Zakopane Metamorfoze dr. Joža Lovrenčiča

Abstract

After Italy’s capitulation and the collapse of its Fascist regime in 1943, classicist dr. Joža Lovrencic (1890-1952) became principal at the newly established Slovenian gymnasium in Gorica, where he himself had once been a student. After the war, he was convicted at the show trial and imprisoned; and once released from prison, he was prohibited from getting a job. During this inner emigration he got interested in Ovid, a poet of somewhat similar destiny, and between 1950 and 1952 he translated the Metamorphoses. However, the final months of 1952, when he finished his translation, were marked by a violent media campaign against Catholic Church, following the appointment of the Zagreb Cardinal Stepinac. Lovrencic showed his translation to his friend and colleague at the pre-war Catholic journal Dom in svet dr. France Koblar. When Koblar rejected the manuscript, Lovrencic returned home, where he died from a stroke, while the Metamorphoses remained unpublished.