Slovene Minority Research Articles

Slovenian Poet and Austrian Writer: Maja Haderlap’s «Hybrid» Identity and Overcoming Post-Memory Trauma

The cоntemporary literature of the Slovene minority living in Austrian Carinthia is a special phenomenon that combines national and multicultural components, as well as bilingualism. A striking example of this is the work of M. Haderlap (b. 1961), who writes poetry in Slovenian and prose in German. Her German-language novel «Engel des Vergessens» («Angel pozabe», 2011) is about the collective trauma of the past experienced by the Slovenian population who participated in the anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War (physical extermination and deportation to concentration camps), had a wide resonance in the European German-speaking sociocultural space. The plot is based on the personal story of the writer’s grandmother and father, who went through the Gestapo and Ravensbrück. One of the ways to express his attitude to a tragic topic and at the same time overcome the consequences of the post-memory mechanism was the choice of language for the author. By creating a novel in the language of the national majority on a topic that is «inconvenient» for its speakers and painful for the national minority, Haderlap, firstly, makes an attempt to distance himself from personal experiences, and secondly, to attract the attention of the general Austrian public to historical injustice, to evoke fellow citizens an impulse to repentance. The hybrid identity of the writer, who perceives her bilingualism as an undeniable advantage of creative self-expression, reflects the real trends in the literary development of Europe: the monolingual paradigm is being replaced by a focus on poly-and heteroglossia.

Ecocriticism of Slovene Literary Authors from Italy

Abstract The aim of this paper is to apply an ecocritical approach to the analysis of selected literary passages by Slovene minority authors from Italy. Drawing from ecocritical discourse, the author presents a diverse conception of living space before delving into the analysis of selected passages, through which she aims to demonstrate that, in the case of minority literary authors, environmental issues intertwine with questions of identity, as threats to the environment as a living space are closely associated with threats to the ethnic community. This is particularly evident in the case of literary authors from Beneška Slovenia. The author concludes her views with an analysis of literary works by the youngest Slovene authors from Italy, who notably engage with ecological themes extending beyond the confines of the living space of the Slovene minority in Italy to address the global ecological crisis.

Koroška in Slovenci v luči romanopisja ali o koroškem slovenskem in nemškem romanu

The article focuses on the writing of novels in the 20th and 21st centuries that relate to the Slovenian minority in Carinthia, and at the same time highlights the development, main thematic lines and linguistic characteristics of the minority‘s novelistic production itself. Already in the years following the 1920 plebiscite in Carinthia, the themes of war, borders, linguistic and other conflicts predominanted. After the Second World War, the focus shifted to assimilation politics, National Socialism, the oppression of the Slovene language and the Slovene minority, the Partisan movement and the consequences of this period. These themes were first written about mainly by authors from Slovenia, then by minority writers, and in recent years also by other authors writing in German. While the middle and older generation of Slovene authors in Carinthia continues to write about the war, minority and linguistic issues, most of the younger generation deals with other topics and often chooses to write in German.

Cross-Border Education: Students from Slovenia in Austrian Minority Schools

Abstract The article deals with increasing cross-border education, namely students from Slovenia attending upper-secondary level minority schools in Austrian Carinthia. We conducted interviews with school management and focus groups with students, who also completed a short questionnaire. Based on qualitative and quantitative data, we drew conclusions about the motives of students from Slovenia for enrolment in Slovene minority schools in Austria and about the consequences of their decision – their well-being, their knowledge and use of languages, their plans for the future – as well as in relation to their sense of Europeanness and their varying identities. Cross-border schooling turns out to be a success story. The outcome seems to be particularly favourable for the Slovene minority in Austrian Carinthia as it maintains the scope and quality of minority education, while also having the positive consequence of giving the members of the Slovene minority much greater exposure to the Slovene language, especially spoken language, with which they otherwise have less direct contact.

The Socioeconomic Position of National Minorities with a Special Emphasis on Slovenes in Croatia over the Past Thirty Years

Abstract The article presents the situation of members of the Slovene community in Croatia, focusing on selected aspects of their socioeconomic participation (inclusion) in Croatian society. This topic has not been thoroughly studied yet, firstly due to the low interest of researchers in the position and activities of members of the Slovene community in Croatia, and secondly due to a continuous lack of data on the socioeconomic participation of members of not only the Slovene community but of all minorities in Croatia in general. Based on the analysis of data mainly collected from Croatian official reports, the situation of members of the Slovene minority in Croatia is presented mainly in relation to the exercise of their rights to education and employment.

