Ivan Cankar Research Articles

Naslavljanje med žensko in moškim v slovenskem romanu

Forms of address are defined as part of the grammar of social status, foregrounding the study of social relations based on either power or solidarity, which is expressed through certain linguistic means: forms of address. The main objective was to study forms of address between nine literary characters (three women and six men), and the influence of linguistic and other social factors available, as well as the use of these linguistic means. Three Slovene novels were analysed: Lepa Vida (Beautiful Vida) by Josip Jurčič, V krvi (In Blood) by Fran Govekar, and Gospa Judit (Madam Judith) by Ivan Cankar. The combining of sociolinguistics and literary studies, or addressing and analysing dialogues, results in the social and stylistic portrayal of female and male characters in Slovene novels at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Cankar’s name code (novel “Nina”)

The article deals with the novel “Nina” (1906) by the prominent Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), which researchers and critics refer to as the most unusual and complex of his works. Trying to unravel one of the mysteries of the Slovenian classic and starting from the code of the name that became the title of the work, the article aims to show how the process of changing the axiological paradigm was going on in the writer’s creative laboratory, which was accompanied by a change in the onomastic code. This process is demonstrated by the history of the creation of the drama “Beautiful Vida” (1911), originally titled “Hrepenenye” – “Hrepenenje”), the work on which was going on simultaneously with the creation of the text of “Nina”. In the conceived drama, Nina acts as a character who carries all the nuances that make up the essence of this capacious term: from dreams of love and homesickness to a feeling of transcendent love that takes a person away, aspirations for everything beautiful in life. However, at the final stage of work on the play, I. Cankar deviates from the original idea and connects the symbolism of hrepenenje with the name of Beautiful Vida, a mythologem that is significant for Slovenian culture, while emphasizing in letters to friends and brother that “it will be something completely new and ours.” Thus, there is a change in the value artistic paradigm in the work of the writer, who, living in the multicultural environment of the European capital, and creating works in his native language, refuses the literary and cultural European code in favor of his national one.

Nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Slovenian literature of the 20th century

Two tendencies are present in Slovene literature: the «defensive nationalist» one that is concerned with the construction of national identity and the «cosmopolitical» one that aims to transcend the national boundaries. The interplay of these tendencies may be found in the work of three authors: Ivan Cankar, Alma M. Karlin, Polona Glavan. These problems are considered within the framework of Benedict Anderson’s theory of nationalism. The future correlation of these two currents is offered as a theme for discussion.

Religious motifs in Ivan Cankar's short prose

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of religious motifs in the short prose of the Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar (1876–1918). The analysis of religious motifs was made on the basis of ten short stories from different artistic periods. The analysis outcome has revealed their main functions, both shaping the plot of various short stories, and reflecting the moral principles that the writer himself adhered to in his life. It showed that the range of religious motifs is quite diverse, that religious motifs often pass from one work to another, and also shape stories. The reflection of the writer's moral principles is revealed in two ways. On the one hand, through religious motives, we can observe the Cankar’s understanding of Christianity as the spiritual foundation and moral basis of the characters, which helps them survive in an adverse environment – in poverty, hunger and under social pressure. On the other hand, religious motifs are one of the key instruments of satire used by the writer to show the vices of representatives of the Catholic Church and expose the church as an institution, presenting his understanding of this organization as one aimed at consolidating power and increasing control over ordinary people, as well as deepening social inequality.

