Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe

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Critical writing : Slovenian

  • Cultural criticism, activist writingSlovenian
  • Cultural Field
    Texts and stories
    Author
    Dolgan, Marjan
    Text

    Slovene critical writing burst onto the literary scene in 1833 with a widespread polemic triggered by attempts to reform the Slovenian spelling and alphabet, peaking in the crucial article Slowenischer ABC-Krieg by the classicist, librarian and critic Matija Čop. His orthographic stance also involved an attack on the principles of the prestigious scholar Jernej Kopitar (who preferred a phonetic approximation of rustic speech), with Čop insisting that a written standard necessitated a refined language for intellectual use meeting European standards. In tandem with this dispute, Slovenian writing culture fissioned into two tendencies: one popular, educational and utilitarian, the other literary and aesthetically ambitious (as in the poetry of Čop’s associate France Prešeren) – a duality which has remained noticeable until the present day. Čop wrote an outline of Slovenian literature for the Slovak literary historian Pavol Josef Šafárík, published posthumously (Prague 1864) as part of Šafárik’s Geschichte der südslavischen Literatur. Čop’s text is considered the first systematic history of Slovenian literature.

    Although Slovenian literature began to flourish in the second half of the 19th century, the lack of a university (only in 1919 would one be founded) meant that reflection and criticism had no institutional aegis. Criticism remained therefore largely a meta-literary rather than an academic pursuit.

    In 1858 the literary periodical Slovenski glasnik published a travel diary by the poet, critic and linguist Fran Levstik, Popotovanje od Litije do Čateža (“A journey from Litija to Čatež”), which included a programme for utilitarian, educational, leisure reading – reneging, in a way, on the literary ambitions of Čop and Prešeren. Conversely, Josip Stritar’s celebration and vindication of the poetry of France Prešeren (1866), entailed a polemical rejection of the sentimental verse of Jovan Vesel Koseski (1798–1884); the conflict mapped onto a divergence in political thought, Stritar being a liberal, Koseski a conservative. On the other hand, Stritar’s classicist notion of literary genres hindered the advance of Realism.

    Socially-conscious realism was introduced from Russian examples into Slovenian literature following a 1883 article, Naše obzorje (“Our horizon”) by the classicist and Slavicist Fran Celestin (1843–1895). However, even before it fully took hold it was already overtaken by later trends (naturalism, decadence, impressionism and symbolism). In the epilogue to his prose collection Vinjete (“Vignettes”, 1899), Ivan Cankar rejected naturalism in the interest of symbolism, which remained the dominant style of Slovenian literature until the end of the First World War.

    One significant politically critical text that should be highlighted is the “United Slovenia programme” (1848, multiple variations). This document demanded that the Slovenian lands, then divided into the provinces of Carniola, Styria, the Slovenian coastal district and Carinthia, be united into a single country under the rule of the Austrian Empire, with equal rights for the Slovenian language in public use. It also strongly opposed the planned integration of the Habsburg Monarchy into the German Confederation. Around this time, the geographer Peter Kosler produced his “Map of the Slovene lands”, outlining the region’s ethnic borders. This document was reprinted several times. Although none of the political efforts bore fruit at the time, the idea of a united Slovenia remained fixed in people’s minds until the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. The May Declaration of 1917, a further significant political gesture, saw the Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian representatives in the Imperial Council in Vienna join forces as the “Yugoslav Club”; its president, Anton Korošec, issued a joint declaration calling for the unification of all Austro-Hungarian South Slavs into a single autonomous state. The declaration was signed by some 200,000 people across the Slovenian lands.

    Word Count: 592

    Article version
    1.2.2.2/a
  • Boršnik, Marja; Fran Celestin (Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije, 1951).

    Dolgan, Marjan; Slovenski literarni programi in manifesti (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1990).

    Kos, Janko; Matija Čop (Ljubljana: Partizanska knjiga, 1979).

    Prijatelj, Ivan; Književnost mladoslovencev (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1962).


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    All articles in the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe edited by Joep Leerssen are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://www.spinnet.eu.

    © the author and SPIN. Cite as follows (or as adapted to your stylesheet of choice): Dolgan, Marjan, 2022. "Critical writing : Slovenian", Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, ed. Joep Leerssen (electronic version; Amsterdam: Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms, https://ernie.uva.nl/), article version 1.2.2.2/a, last changed 04-04-2022, consulted 28-03-2024.