Scholarship Holders from the Slovene Raba Region – Promoters of the Development of the Slovene National Community in Hungary

Abstract Based on an online survey conducted among scholarship holders from the Slovene Raba Region who studied at higher education institutions in Slovenia, interviews with representatives of minority organisations, professional literature and newspaper reports, the article analyses the role of this group of scholarship holders in the development of the Slovene national community in Hungary. The results confirm the initial assumption that scholarship holders are indeed the promoters of the development of their community. Likewise, the results provide information on the scholarship policy as well as on the efforts of Slovene minority structures to involve young people, including scholarship holders, in their activities. The data also show, among other things, that due to the economic underdevelopment of the border area, the Raba Region is not seen as a promising environment for young people, although the respondents would like it to be so.

Students’ Perceptions of Remote Teaching and Learning: The Slovene Minority in Italy during the Pandemic Period of Covid-19

Abstract During the second quarantine period in Italy (Oct. ‘20–June ‘21), students once again faced a remote teaching and learning format. Much research has been conducted on students’ perceptions during the first pandemic period; however, far less is known about the second period, especially in the case of students within the Slovene minority in Italy. We aimed to investigate (1) students’ satisfaction with their teachers’ teaching methods in remote learning and in-class teaching formats, (2) students’ perceptions regarding the main differences between in-class and online mathematics lessons, and (3) whether students’ grades in mathematics changed as a result of the pandemic. The findings showed that students’ grades during the quarantine period increased compared to their grades before the pandemic. However, students were more satisfied with their teachers’ in-class teaching methods and believed that in-class teaching was more efficient. They were also more motivated and concentrated at school than online.

Three Aspects of Public Activity of the Slovene Community in Italy at the Time of Slovenia’s Independence

Abstract The Slovene community in Italy paid the utmost attention to the events in Slovenia at the time of the declaration of independence in June 1991 and the subsequent attack of the Yugoslav People’s Army. Drawing from newspaper reports, the article focuses on some major public events, charities and youth activities that were the result of cooperative activities of the Slovene community in Italy during the events in Slovenia. Thereby, the Slovene minority tried to influence the decisions of the Italian and European political leaders to intervene in the event of military aggression and support Slovenia’s independence, while also involving the public and successfully encouraging it to participate en masse in public events and charity campaigns to help Slovenia.

Young Slovene Speakers in Italy and Their Attitudes towards the Republic of Slovenia

Abstract On the 30th anniversary of independence of the Republic of Slovenia, the article offers an insight into the basic social and cultural characteristics of the population of young speakers of Slovene in Italy. The authors attempt to define the role that young Slovene speakers in Friuli - Venezia Giulia can play in the common Slovene space and explore their attitudes towards the Republic of Slovenia on an emotional, symbolic and practical level. In doing so, they rely mainly on research conducted over the last fifteen years. They conclude that this population is not fully centred on preserving traditional cultural values and language: it is primarily a population with high human and intellectual potential, which is already an important player in cross-border and other forms of cooperation along the Slovene-Italian border and attaches greater value to multilingualism than to nationality, ethnicity and the development of the Slovene minority in Italy.

Anton Korošec in slovenska manjšina na Primorskem med obema vojnama

In this article, the author presents the role and importance of Anton Korošec between the world wars, in maintaining the national consciousness of Slovene and Croatian minorities in Venezia Giulia. Based on the material from the archive of Engelbert Besednjak, the author presents organized action of the Secret Christian Social Organisation and the activities of the Slovene Clergy from the Primorska region between the world wars. A crucial role in the political and especially material support for the Slovene minority was played by Anton Korošec, who took care of an ongoing funding of anti-fascist and national defence initiatives of the Secret Christian Social Organisation and the Slovene Clergy from the Primorska region. He has also cooperated with Engelbert Besednjak and other representatives of Slovenes from the Primorska region.

