Ivan Maček

Biography

Maček was born in Spodnja Zadobrova near Ljubljana, Austria-Hungary (now in Slovenia). He became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1930, and in 1935 was sent to the Soviet Union where he studied at the International Lenin School, Moscow. He returned to Yugoslavia in 1937 and became a member of the Central committee of the newly found Communist party of Slovenia. Yugoslav police detained him in 1938 and he was sentenced to four years in prison in Sremska Mitrovica.

After the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, he and a group of 32 other communist political prisoners escaped from the prison and joined the Yugoslav partisan resistance. In 1942 he was sent to occupied Slovenia to be one of commanders of the Slovene partisan resistance. There he was appointed commander of the Main Headquarters of the Partisan Units of Slovenia and political commissar of the Main headquarters during 1942. Maček was appointed the rank of general-major and became a member of the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation in 1944.

After the war, Maček moved into a mansion that had been confiscated from the pharmacist Leo Bahovec. Maček was minister of the interior and vice-president of the Slovene government (1945–1953), vice-president of the Executive council of PR Slovenia and a member of the Federal Executive Council (1953–1963) and also the President of the People's Assembly of SR Slovenia (1963–1967). He was also a deputy in the National and Federal Assembly.

He died in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Maček was declared a People's Hero of Yugoslavia in 1952.

Family

His sister was Pepca Kardelj, spouse of the prominent Slovene politician Edvard Kardelj.