The Many Struggles of Anton Kajfež: The Rise and Fall of a Kočevje Merchant from Political and Economic Perspectives

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51663/pnz.66.2.02

Keywords:

Anton Kajfež, timber trade, Slovene economy, bankruptcy, Kočevje, Gottscheers, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of the entrepreneur and landowner Anton Kajfež and his successors, owners of one of the largest companies in Kočevje and Lower Carniola before World War I and during the interwar period. The company focused primarily on the timber and wine trade and became a significant shareholder in many regional companies and banks. Kajfež promoted the local Slovenian economy and used his wealth to strengthen it through a series of projects aimed at surpassing the Gottscheers, a local group of German origin, in the Kočevje economy and politics. In doing so, he attracted the ire of many business competitors, his own workers, and political enemies. The Kajfež family took out large loans and created a deficit, leading to bankruptcy in 1928. Because of the close ties between the Kajfež company, banks, and businesses, the collapse was a major blow to the local Slovenian economy. The Gottscheers celebrated the company’s demise and its negative impact on Slovenian institutions.

Author Biography

  • Ivan Smiljanić, Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino

    Ivan Smiljanić has graduated from history and Russian studies at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, in 2016 and acquired a MSc in history at the same university in 2019. In the same year, he became a junior researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. The topic of his dissertation is bankruptcies in Slovenia between 1868 and 1941. He is publishing articles on monuments, public memory nd economic hitsory in Slovene history magazines. He coauthored a comic book on the burning of Trieste National Hall (2020) and published a book on the cult of poet France Prešeren in socialist Yugoslavia (2021).

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Naslovnica druge številke revije PNZ 2026

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Published

2026-10-13

Issue

Vol. 66 No. 2 (2026)

Section

Economics, nationalism and politics in Central and South-Eastern Europe

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Copyright (c) 2026 Ivan Smiljanić

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