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IVAN CANKAR: THE SLOVENES AND THE YUGOSLAVS Title: Slovenci in Jugoslovani (The Slovenes and the Yugoslavs) Originally published: a lecture at the social-democratic society Vzajemnost, 12 April, 1913, published in the social democrats’ bulletin, Zarja, 15–17 April, 1913 Language: Slovene The excerpts used are from Ivan Cankar, Izbrana dela (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1973), pp. 314–326. About the author Ivan Cankar [1876, Vrhnika (Ger. Laibach Altober, present-day Slovenia) − 1918, Ljubljana (Ger. Laibach)]: story writer, playwright, poet and essayist. He was the eighth child in a broken family. His father was a tailor who abandoned his trade after a garment shop was opened in Vrhnika, and moved to Bosnia, forsaking his family. Despite the hardships endured by his family, the extraordinarily intelligent Ivan received generous support for his schooling from the noblemen of Vrhnika. After graduating from secondary school in 1896, he went to Vienna, where he initially pursued technical studies, but soon shifted to Slavic studies. In 1907, following the introduction of universal suffrage for parliamentary elections, he was nominated by the Slovenian Social Democrats as a candidate, but was not elected. An intellectual with an independent mind, Cankar adopted a critical attitude towards the expressly pro-Serbian radical circles, particularly the Ljubljana group of secondary school students who, during 1912 and 1913, published the paper Preporod (Revival). Before the First World War, the Preporod group was the only political movement in Slovenia that took an anti-Austrian stance and advocated the establishment of a Yugoslav state outside the Austrian monarchy. Their political views were rejected not only by all political parties, but also by the majority of eminent Slovenian intellectuals . Similarly, Ivan Cankar’s views were not widely shared, although he was far from being pro-Serbian. As a consequence of the lecture presented here, the Vzajemnost (Mutuality) society was dissolved, while Cankar was sentenced to one week in prison. This, as he himself argued, had turned him into a martyr. In August 1914 he was again imprisoned until October for supporting the Yugoslav idea. He died on 11 December, 1918, as a result of an accident. Ivan Cankar was the most renowned representative of modern Slovenian literature. He had renounced realism, the dominant trend in Slovenian literature of the time, countering it with the neo-romantic princi- 242 “NATIONAL PROJECTS” AND THEIR REGIONAL FRAMEWORK ple of subjective narration. He argued for the critical role of literature in social issues , while his own social views, influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy, were frequently anarchistic. Cankar’s story Hlapec Jernej in njegova pravica (Bailiff Jernej and his justice) has been translated into all major world languages. His thoughts on Yugoslav and Slovenian nationhood and related issues were essential for the shaping of political trends in Slovenia between the two World Wars. During his life, his work was viewed as being substandard, ideologically problematic and socially detrimental, but after his death, the blame turned into categorical praise, and he was perceived as a folk visionary and a prophet. Main works: Erotika [Eroticism] (1899); Za narodov blagor [For the welfare of the people] (1901); Kralj na Betajnovi [The king of Betajnova] (1902); Na klancu [On the slope] (1902); Hiša Marije Pomočnice [The ward of Our Lady of Mercy] (1904); Martin Kačur (1906); Hlapec Jernej in njegova pravica [Bailiff Jernej and his justice] (1907); Pohujšanje v dolini Šentflorjanski [The scandal in the valley of St. Florian] (1908); Hlapci [Servants] (1910). Context At the time of the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, the Yugoslav idea enjoyed massive support from eminent public figures in Slovenia. Those rare individuals who expressed doubts about the political ties with “Balkan Serbia”—such as the politician Ivan Šušteršič, the leader of the Slovenian People’s Party until 1917—were subdued by a common pro-Yugoslav feeling that was infused with the imperative to make radical changes. However, at the time of Cankar’s lecture, the atmosphere was quite different. Before the First World War, Slovenian politics was primarily dominated by the national issue. The tense national relations within the monarchy during the late nineteenth century compelled the Slovenian political parties to modernize and re-articulate their national demands . These, however, remained modest: the conservative and the liberal party called for linguistic equality and the establishment of Slovenian cultural and educational institutions, and the policies pursued by the social democrats did not have a greater emancipatory potential. In contrast to Cankar, social democrats argued that the...

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