 In the 1930s, he was one of the leaders of Slovene anti-Fascist émigrés from the Slovenian Littoral, together with Josip Vilfan, Ivan Marija Čok and Lavo Čermelj.He is considered one of the best Slovene public speakers of the 20th century.He was born to a Slovene-speaking lower-middle-class family in Gorizia, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Italy).