PRISPEVEK K PODROBNEJŠI OSVETLITVI DRUŽINSKIH VEZI IN MLADOSTNIH LET DR. ANTONA KOROŠCA - DRUŽINA IN MLADOST BIŽIKOVEGA TONETA.

Anton Korošec was from Biserjane, a village northeast of Sv. Jurij ob Ščavnici. He was born on the 12th of May 1872. His parents were Janez Korošec and Neža (née Ploj). After the wedding Janez and Neža bought a house in Biserjane 7 (20 today) and started a family. The colloquial name of the house was Bižik, and so Anton Korošec was known as Bižikov Tonček during his formative years. Today his family house still stands (with an addition). As far as Janez is concerned, in his son's later report cards he is always described as a landowner or a cottage owner. The Korošec family certainly did not have lots of money. They still were able to give Anton a good education, most probably with the help of relatives. Neža and Janez had two other children in addition to Anton. Their son Jakob was deceased by 1875. Their daughter Marija later married Jakob Sinko and had two sons of her own. They were named Jožef and Ivan. After them there was no further generations in the family, since neither one of Marija's sons had posterity. Jakob Ploj, a Slovenian patriot and lawyer based in Ptuj played a major role during the formation years of young Anton. Jakob supported young Anton for two years (while Anton was going to school in Ptuj) and obviously molded him into a vivid and nationally conscious person. Jakob's son (and consequently Anton's first cousin) was Miroslav Ploj, the one-time head of the Maribor oblast and Yugoslav senator during the 1920s and 1930s. Anton went to the gymnasium in Ptuj for one year (1884/1885) and after that switched to the one in Maribor (1885-1892). Fran Ilešič (1871-1942), the later university professor in Zagreb, a publicist and literary historian was in the same class as Korošec. Also, Ilešič was Korošec's compatriot. His hometown was Brezje is only 2,5 km away from where Korošec was from (Biserjane). During the schoolyear of 1886/87, Korošec had a man by the name of Leopold Pötsch as one of his teachers. The reason we are focusing on Pötsch specifically is the fact that Pötsch also taught Adolf Hitler (history) some decade and a half taler (in Linz). Not only was Pötsch able to make a positive impression on Hitler - the future politician regarded his history teacher as downright superb. Korošec, being Pötsch's student some fifteen years earlier probably did not share this opinion with the future dictator. We have no direct information regarding the opinion of the then fourteen- or fifteen-year-old Anton. We can take a guess and assert he probably did not think the world of Pötsch. As one of the Slovenian gymnasium students of the day, he was most probably a target of the scoff and ridicule of the German more national minded professors. In the fall of 1892 Anton Korošec began his studies at the seminary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lavant. He took part in the literary club of the Maribor seminarians and the paper entitled Lipica. This was a private, hand-written bulletin, which contained a few serious scientific disquisitions, but mostly literary and patriotic texts, poems, short stories, riddles, comedic stories and itineraries, as well as various translations from Serbian, Czech and English. Among the texts written by Korošec we find titles such as „V krščanstvu je rešitev!" („Deliverance is in Christianity!"), „Skrb za kmečki stan" („Concern for the country folk") ter „Skrb za dobro ime" („Concern for one's good reputation"). We see Korošec did not write light poetry but tr oubled himself with serious social problems. On 25th of June 1895 celebrated his first mass in his home parish, in the fall however, he returned to Maribor to finish his (fourth year of) studies at the seminary. During this same time period he met Janez Evangelist Krek for the very first time. Krek was a professor of theology in Ljubljana and later close collaborator of Korošec. After the end of his time in seminary Korošec became a chaplain first in Sladka gora pri Ponikvi (between August 1896 and March 1897) and after at Marenberg (until May 1898). After that he became a prefect of the Maribor seminary for highschool boys. He stayed there until June of 1902 when - due to his work in journalism and politics - he was given indefinite leave. After that he was never assigned to regular parish duties again. At the beginning of May 1898, he became involved in the leadership of a catholic weekly newspaper Slovenski gospodar in Maribor, as well as another paper named Südsteierische Post. In 1900 he acted as one of the founders of the newspaper Naš dom. During these years he got himself involved into a political quarrel with the editorial office of the newspaper Štajerc, printed in Ptuj. In this context he was even sentenced to six weeks in prison - time which he ended up never serving. The first time Korošec actively entered politics was in 1902. Et the end of that year he ran for a seat in the Styrian provincial assembly. He lost. The (today not so very clear) reasons for that most likely lie with Mihael Napotnik, the Lavantine bishop of the day. After that Korošec pressed on, his name soon becoming synonymous with a patriotic Lowerstyrian Slovenian. After his defeat in 1902 he first decided to get a doctoral education, before continuing to run for political office. At the end of his youth it all really started. He received his PhD in Theology from the University of Graz on the 11th of July 1905. In May of 1906 he was elected to the national assembly at Vienna. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, he continued his political work in Yugoslavia. Among other things he served as minister for the interior, as well as minister for education. He died in December 1940 in Belgrade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]