France Balantič

France Balantič studied at University of Ljubljana. The recorded working language is Slovene. Oton Župančič, Alojz Gradnik and Edvard Kocbek are recorded as an influence. Employment is recorded with University of Ljubljana. Works named in the authority record are I Flutter in the Fire of Horror.

• Name — France Balantič • Born — 29 November 1921 • Birthplace — Kamnik, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (now in Slovenia) • Died — 24 November 1943 • Place of death — Grahovo near Cerknica, Province of Ljubljana • Occupation — Poet • Movement — Symbolism, Expressionism

Balantič was born in a working-class family in Kamnik, in the Slovenian region of Upper Carniola in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Before World War II, he studied Slavic linguistics at the University of Ljubljana. As a student, Balantič professed left-wing leanings, with a sympathy towards Christian Socialism and trade unionism in general. As a devout Roman Catholic, he was however suspicious to the materialist world view present in most left-wing ideologies of the time, especially in Communism. By 1941 he had turned away from political activism, convinced that the only salvation for humanity was to be found in the Gospel. In the first months after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and the Italian occupation of Ljubljana, he joined the illegal student organization of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People, but left it soon afterwards, disturbed by its pro-Communist leanings. In June 1942, the Fascist authorities of the Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana interned him in the Gonars concentration camp, together with several other nationalist students, including Zorko Simčič and Marjan Tršar. He was released thanks to the intercession of Bishop Gregorij Rožman in autumn of the same year. He returned to Ljubljana, and spent half a year in almost complete seclusion, mostly dedicating himself to writing. In March 1943, he joined the voluntary anti-communist militia sponsored by the Italians. After the Italian armistice in September 1943, he decided to enroll in the Slovenian Home Guard, an anti-communist militia sponsored by various Slovene conservative and anti-revolutionary political groups, which collaborated with the Nazi German occupying forces in the fight against the Slovenian Partisans. He was stationed as an officer at the Home Guard supply post in the village of Grahovo near Cerknica in 1943. The post was attacked, besieged, and burned down in an uneven fight between some 30 Home Guard troops and the ten-times larger Slovene Partisan Tomšič Brigade. Balantič died in the attack.

Balantič was an intimist and lyricist poet who wrote mystical and passionate poems. He was influenced by the work of the Slovene Romantic poet France Prešeren, the decadentist poet Josip Murn, the expressionist Srečko Kosovel, and especially the religious symbolism of Alojz Gradnik. Balantič was a master of classic poetic forms, especially sonnets. His major poem was "Sonetni venec" (The Wreath of Sonnets, written in 1940) and published posthumously by the literary critic Tine Debeljak in 1944. The most typical trait of Balantič's poetry is his unique blend of personalist and eschatological visions, in which a messianic sense of the tragic dissolution of civilization and the end of time is intertwined with premonitions of his own death and a strong erotic feeling. Most of his poems are a search towards a personal vision of Divinity, in connection with the tradition of Catholic mysticism. He developed a complex metaphorical-hermetical style, verging on manierism. In many ways, Balantič continued the tradition of Slovene Christian expressionism, whose main exponents were Anton Vodnik and Edvard Kocbek, which, following the example of the writer Ivan Pregelj, he connected with elements of Baroque aestheticism.