[1] Continuing in his studies at Vienna University he received his doctorate and after that attended on a position of a substitute teacher at the classical gymnasium in Maribor.

Under the pseudonyms Pavel Poljanec and Janko Osojnik Pivko published his first works and essays shaped by his radically liberal views.

As a member of the Yugoslav Democratic Party (later the SDS) Pivko ran for the office in the municipal government and also in the Constituent Assembly, but with no success.

Being a deputy he became a representative Belgrade Assembly, where he intervened several times in connection with economic issues that mainly plagued Slovene farmers, craftsmen and teachers.

[10] His son Svetopolk Pivko (1910–1987),[11] a mechanical engineer and technical designer, who received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris, where he dealt with the problems of vertical take-off.

After World War II, he became the co-founder and head of the Aeronautical Technical Institute in Žarkovo near Belgrade, where he lectured as a university professor of mechanics and also became a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA).