Background
Kersnik was born in Brdo Manor near Lukovica in Upper Carniola, then part of the Austrian Duchy of Carniola (now in Slovenia). His father Jože Kersnik was a district judge, while his mother Berta Höffern was a local noblewoman. Kersnik grew up in a bilingual, German-Slovene environment.
Education
He studied law at the University of Vienna and Graz, where he graduated in 1874.
Career
Together with Josip Jurčič, he is considered the most important representative of literary realism in the Slovene language. He continued his studies under the private tutorship of Fran Levec, an influential Young Slovene literary historian. He worked in the Austro-Hungarian administration in Ljubljana between 1874 and 1878, where he opened a civil law notary office in his native Brdo pri Lukovici.
In 1883, he was elected to the Carniolan provincial diet.
He died in Ljubljana in 1897.
Politics
He attended the German-language grammar school in Ljubljana, but was expelled under accusations of Slovene nationalism. In the late 1870s, he became active in politics in the liberal Young Slovene party. Together with Fran Šuklje, He belonged to the moderate faction of the Slovene Liberals, and opposed both the conservatism of the Old Slovenes, the centralism of Austrian liberals, and the Slovene radical national liberalism, advocated by Ivan Hribar and Ivan Tavčar.