Mirko Javornik


Mirko Javornik was a Slovene writer, editor, and translator.

Life

After Javornik graduated from high school in Ljubljana in 1929, he studied Slavic studies and law. He worked as a freelance writer, and in 1935 he became the chief editor of the newspaper Slovenski dom. He left Slovenia after the Second World War for political reasons. He worked in Austria and then in Rome as an official translator for the American and British military authorities, and then as the editor for political reports on Slovenian broadcasts by Radio Trieste. In 1961 he emigrated to the United States and was employed by the American government as a language specialist and a member of the PR service for visitors from Yugoslavia.

Literary work

Javornik's literary production includes the following works:
  • Črni breg: povest, dealing with social issues
  • Srečanje z nepoznanimi: knjiga o potih in o ljudeh, journalism
  • Pomlad v Palestini: potopis
  • Črne bukve: o delu komunistične Osvobodilne fronte proti slovenskemu narodu
  • Mož božje volje: dr. Lambert Ehrlich
  • Pero in čas, a collection of prewar works
  • Pero in čas II
Javornik also wrote radio plays and translated from English, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Political activity

During the German occupation of Yugoslavia, Javornik transformed the newspaper Slovenski dom into a militantly anti-Communist publication that supported the Slovene Home Guard and General Leon Rupnik. Together with other editors of Slovenski dom he prepared and published the volume Črne bukve: o delu komunistične Osvobodilne fronte proti slovenskemu narodu in 1944, which details crimes committed by the Liberation Front.