DINAMIKA ŽELjE U „BOŽJIM LjUDIMA“ BORISAVA STANKOVIĆA I „KUĆI MARIJE POMOĆNICE“ IVANA CANKARA

The paper interprets literary ways of shaping the dynamics of desire in the characters of Borisav Stanković’s God’s Children and Ivan Cankar’s The Ward of Mary Help of Christians. The subject of the analysis of the work of the Serbian writer are the modes of the absolutization of desire in the rogue characters of provisional vagabond communities, or, more precisely, the generative-constitutive role of desire and impossibility of its fulfillment. The heroes of Stank- ović’s stories reflect a specific anthropological image, determined by a constant deprivation as a fundamental internal property of the subject. Parabolic structure of the stories plays an important role in the shaping of meaning. When interpreting the work of the Slovenian writer, the focus is on the rogue subjects, too, particularly those excluded from the community. Throughout the analysis, the dynamics of vitalist impulses and death drives is being investigated, as well as the relation between the subjects of such an experience and social norms. At the end of the paper, the similarities and differences of characters’ actions and their meanings in God’s Children and The Ward of Mary Help of Christians are examined.

Comparison of Graphic and Textual Biographies in Slovenian Literature

The paper compares two graphic biographies with traditional biographies of the same authors – renowned Slovenian writers Alma Karlin and Ivan Cankar. It compares the manner in which graphical and text-only biographies present the characters, the character’s emotions and expressions, which life events they emphasize, and how they address the criterion of objectivity. The results suggest that the biographies in the two Slovenian graphics are less objective than textual biographies due to the pictorial material. Textual biographies present more information about the subject, while graphic biographies focus more on individual events, statements, and emotions, and present them more appealingly.

VASYL STEFANYK – IVAN CANCAR: TYPOLOGY OF ARTISTIC THINKING

The importance of the article lies in the need to study Ukrainian-Slovenian relations, in particular at the level of two prominent representatives of modernism, Ukrainian and Slovenian ones, – Vasyl Stefanyk and Ivan Cankar. There exists only a small amount of works concerning comparative studios of the Ukrainian and Slovenian literatures. Moreover, there are no scientific works devoted to the personalities of V. Stefanyk and I. Cankar, whose fates and artistic views have much in common, although there is no evidence of possible direct contacts between them.
 The study of the chosen problem makes it possible to expand the Slavic context of the Ukrainian modern literature and to look at the era through the prism of the writers’ fates and works, as the idea of the "evolutionary history of literature" gives way to the "study of the history of writers". Both writers were citizens of the Habsburg Empire and lived in the same period. Both Ukrainian and Slovenian writers were influenced by European modernism, and their artistic pathes of developing individual style strategies went through iconic cities – the centers of the European modernism culture (for V. Stefanyk it was Krakow, for I. Cankar – Vienna). However, both writers manifest their national core as their creative basis. 
 Both writers reacted to the same social challenges of their epoch (the topics of emigration, and war, commoners’ lives, difficult childhood). Their works revolve around the dominant of the tragic. Additionally, there is a strong feeling of marginality inherent in their works: being citizens of a large empire, neither V. Stefanyk nor I. Cankar belonged to the representatives of the titular nation. This manifested in their understanding of commitment to the "service to the community" which was quite clearly declared in the work of the two writers.
 The typology of artistic thinking of the Slovenian and Ukrainian authors in the article is traced at the thematic, genre, and stylistic levels. The research encompasses the analysis of the ideological and artistic, genre and style features of the lyrical sketches "The Road" by V. Stefanyk and "My Field" by I. Cankar, the story "Batrak Jernej and his right", the short stories "Holy Communion", "Old and children" by I. Cankar and the shorts stories by V. Stefanyk "Arsonist", "Thread", "Child' s Adventure", which reveals the typology of artistic thinking of the two authors at the level of personal and biographical motivation, and at the same time the research work focuses on the differences that can be explained by the specifics of both the mental organization of the writers and the existence of "national archetypes" deeply rooted in them.

