Ivan Tavcar was born on 28 August 1851 in the village of Poljane, located in a scenic farming valley near the medieval town of Skofja Loka in the province of Carniola. This region of steep hills dominated by Mount Blegos is the setting for most of Tavcar's works and the vivifying source of his worldview. For although Tavcar the lawyer and politician became thoroughly urbanized, he sustained the juxtaposition of city and village, civilized and natural worlds, throughout his career as a writer. The surname Tavcar is possibly linked to the neighboring, more rustic Davca region, which was settled by Bavarians in the seventeenth century and is thus a fitting attribute for a person at the center of Slovene-Germanic relations for most of his adult life.

His first eight years in the poor peasant home of Janez and Neza Perko Tavcar were arduous. Although the household was peaceful, he and...