Boris Kidrič

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Statue of Kidrič by Zdenko Kalin next to the Slovenian Government Office in Ljubljana.

Boris Kidrič (10 April, 1912 – 11 April, 1953) was a leading Slovenian Communist who was, jointly with Edvard Kardelj, one of the chief organizers of the Partisan struggle in Slovenia from 1941 to 1945.

Kidrič was born in Vienna, then capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the son of the prominent Slovene liberal literary critic France Kidrič. In the early 1930s, Kidrič was persuaded by the communist publicist Vlado Kozak to join the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. He soon rose to high political posts in the Drava Banovina and was among the founders of the autonomous Communist Party of Slovenia in 1937.

After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he became the de facto leader of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. As such, he had a crucial role in the anti-Fascist liberation struggle in Slovenia between 1941 and 1945. In May 1945, after the end of World War II, the Slovenian National Liberation Council appointed him as the first president of the Slovenian socialist government.

He became a member of the Yugoslav Politburo in 1948, and was in charge of the Yugoslav economy from 1946 until his death.

He was awarded the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union's Order of Kutuzov, and several other honors.

He died of leukemia in Ljubljana in 1953. After his death, the eastern Slovenian industrial town of Strnišče was renamed Kidričevo in his honour. The main award for scientific achievements in Slovenia was called "Kidrič Prize" until 1990. In 1959, a large monument was erected in his honour in front of the Slovenian Government Office in Ljubljana, where it still stands despite some protests by anti-Communist groups and victims of Communist persecution.

See also

• People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia
• Titoism
• Slovensko domobranstvo

Sources

• Janko Prunk, "Kidrič, Boris - Peter" in Enciklopedija Slovenije (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1987-2002), book 5, 62-63.
• Božo Repe, Rdeča Slovenija (Ljubljana: Sophia, 2003).