Josip Ferfolja

Josip Ferfolja (27 September 1880 – 11 December 1958) was a Slovene lawyer and Social democratic politician, and human rights activist from the Province of Gorizia. Although he was an Italian citizen for most of his life, he considered himself foremost a Slovenian.

He was born in the village of Doberdò del Lago (Slovene: Doberdob) in what was then the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca (now part of the Italian Province of Gorizia). He attended high school in Gorizia, an important Slovene educational centre at the time; Ferfolja's school friends included historian Bogumil Vošnjak, economist Milko Brezigar, poet Alojz Gradnik, writer Ivan Pregelj, literary historian Avgust Žigon, and the prelate Luigi Fogar.

In 1901, he moved to Prague, where he studied law at the Charles University. There, he joined a group of Slovene students that had become influenced by the thought of Tomáš Masaryk, professor of philosophy, and later president of Czechoslovakia. The group, which included figures like Dragotin Lončar, Anton Dermota, Anton Kristan, and Ivan Žmavc, advocated a moderate reformist politics, based on a realistic analysis of social relations; their views were in many ways similar to the Fabian Society in contemporary Britain.