Anton Novačan

Novačan was born into a modest peasant family in the village of Zadobrova (now part of the Lower Styrian town of Celje), in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

According to his own testimony, Novačan asked for an audience with King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, where he promised the monarch that he would dissolve the party and become a monarchist if he were accepted into the diplomatic service of the Kingdom.

After a short period of British internment, he joined the Yugoslav Government in exile stationed in Cairo, Egypt, where he worked as a clerk in the diplomatic office.

After the end of World War II in 1945, he moved to Trieste, where he wrote his most important poetic work, Peti evangelij ("The Fifth Gospel"), a cycle of 240 sonnets.

However, Novačan rejected the Communist ideology of the new Titoist regime and in 1948 he chose to emigrate to Argentina with the help of Miha Krek, Ivan Ahčin, and Ciril Kotnik.