Border as Method: Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Border Area between Italy and Slovenia and on the Slovene Minority in Italy

Abstract The first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that the “border as method” (Mezzarda & Neilson) is paradigmatically established and proliferates in the borderland of a nation-state. Analysing the prevailing political, media and public discourse and focusing on the border area between Italy and Slovenia, the article illustrates that borders are not located only on the edges of a territory, but also extend inside and outside such. They are part of broader social processes of border internalisation in the management of population movements. During the pandemic, the tendency to strengthen control of the Schengen border and of the border between Italy and Slovenia gained new impetus. The border was invoked in relation to the risk of infection, thus implying adiaphorisation and exclusion (“We are not Italy!”), and also as the locus that – particularly among the Slovene minority and the people living along the border – raised awareness about the need for empathic, cross-border and European integration in the sense of transcending national borders.

Slavs in Post-Nazi Austria: Carinthian Slovenes and the Politics of Assimilation, 1945–1960 by Robert Knight

Reviewed by: Slavs in Post-Nazi Austria: Carinthian Slovenes and the Politics of Assimilation, 1945–1960 by Robert Knight Florian Gassner Robert Knight, Slavs in Post-Nazi Austria: Carinthian Slovenes and the Politics of Assimilation, 1945–1960. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. 249 pp. Robert Knight’s investigation into “the rise, decline and fall” of an officially multilingual and multicultural Carinthia (6) opens and closes with a reflection on the legacy of Urban Jarnik, a Carinthian Slovene Romantic who in 1826 published a plea for respectful coexistence of Austrians and Slovenes in his home state. Against this backdrop, Slavs in Post-Nazi Austria adopts an elegiac tone as the author traces the at times aggressive push for the assimilation of the Slovene minority. The book highlights two pivotal factors that informed this debate not only in the late 1940s and in the 1950s—the focus [End Page 173] of this study—but also in the preceding decades: Policy regarding the presence of Slovene in public schools and the Windisch population of Carinthia (Carinthians with a Slovene background who, however, over generations had adopted to the culture and language of the German-speaking majority). Knight intends to rectify the notion that assimilation was inevitable for and, in fact, desired by Carinthian Slovenes. Knight is unhappy that this idea was not only disingenuously spread at the time by pro-assimilation politicians and also that subsequent generations of scholars uncritically adopted and thus corroborated this reading of history (119). Slavs in Post-Nazi Austria first discusses the prelude for the crisis of Slovene identity in Carinthia after 1945. An exploration of the proliferation of nationalist thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is followed by a discussion of Slovene Carinthian attitudes toward the First Austrian Republic and the Anschluss of 1938. The Abwehrkampf of 1919, the foundational event in modern Carinthian mythology, receives detailed attention for its effects on the state’s identity politics. Knight subsequently analyzes the reasons for the Slovene minority, and above all the “Windisch” population, to mostly vote for Carinthia to remain Austrian in 1920 and for Austria to unite with Hitler’s Germany in 1938. After 1939, these circumstances provided National Socialist leaders with a powerful pretext to eliminate Slovene identity in Carinthia, seeing as how the affected population had supposedly acknowledged the superiority of Austria’s germanophone culture. A key step towards rapprochement between Germans and Slovenes following Nazi rule was to be the introduction of compulsory bilingual education for all Carinthian pupils (35). Previously, so-called utraquistic schools had accommodated Slovene but as a “transitional medium until German alone could be used as the sole language of instruction” (4). The Slovene minority warmly welcomed the innovation as a first step toward reconciliation. Critics, however, argued that bilingual schools were “the start of the slippery slope to secession” and favored the return to the utraquistic model (50). As Carinthia became a bargaining chip in Cold War politics, minority rights in the mind of the Allies took a back seat to fortifying an Austrian bulwark against Stalinism and Titoism (71). This allowed for the rehabilitation of former national socialists as well as gradually increasing attacks on bilingual schools (72). The proponents of the latter disingenuously argued that parents should allow to choose the language of instruction, knowing full well that [End Page 174] most would opt for germanophone classes to maximize their children’s cultural capital and to avoid being ostracized (76). The pressure to assimilate increased in the late 1940s and in the 1950s, especially in the wake of Carinthia’s 1951 census, which was designed and interpreted to minimize the presence of citizens with a Slovene background, for instance by inflating the categories of “Windisch” speakers (88). The return of Austrian sovereignty in 1955 further emboldened nationalist groups to push back aggressively against Article 7 of the constitution providing protection for the Slovene minority (97). By 1957, “anti-Slovene assumptions had [ . . . ] entered the Austrian mainstream and were presented as self-evident truth” (108). The notion of a second Abwehrkampf in 1958 indeed led to the abolition of compulsory bilingual education and to a “massive assimilatory shift” that would determine the fate of Slovene...

