Luka Svetec

He was renowned as an honest and principled politician, and was praised for his decency and his straightforward, practical attitude to political questions and life in general.

[3] Svetec was born in the Upper Carniolan village of Podgorje near Kamnik, in what was then the Austrian Empire (now in Slovenia).

After 1861, he returned to his native Carniola, at first as a senior official in the Austrian judicial administration in Mokronog and Kočevje, and subsequently as a district judge in Brdo.

Against the pragmatism of most of its leaders, Svetec called for an intransigent political action, thus frequently siding with the radical Young Slovenes.

After the mid-1880s, Svetec grew closer to the Slovene liberal nationalists, and finally joined the National Progressive Party.