Leonid Pitamic - Life

Life

He was born in the Carniolan town of Postojna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in Slovenia. After finishing the classical lyceum in Gorizia and the Theresianum in Vienna, he enrolled to the University of Vienna, where he studied law. After graduation in 1908, he worked in the local branches of the state administration in Carniola, and later in the ministerial offices in Vienna. In 1915, he obtained habilitation in Austrian civil law, and in 1917 in philosophy of law. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he became member of the administrative commission of the National Government of the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs.

In 1919, he served as a legal expert in the Yugoslav delegation at the Versailles Peace Conference. The same year, he was named professor at the newly formed University of Ljubljana. In September 1920, he was named as Secretary for Internal Affairs in the Regional Government for Slovenia. In December of the same year, he became the last president of the regional government before its dissolution. In the 1920s, he worked as the Yugoslav deputee delegate at the League of Nations, and between 1929 and 1935 as the ambassador of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to the United States.

Between 1926 and 1927, he served as rector of the University of Ljubljana. After his return from the USA in 1935, he resumed lecturing at the universities of Ljubljana and Zagreb. In 1928, he became member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 1938 of the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana (later renamed the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts).

In 1951, the new Communist regime removed him from the university and he was expelled from the academy. He died in Ljubljana and was buried in Žale cemetery.