Background
He was born in Ljubljana as the only son of the renowned geographer Anton Melik.
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Vasilij Melik
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Education
After finishing the Ljubljana Classical Lyceum, he enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied under the supervision of the historian Fran Zwitter. After the Italian armistice in September 1943, he was released and returned to Ljubljana, where he graduated from history in 1944.
Career
During World War Two, he was sent to the Gonars concentration camp by the Fascist Italian occupation authorities, and then to a labour camp near Postojna. In 1945, he worked shortly as a correspondent for the Yugoslav press agency Tanjug, and then continued the academic career. Melik was frequently accused, especially after the democratisation of Slovenia in 1990, that he was too cooperative with the Communist regime.
One of the main accusations against Melik was that he was involved in the removal of the Catholic conservative literary historian Anton Slodnjak from the University of Ljubljana because of his alternative interpretations of the history of Slovenian literature.
In March 1959, in fact, in midst of an instigated massive denigration campaign against the distinguished scholar, Melik published a long negative critique of Slodnjak"s historical interpretations, accusing him of non-scientific and metaphysical approach to literary history.
Membership
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