The Bailiff Jernej (2018): Documentary Representation of Poverty and Social Shame

The paper analyses the introduction of the themes of poverty, social exclusion, classism and class shame into the field of contemporary Slovenian drama in the form of a case study. The documentary theatre production The Bailiff Jernej and His Rights (Hlapec Jernej in njegova pravica), directed by Žiga Divjak, was created in 2018 as one of the many events marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Ivan Cankar, the author of the work of the same title upon which Divjak based the performance. Divjak’s documentary reinterpretation of Cankar’s short story The Bailiff Yerney and His Rights performs an engaged gesture of empowerment of the invisible and underpaid working forces, who are thus given a voice in the public sphere. Divjak draws central thematic motifs such as precarious work, workers’ rights, subordination and poverty from Cankar’s “social tale” and, through the gesture of documentary research, transposes them to the present time, thus affirming the idea of the deep-rooted existence of the proletariat, even if, with a time lag, it appears today in a different form and with altered effects. The attribute is precisely the “play”, which could also be described as a “dramatic text” since the dramatic is inscribed into it not in terms of form and dramaturgical elements but as the essence and effect of documentary narratives.

Ivan Cankar one hundred years later: A collection of articles dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of the “knight of the Slovenian word”

The review presents an international collection of articles published in Slovenia, which is dedicated to the centenary of the death of the Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar. The collection reflects the state of modern studies of Cankar’s oeuvre in some European countries (Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Russia), raises topical issues in the study of the writer’s poetics, and outlines ways for their further development. Thematically, the articles can be divided into the study of the philosophical and aesthetic foundations of Cankar’s work and the study of his literary connections and the reception of his work. The collection is provided with a table of contents, an introduction and a name index, each article separately has an annotation and keywords in Slovenian and English, as well as a list of references.

Pripovedna empatija ter Cankarjeva romana Hiša Marije Pomočnice in Križ na gori

Romana Ivana Cankarja Hiša Marije Pomočnice in Križ na gori (oba 1904) sem raziskala z analizo pripovedne empatije, in sicer bralčeve in avtorjeve empatije, z novim pristopom k pripovednim besedilom v postklasični teoriji pripovedi. Zanimalo me je, zakaj je prvi roman ob svojem izidu presegel bralčev horizont pričakovanja in s tem dosegel tudi manjšo pripovedno empatijo pri bralcih, drugi pa je izpolnil horizont pričakovanja in s tem tudi večjo stopnjo pripovedne empatije na ravni recepcije. Pri avtorjevi empatiji sem upoštevala vse tri poti, tj. avtobiografičnost, visoko stopnjo avtorjeve empatičnosti in estetiko produkcije, pri bralčevi empatiji dve možnosti – identifikacijo z likom in pripovedno situacijo –, medtem ko sem v analizi primerjala tehnike empatiziranja. Neskladje med bralčevo in avtorjevo empatijo je namreč pokazalo, da je roman Hiša Marije Pomočnice ob izidu doživel manj pripovedne empatije zaradi manjše bralčeve empatije, ker slovenski bralci ob začetku 20. stoletja niso zmogli deliti čustev in perspektiv ob tem Cankarjevem inovativnem romanu, in so se od njega odvrnili. Tudi razlika med literarno in trivialno empatijo je dokazala, da je Križ na gori zaradi svoje tradicionalnosti in manjše literarne kvalitete bolj ustrezal povprečnemu bralcu, odprtemu za trivialno empatijo, Hiša Marije Pomočnice pa zahtevnejšemu (literarnemu) bralcu in njegovi usmerjenosti k literarni empatiji.

The classical dramatic text and its value in contemporary theatre

This paper deals with the classical dramatic text and its staging in contemporary theatre. Specifi cally, it aims to show that classical texts can address topical issues. This is illustrated by the example of several stagings of Ivan Cankar’s Hlapci, one of the most infl uential dramatic texts in Slovene literature. The history of this dramatic text is presented from its fi rst publication and reception to the different stagings in various Slovene professional theatres. The focus is on how the situation in Slovene society is refl ected in each examined staging. The drama Hlapci was fi rst staged almost one hundred years ago, when the staging followed closely the dramatic text. However, after 1980 stagings became more independent from the text and more artistic freedom was allowed. The paper will prove that classical dramatic texts are very appropriate for staging in contemporary theatre, especially with an innovative director’s approach.