Slovenščina v Beneški Sloveniji in vloga dvojezične šole v Špetru pri medgeneracijskem prenosu jezika: stališča staršev

Članek predstavlja prvi izsek raziskovalnega dela pri ciljnem raziskovalnem projektu Priložnosti in možnosti za ohranjanje oziroma revitalizacijo slovenščine med slovensko manjšinsko skupnostjo v sosednjih državah, namenjenem preučevanju stanja slovenskega jezika v Beneški Sloveniji. V kontekstu globalizacijskih procesov, evropskih integracijskih procesov, ugodnejših in trdnejših zakonskih podlag (t. i. zaščitnega zakona) ter predvsem zaradi prisotnosti dvojezične šole lahko oblikujemo hipotezo, da v Beneški Sloveniji obstajajo ugodne okoliščine za jezikovno revitalizacijo in deasimilacijo mlajših generacij, kar vključuje tudi ponovno učenje slovenščine med generacijami, pri katerih je medgeneracijski prenos jezika zastal. Iz zbranih podatkov je mogoče izluščiti, da je v prejšnji generaciji medgeneracijski prenos jezika pogosto zastal z začetkom šolanja oz. vstopom v vrtec, ki je zaznamoval prehod na italijanski jezik. Tudi zato je dvojezično šolanje za Beneško Slovenijo pomemben dosežek, vendar samo po sebi še ni zadosten pogoj za ohranjanje ali oživitev medgeneracijskega prenosa jezika. Potrebni so še drugi ukrepi jezikovnega načrtovanja in jezikovne politike. Ob tem gre poudariti, da se ti procesi razvijajo v okolju, ki je bolj naklonjeno slovenščini in dvojezičnosti, kot je bilo v preteklosti.

Učenje slovenskega jezika ter stališča dijakov in staršev do slovenščine v Varaždinski in Medžimurski županiji na Hrvaškem

V zadnjih petih letih so se v Varaždinski in Medžimurski županiji uresničile nove možnosti učenja slovenskega jezika v šolah. V prispevku obravnavamo pravne možnosti urejanja položaja slovenščine na Hrvaškem, uresničevanje možnosti učenja slovenščine v Varaždinski in Medžimurski županiji v praksi ter izsledke raziskav, opravljenih med dijaki dveh srednjih šol in njihovimi starši o učenju slovenskega jezika. Izsledki raziskav so med drugim pokazali, da imajo dijaki in starši do učenja slovenskega jezika pozitiven odnos. Znanje slovenščine jim pomeni zlasti večje možnosti za izobraževanje oziroma zaposlitev v Sloveniji. Pokazalo pa se je tudi, da je med učenci slovenskega jezika malo pripadnikov slovenske manjšine.

Collective identity assets for psychological well-being in Slovene minority and Italian majority adolescents in Italy

<B>Background</B><br /> We examined core assets of collective identity for enhanced psychological well-being among hardly investigated Slovene ethnic minority and Italian majority youth in Italy. The Slovene minority is an autochthonous minority living in Italy since the 6th century.<br /> <br /> <B>Participants and procedure</B><br /> We tested a model based on the notion that collective identity derives from familial, ethnic and religious identities as important sources of identification for youth in line with prior work on the salience and relations among these sources. Participants were 114 Slovene and 144 Italian adolescents (aged 14 to 18 years old) living in the North-East of Italy. They filled in standardized measures on ethnic, national, familial and religious identity, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive Affective Schedule.<br /> <B>Results</B><br /> Path models showed that stronger collective identity was related to higher scores of perceived psychological well-being. Interestingly, for the Slovene minority youth, ethnic Slovenian identity was unrelated to collective identity. Overall, among all youth, all identity components loaded into a single factor of collective identity, confirming previous studies with bicultural minority youth.<br /> <br /> <B>Conclusions</B><br /> The findings shed light on the path linking multiple aspects of collective identities together to adolescents’ well-being and are useful in pragmatic terms for improving and facilitating assets of individual and social/collective well-being and functioning of youth.

