Fran Levstik (Dolnje Retje 1831 – Ljubljana 1887) was born into a peasant family. Unable to finish his gymnasium schooling in Ljubljana, he studied for the priesthood in Olmütz/Olomouc in 1854-55, but had to leave the seminary because of his collection Pesmi (“Poems”), which the Church authorities considered immoral (it was suppressed and unavailable for several years). In the first half of 1855 he attended lectures by the Slavic scholar Miklošič in Vienna. After 1855 he was employed as a private tutor, from 1861 in the family of the politician, composer, and poet Miroslav Vilhar. At that period he served as the secretary of the Slavjanska čitalnica (“Slavic reading room”) in Trieste. In 1863 he became editor of Vilhar’s liberal newspaper Naprej (“Forward”, 1863) and wrote the majority of articles for it. Together with the poet and critic Josip Stritar and the writer Josip Jurčič, he prepared the second edition of Prešeren’s Poezije (“Poems”) in 1866. He helped to establish the Slovenian literary society Slovenska matica in 1864 and became its first professional secretary (1864-65). He was preparing an extensive Slovenian-German dictionary from 1866 to 1868, but did not finish it. In 1870 he started the short-lived Slovenian satirical journal Pavliha (“Zany”) in Vienna; in 1870-72 he served as a controlling editor of the Slovenian version of the Austrian State Code. His last employment was as librarian in the Ljubljana Lyceum library.

Levstik was among the most influential Young Slovenians, who opposed both the conservative Old Slovenians and the stifling dominance of German. Levstik took part in the rise of Slovenian liberalism (the “tabor” movement of mass rallies) and its institutions: Slovenska matica, the gymnastic society Južni Sokol (“The Southern Falcon”, established in 1863), Dramatično društvo (“Dramatic Society”, 1867-1920), the Ljubljana reading club.

Levstik’s fictional travelogue Popotovanje od Litije do Čateža (“A Journey from Litija to Čatež”, 1858) included a literary programme, which he himself partly put into practice in his folklore-inspired tale Martin Krpan z Vrha (“M. K. of Vrha”, 1858), satirically depicting the Viennese court and centring on a Slovenian peasant. He staged his own rural comedy Juntez in 1855 and rewrote Jurčič’s historical tragedy Tugomer of 1876 in verse form.