An interview with John K. Cox

Editor’s Note An Interview with John K. Cox, PhD, Professor of East European History and department head in history at North Dakota State University, Fargo (USA) John K. Cox, PhD is a renowned specialist in Balkan history. He earned his PhD at Indiana University in 1995 with a biography of Edvard Kardelj and has published a number of articles on Serbian, Slovene, and Yugoslav history. Some of his chief publications are The History of Serbia (2002) and Slovenia: Evolving Loyalties (2005). His current work is in intellectual history and is situated at the intersection of literature and the political and social currents of nationalism, fascism, and, especially, communism. He is also a literary translator and has translated six volumes by Danilo Kis, two by Biljana Jovanovic, and other works by Ajla Terzic, Muharem Bazdulj, Jurij Koch, Joseph Roth, Stefan Heym, Miklos Radnoti, Ivan Cankar, Ivo Andric, Goran Petrovic, Vjenceslav Novak, and others. He is currently translating Biljana Jovanovic’s Dusa, jedinica moja as well as Atelanska igra by Dragana Krsenkovic Brkovic.We had the pleasure of meeting John K. Cox in Belgrade, at the conference entitled Language, Literature and Nature where he delivered a keynote lecture on practicing history and literary translation. This interview was conducted by email between Budapest, Belgrade, and Fargo.The editor would like to cordially thank Linda Kunos, Acting Director and Editor of Central European University Press, and John Cox for doing the literary interview and allowing the readers to hear their voices, ideas, opinions, and experiences.

Pitanja književne interpretacije i prijedlog za tumačenje i vrednovanje romana Ivana Cankara

ISSUES OF LITERARY INTERPRETATION AND A PROPOSAL FOR INTERPRETING AND EVALUATING IVAN CANKAR’S NOVELS Reading, interpretation and analysis are closely connected in contemporary literary interpretation. Their syncretism is also influenced by narratology, which today acts as a useful theoretical mediator between (narrative) structures and interpretative approaches. Thus, contemporary literary interpretation includes two levels (assem-bling reference frames and filling the gaps) with several processes, and four elements, i.e., the author, the text, the reader and the context, the most important of which is the intention of the text. Interpretations of Cankar’s novels differ already on the first level of literary interpretation, mainly due to digressive narrative and a high degree of emotionality. For the future second level of interpretation of Cankar’s novels, the paper suggests the following elements: moral perspectivism, taboos or stereotypes, autobiography, the relationship between the narrator and the character, in other words the use of the latest approaches, such as e.g., narrative empathy, narratological analysis of poetics and postfeminist approaches.

Art historical time in the works of Ivan Сankar

In the article on the example of the work of the biggest Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar (1876-1918) the subject of art historical time is studied. It raises the question of the place and role of historical time in the literary texts whose authors use it to organize plot, characters and art space. I. Cankar, as a rule, does not give expanded descriptions of one or another significant event. The historic time is presented in his works in the form of digressions, in the memories of the characters. Sometimes it refers to very recent history, presciently anticipating the importance of a phenomenon for the destinies of individuals and of entire peoples. Such events form thematic nodes, motifs, storylines of his works. Three themes dominate in the prose of I. Cankar: the peasant uprising, the World War I, and the theme of exile. Many times would he address the plots and topics of folk poetry. However his view on it and on the important for the Slovene culture folklore and mythical characters sometimes differs a lot from the views of many of his contemporaries. This was specifically reflected in his work on the drama on peasant uprisings. He dedicates special attention to those periods of the national history that underwent sacralization in the folk consciousness (“The Golden Age”). His favorite creative method is the staging of a historical episode through folklore and folk mythology, among other, to its characters. For some historical processes (the exile) he introduces the topic of the rupture of a man from their homeland.