Bilingualism and Literary (Non-)Translation: The Case of Trieste and Its Hinterland

This article addresses the question of weak translation activity in bilingual settings. It presents an analysis of the situation in the city of Trieste and its surroundings, where a substantial Slovene minority has lived for centuries alongside the Romance-speaking (mainly Italian) population as well as various other smaller ethnic groups. The Italian and the Slovene communities have had different histories and at various points conflicts between them have arisen, sparked by national issues and complicated further by political circumstances. To a large extent, the two ethnic groups have lived parallel lives, often showing only minimal interest in each other’s culture. This has had an impact on literary translation, the output of which has been rather modest until recently, and often even more so on the reception of translated works – in spite of the city’s rich literature in both Italian and Slovene. This article seeks to identify and explore the nature of this translational relationship, taking into account the underlying social, political, cultural, literary, and linguistic factors. It argues that the situation began to change in the early 1990s when the asymmetries between the two ethnic groups started to diminish and the Slovene culture and language gained greater recognition, which in turn opened new prospects for translation.

Linguistic landscapes in Southern Carinthia (Austria)

This paper explores the linguistic landscape (LL) in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia, which is home to an autochthonous Slovene minority. Following several decades of political and legal debate known as the Ortstafelstreit (‘dispute of topographic signs’), recent legislation has strengthened the status of Slovene by requiring municipalities with a considerable Slovene population to set up bilingual German-Slovene topographic signs marking their municipal boundaries. However, this is juxtaposed with a longstanding decline in use of the Slovene language amongst the autochthonous Slovene population. This qualitative analysis of the LL of three frames, the civic, the commercial and the church, shows a heterogeneous picture, but one that is generally strongly skewed towards monolingual German. It suggests that Slovene is assigned a comparatively low sociosymbolic value. This can be, at least in part, attributed to the selective manner in which municipalities are awarded legal bilingual status, leading to a lack of linguistic cohesion in the area and its LL. A marked exception to this is the church frame, whose LL is characterised by a relatively balanced use of both German and Slovene.

Recent demographic trends in the northern borderland between Italy and Slovenia: Stabilization or further redistribution of population?

AbstractThe contribution presents findings from the research on a constitution of new ethnic identities in Alps-Adriatic region. The key question dealt here with was to which extent the recent demographical processes impact the peripheral, mountainous, and ethnically specific cross-border region between Slovenia and Italy. In lay and professional discourse there is still omnipresent mentality of extinguishing Slovene minority in Italy. Applying various demographical methods the article resolves the demographical processes and quantifies the extent of the local Slovene speakers. The author argues that the recent demographical processes of heavy depopulation tend to stabilize towards stagnation. Depopulation is stronger in the Slovenian part of the region, though the traditional Slovene-speaking areas in Italy aren’t as threatened as the adjacent Friulian areas. New migration trends along with the generally low fertility contribute to changes in traditional dualistic structure and bring refreshment to remote parts of the border region as well.

Bilingual education in the ethnically mixed areas along the Slovene–Italian border

The paper focuses on education language policy in Slovene Istria and of Slovenia in Italy. On both sides of the Slovene‐Italian border there is an ethnically mixed population of Italians and Slovenes, an Italian minority in Slovenia, and a Slovene minority in Italy. On both sides of the border apparently similar systems of bilingual education have been developed: schools with the minority language as the language of instruction. The authors discuss some data from a study performed in the period from 2006–2008 among eighth‐grade pupils of primary schools along the Slovene–Italian border where the two different socio‐ethnic groups are in close contact. Pupils on both sides of the border were tested to establish their levels of knowledge of the Slovene language (as L1 and L2), and of Italian (as L1 and L2). The conclusion includes suggestions regarding the extent of the need to upgrade bilingual educational models applied in these mixed border areas in accordance with the goals of minority preservation, protection and development as an added value of bilingual environments.

10 October Commemorations in Carinthia: Promoting Unity or Division?

10 October is a major referent of cultural memory and regional identity in Austria's southernmost province, Carinthia. The region is home to both Slovene-speaking and German-speaking communities and has a long history of interethnic conflict. This article sets out to examine the origins and development of the annual 10 October commemorations, discussing the extent to which these activities contribute to a sense of unity or division in the province. Contemporary commemorations are afforded particular attention and are found to be essentially “exclusive” of the Slovene minority, despite recent efforts to make the commemorations more conciliatory. The fact of a shared cultural space has not yet translated into the true sense of the word “shared”; 10 October does little to promote a sense of unity in the province.