Ivan Goran Kovačić

Ivan Goran Kovačić
Ivan Goran Kovačić
Born	Ivan Kovačić (1913-03-21)21 March 1913 Lukovdol, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary
Died	13 July 1943(1943-07-13) (aged 30) Vrbica, Independent State of Croatia
Pen name	Goran
Occupation	Writer, poet, soldier
Nationality	Croatian
Genre	Poetry
Notable works	Jama (The Pit)

Ivan "Goran" Kovačić (pronounced [ǐʋan ɡǒran kǒʋatʃitɕ]; 21 March 1913 – 13 July 1943) was a prominent Croatian poet and writer of the 20th century.

He was born in Lukovdol (part of Vrbovsko), a town in Gorski Kotar, to Croatian father Ivan and Transylvanian Jewish mother Ruža (née Klein). His middle name Goran stems from that ("goran" meaning "mountain-man", "man from Gorski kotar", i.e. Mountain District). Kovačić attended the Gymnasium in the city of Karlovac in Croatia. In his honour, the Karlovac city library — the city's oldest cultural institution founded in 1838 — was renamed after him. Many schools in the successor states still bear his name.

During World War II, in the harsh winter of 1942, Kovačić and Vladimir Nazor volunteered for the Partisan forces to set an anti-fascist example for the world. At that time, Goran was already ill with tuberculosis and Nazor was advanced in age, but they were motivated by their consciences. Kovačić was killed by Serbian Chetnik troops in an east-Bosnian village of Vrbica near Foča on July 13, 1943. His death is described as follows: “Like in an ancient tragedy, the one who is most opposed to evil will most cruelly die from evil. The poet who raised his voice against the Ustashan massacre on innocent Serbian people had his throat cut by Chetniks….A few reliable witnesses confirm that Goran survived the hell of the fifth offensive, but when he returned to help his ill, left-behind, friend, Dr. Simo Milošević, the fascists killed both the Croatian poet and the Serbian scholar without distinction. Fascism did not look on poets or scientists anywhere in the world as being of value.”