| Antun Bonifačić | |
| Birth Date: | 8 October 1901 |
| Birth Place: | Punat, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary |
| Death Place: | Chicago, United States |
Antun Bonifačić (in Croatian pronounced as /ǎntuːn bonifǎt͡ʃit͡ɕ/; 8 October 1901 24 April 1986)[1] was a Croatian Ustaša politician, professor, and writer.[1] He served as the head of the Department of Cultural Relations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Independent State of Croatia,[1] [2] a fascist puppet-state of Nazi Germany.
Bonifačić was born in Punat on the island of Krk on 8 October 1901.[1] [2] He went to gymnasium in Pazin and Sušak.[2] In Zagreb, he studied Slavistics and the Romance languages, specializing in Croatian and French, respectively.[2] He received his doctorate with the thesis Les éléments romantiques under the tutelage Gustave Flaubert in 1924.[1] [2] He then left Yugoslavia to study French literature at Sorbonne University for three years. He later returned as a teacher in Sušak, Sombor, Krk, and Zagreb, where he taught French at the University of Zagreb.[2] During World War II, he worked as the head[1] the Department for Cultural Relations at the Foreign Ministry of the Independent State of Croatia[1] [2] and served as the president of the Croatian Writers' Association.[2] He was also a member of the European Writers' League (Europäische Schriftstellervereinigung), which was founded by Joseph Goebbels in 1941/42.[3]
After the Axis powers lost, he escaped to Rome,[1] then lived in Argentina and Brazil for sometime before immigrating to the United States in 1954.[1] [2] Between 1975 and 1981, he was the president of the Croatian Liberation Movement,[1] a far-right political party founded by Ante Pavelić, the former dictator of the Independent State of Croatia.
Bonifačić died in Chicago on 24 April 1986.[1]