Josip Vandot

Josip Vandot
Born	(1884-01-15)15 January 1884 Kranjska Gora, Carniola, Austria-Hungary
Died	11 July 1944(1944-07-11) (aged 60) Trnjanski Kuti, Independent State of Croatia
Occupation	Writer, poet
Nationality	Slovene

Josip Vandot (15 January 1884 – 11 July 1944) was a Slovene writer and poet who wrote mainly for young readers.

Biography

Josip Vandot Street, Kranjska Gora

Vandot was born in Kranjska Gora in Upper Carniola, then part of Austria-Hungary, now in Slovenia. Under the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he was employed as a railway official in Maribor. In 1941, after the area was annexed by Germany, Vandot was deported to Croatia. He was killed in the Allied bombing of Slavonski Brod in 1944.[1] A street is now named for him in Kranjska Gora.

Work

Vandot is best known for the creation of the character Kekec, a brave and clever shepherd boy from the highlands of his home region, the Karawanks and Julian Alps. He wrote three books with Kekec as the main character:

• Kekec na hudi poti (Kekec on the Hard Path, 1918)
• Kekec na volčji sledi (Kekec on the Wolf Trail, 1922)
• Kekec nad samotnim breznom (Kekec Above the Lonely Abyss, 1924)

The Kekec books were adapted into three films about the character, although only the first was a direct adaptation of the first book:

• Kekec (1951)[2]
• Srečno, Kekec (1963)[3] (Good Luck, Kekec) – the first Slovene colour film
• Kekčeve ukane (1968)[4] (Kekec's Wiles)

References

1. Helga Glušič, Sto Slovenskih Pripovednikov (Ljubljana: Prešernova družba, 1996) ISBN 961-6186-21-3
2. *Kekec at IMDb
3. *Srečno, Kekec at IMDb
4. *Kekčeve ukane at IMDb

External links

• Media related to Josip Vandot at Wikimedia Commons
• Josip Vandot at Find a Grave