Background
Josip Badalic was born on the 7th of June, 1888 at the village of Deanavec near the city of Chazma, Croatia.
Josip Badalic was born on the 7th of June, 1888 at the village of Deanavec near the city of Chazma, Croatia.
Josip Badalic studied at the University of Zagreb (1909-1911) and the University of Berlin (1911-1912).
Josip participated in the 1st World War. In 1915-1919 he lived as a prisoner of war in the town of Zemlyansk, where he taught Latin and German. In Zemlyansk Badalic translated Alexander Blok's poem "The Twelve" (1918) into the Serbian-Croatian language (the translation was published in Zagreb in 1927). A fragment of his autobiographical notes To the Don Steppe and Back about his memories of life in Zemlyansk (translated into Russian) are published in the collection From the History of the Voronezh Region in 2006 (issue 14).
Josip was a researcher of Russian-Croatian literary connections. Badalic complied the anthology Russian lyrics from Pushkin to the present day (1939). He founded the Department of Russian Language and Literature in Zagreb University (1945). He is also the author of many books on the history of Russian literature including Russian Writers in Yugoslavia (Moscow, 1966).
In his autobiographical notes To the Don Steppe and Back Badalic told about his stay in Russia.