Vitomil Zupan - Influence and Legacy

Influence and Legacy

In the 1940s and 1950s, Zupan's highly individualistic style and his bohemian and freethinking attitude was not very well received by the critics close to the Communist regime. His work was strongly criticised by Josip Vidmar, one of the most influential critics of the time, while Boris Ziherl, the official cultural ideologue of the Communist Party of Slovenia, accused Zupan's writings of being an example of decadence, cynicism, glorification of evil, amorality, and nihilism.

Zupan's work had an important influence on the Generation of '57, a group of alternative Slovene authors who challenged the rigid cultural policies of the Communist regime. He particularly influenced the poet Borut Kardelj. His writings had also an important influence on literary theorists and thinkers Dušan Pirjevec Ahac and Taras Kermauner. The echos of Zupan's vitalism and anticonformism can be seen in the works of the writer and essayist Marjan Rožanc, who reflected on Zupan in his novelistic essay Roman o knjigah (A Novel on Books, 1983).