ljubljana, as a chief archivist of the Ljubljana City Archives, which he remained until his death. During the last twenty years of his life, his relationship with the conservative Catholic clergy worsened, as did the quality of his lit