Hannah Arendt and her Times

Vlasta Jalušič & Karmen Klavžar

The German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), who emigrated
from Germany in 1933 and
settled in the U.S.
at the beginning of the forties, would have celebrated her 90th birthday on
October 14th this year.
As a philosopher (a student of Husserl, Heidegger and Jaspers) she was,
at first, not interested in politics. But after having experienced Nazism, her
life and research changed course and she starting studying the Jewish Question
and analysing the elements of totalitarianism. Her studies directly implied the
issue of the individual and collective responsibility for human actions and
thoughts. Hannah Arendt is one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th
century. Her books “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, “Between Past and Future”,
“On Revolution”, “Vita activa (The Human Condition)”, “On Violence” and others
present a monumental struggle with a problematic still very relevant to our
times.
Vlasta Jalušič has translated “Vita activa” into Slovene and written a
preface to the translation (on Hannah Arendt and “Vita activa”). Karmen Klavžar
is the editor of Krtina publishing.

In collaboration with Krtina