Vprašanje regionalizma in univerzalizma v Rebulovi prozi

Abstract

A constant topic in the narrative prose of Alojz Rebula is the encounter of the regional and the universal, which is both a fundamental problem of our time and a key question of contemporary Slovenian culture. The problem has drawn the attention of both national and international critics alike, amongst whom one could mention Claudio Magris, who, in his book Trieste, un'identitá di frontiera (Trieste, the Border Identity), writes that Rebula “with his historical-symbolic-religious novel Nel vento della sibilla (In Sybil’s Wind) (1968) conveys a parable of the conflict between the universal and the particular, between unity and heterogeneity, which is a severe conflict of our time.” In his opus, Rebula raises the question of the close interconnectedness between the regional and the universal, both of which can be protracted to their extremes. This is a case of contamination of two fundamental opposites. It was in fact regional determinism, which is found in Rebula’s early works in all of its intensity, that shifted the impetus in the opposite direction, towards universalism. It is, however, by no means a type of loose universalism, but rather one still firmly attached to tradition and profoundly determined by it.