Ivan Cankar’s mystery: The multiplicity of interpretation codes

The article deals with numerous interpretations of works of Ivan Cankar, who occupies an honorable place in the canon of the Slovenian literature. We put under the scrutiny the intensive reception of Cankar, not only within Slovenia and Yugoslavia, but also in the Soviet Union and Russia. Many research works have been written about Cankar, while his texts still evoke completely heterogeneous interpretations and reactions of readers (from enthusiastic to extremely negative). Various research methods are used in the works about Cankar’s writings: historical and biographical method, immanent analysis, close reading, method of system analysis, comparative, cultural, psychological and psychoanalytic method, reading against the grain, sociological method, the method of feminist criticism etc. The figure of the mother occupies a central place in the Cankar’s works, therefore there is no coincidence that the theme of the mother in the Cankar’s texts has attracted many researchers, while it gets a completely different interpretation. The specificity of some of his works was manifested in a combination of aestheticism, ethical issues and the modernist memory problem. When reading the story, one can perceive it from a purely aesthetic point of view, enjoying the rhythmic language of the narrative, think about memory problems and experience emotions as well. Cankar’s writings often generate anxiety in the reader, while opening the endless potential of new meanings. His works have wide interpretative potential, and some of his texts are superior to any interpretive efforts.

Misel o Sloveniji in njeno udejanjenje v času od Majniške deklaracije do oblikovanja Države SHS in Narodne vlade SHS v Ljubljani

Category: 1.01 Original scientific paper Language: Original in Slovenian (Abstract in Slovenian and English, Summary in English) Key words: May Declaration, Ivan Cankar, Slovenia, Declaration Movement, National Council for Slovenia and Istria, State of SHS, National Government of SHS in Ljubljana Excerpt: After the proclamation of the May Declaration on May 30, 1917, Ivan Cankar uttered the first mentioning of Slovenia as a national political entity on July 15, 1917. On August 2, 1917, the Catholic All-Slovenian People's Party (VLS) was in favour of the formation of a United Slovenia in the transdualistic Austrian Yugoslav community. In the spring of 1918, the word Slovenia was repeatedly pronounced by the VLS, and Ljubljana was proclaimed the Slovenian capital. With the establishment of the National Council for Slovenia and Istria in Ljubljana on August 16 and 17, 1918, the idea of Slovenia gained political ground. The author interprets the year 1917 and the May Declaration as a historical milestone after which the Slovenian national political development was focused on the formation of a Slovenian state entity and on the simultaneous experience of its national statehood. The autonomy of the Slovenian state law was not preserved in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians/Yugoslavia, and in the second Yugoslavia it was expressed in the federal position of Slovenia in the composite Yugoslav state. In 1991, with the proclamation of the Republic of Slovenia, Slovenia became a state name.

Ivan Cankar’s National Narrative and Its Role in the Formation of the Slovenian Cultural Identity

Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), who occupies an honorable place in the Slovenian cultural canon, once changed the course of development of Slovenian literature and influenced the formation of national identity. The national narrative of Cankar was based on contradictions: living far from his people, he sometimes glorified them and sometimes attacked them with heavy criticism; he correlated his homeland with his mother, the mother though being dead. Cankar’s concentration on the subject of mother and homeland is interpreted here in the framework of psychoanalysis. Following Slavoj Žižek, the author develops the idea that it was the mother who became the Symbolic Order representative or Super-Ego for the writer. The concept of “Cankar’s mother”, which became a symbol of self-sacrifice and at the same time repressiveness in the Slovenian cultural space, is considered.

