Vinko Žitnik, a Slovene-Argentinian Poet

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to present the life and work of Vinko Žitnik, a poet who has remained practically unknown in his homeland despite the relatively high artistic level found in some of his cycles and poems. Žitnik belongs to the middle generation of the so-called Slovene political emigrants, those who settled in Argentina by the end of the 1940’ and continued to develop the Slovene culture with a commendable zeal. A short biography of the poet is followed by an outline of the themes treated in all his creative periods. The central part of the study presents the contextual and form al side of Žitnik’s poetry from the early publications in 1928, to his only collection, Pomlad (The Spring) printed in 1937 and well reviewed, through to his last poems, published shortly before his death in Antologija slovenskega zdomskega pesništva (The Anthology of Slovene Emigrant Poetry). Žitnik certainly is one of the more prolific Slovene poets, as he has left, besides the numerous pre- and post-war publications in various domestic and emigrant publications, as m any as for ty unpublished collections containing almost 4000 poems, many of which doubtlessly deserve publication.