Karel Destovnik Kajuh

Karel Destovnik, pen name and nom de guerre Kajuh (Slovene convention: Karel Destovnik – Kajuh, 19 December 1922 – 22 February 1944) was a Slovenian poet, translator, resistance fighter, and Yugoslav people's hero.

Kajuh was born in the town of Šoštanj in Slovenian Styria as the eldest child of Jože Destovnik and Marija Vasle. The sobriquet Kajuh comes from his grandfather's birthplace in Skorno near Šmartno ob Paki.

After finishing primary school in 1933, he enrolled in the Celje First Grammar School. In 1934 he became a member of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia. He was expelled from school because of "participation in the dissemination of communist ideas," as was stated in the official explanation. He continued his schooling in Maribor.

Kajuh started writing poems before World War II . He began publishing his poems in the literary magazine for youth Slovenska mladina (Slovene Youth), edited by his friend Dušan Pirjevec. Some of his best poems from this period with social, political, and love themes were published in this journal: "Otrok slovenski" (Slovene Child), "Slutnja" (Premonition), "Norec" (Madman), "Pesem delavca o svoji ljubici" (A Worker's Poem on His Beloved), "Vseh mrtvih dan" (Day of All the Dead), "Otrokovo pismo Jezuščku" (A Child's Letter to Jesus), "Novoletni sonet" (A New Year's Sonnet), "Kmečki otrok vprašuje" (The Question of the Peasant's Child), "Moj stric" (My Uncle), and so on. Kajuh was also a prolific translator. Especially noteworthy are his translations from Czech, particularly of the authors Jiří Wolker, František Halas, Ivan Olbracht, and Jaroslav Seifert.

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