Наративна емпатія у двох романах Івана Цанкара

Scholarship began systematically to deal with emotions and empathy only at the start of the 20th century; today, narrative empathy is most systematically dealt with in post-classical narrative theory. With these approaches, I analyse two noted novels by the central Slovene writer Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), Na klancu (1902) and Hiša Marije Pomočnice (1904). I trace narrative empathy through the three elements of author, text, and reader, and hence deal with the empathy of each. Regarding the empathy of the author I consider three paths: autobiography, heightened authorial empathy, and the aesthetics of production. I find that authorial empathy can be seen in the large share of autobiographical material, the obvious sensitivity toward impoverished workers, disfranchised women and powerless children, and the refined blend of realism, symbolism and impressionism as the aesthetics of production. I analyse textual empathy through the choice of genre and narrative techniques, e.g. the proletarian novel, the vivid and non-moralising presentation of sexual abuse in the form of a dramatic scene, the creation of a particular narrative rhythm, the child’s point of view, and the aesthetics of the ugly. Finally, I present the empathy of the reader, which took quite opposite forms when the two novels were published: the former was praised, the latter was rejected by the critics. Keywords: narrative empathy, Ivan Cankar, author’s empathy.

Vagabundske figure v slovenski likovni umetnosti in literaturi na začetku 20. stoletja

The article explores the relationship between visual and literary motifs in Slovenian painting (and illustration, graphics, and drawing) and literature (both prose and poetry) at the beginning of the twentieth century. It uses examples to show the popularity and rich variety of vagabond figures and their transformations and reciprocity at the level of the painting/text. However, a distinctive feature of this article is that it places the subject within the context of hermeneutics, a method that has not been used in Slovenian art history. In addition, it also reveals the symbolic complexity of the vagabond figure in the context of writers, other works, and social-historical circumstances. The emphasis is placed on artists that showed enthusiasm for this figure as a subject during the Belle Époque and also those that followed the very popular bohemian lifestyle in their everyday lives. The reception of Slovenian folk and traditional motifs from the past produced visual and semantic oscillation in which the phenomena of vagabond figures were systematized and interpreted. Many painters (e.g., Gvidon Birolla, and Maksim Gaspari) and writers (e.g., Oton Župančič, Cvetko Golar, and Ivan Cankar) clung to the Slovenian tradition with romantic overtones and, in line with their artistic atmosphere, integrated vagabond figures into typical Slovenian landscapes or environments. Some of them followed Symbolism and modernized the figures with autobiographical references (e.g., Fran Tratnik). The situation among the youngest generation of artists in particular showed that they managed to “escape” from copying traditional motifs and instead used them in a modern form in the “here and now” (e.g., Ivan Cankar). The discrepancy between the lack of the vagabond theme in oil painting and strong diversification in illustration, drawing, graphics, and literature could be explained by consumers’ perceived difference between “high” and “popular” art.

Vagabundske figure v slovenski likovni umetnosti in literaturi na začetku 20. stoletja

The article explores the relationship between visual and literary motifs in Slovenian painting (and illustration, graphics, and drawing) and literature (both prose and poetry) at the beginning of the twentieth century. It uses examples to show the popularity and rich variety of vagabond figures and their transformations and reciprocity at the level of the painting/text. However, a distinctive feature of this article is that it places the subject within the context of hermeneutics, a method that has not been used in Slovenian art history. In addition, it also reveals the symbolic complexity of the vagabond figure in the context of writers, other works, and social-historical circumstances. The emphasis is placed on artists that showed enthusiasm for this figure as a subject during the Belle Époque and also those that followed the very popular bohemian lifestyle in their everyday lives. The reception of Slovenian folk and traditional motifs from the past produced visual and semantic oscillation in which the phenomena of vagabond figures were systematized and interpreted. Many painters (e.g., Gvidon Birolla, and Maksim Gaspari) and writers (e.g., Oton Župančič, Cvetko Golar, and Ivan Cankar) clung to the Slovenian tradition with romantic overtones and, in line with their artistic atmosphere, integrated vagabond figures into typical Slovenian landscapes or environments. Some of them followed Symbolism and modernized the figures with autobiographical references (e.g., Fran Tratnik). The situation among the youngest generation of artists in particular showed that they managed to “escape” from copying traditional motifs and instead used them in a modern form in the “here and now” (e.g., Ivan Cankar). The discrepancy between the lack of the vagabond theme in oil painting and strong diversification in illustration, drawing, graphics, and literature could be explained by consumers’ perceived difference between “high” and “popular” art.