Slovene Literature

Slovene literature refers to the body of works written in the Slovene, or Slovenian, language, the first written and most diverse Slavic language. While Slovene literature covers all literary genres, historical fiction has been its most frequent and influential form. Most historical narratives revolved around a hero of distinct Slovene nationality.

Historical topics eventually were replaced by contemporary social themes as Romanticism gave way to Realism. The Romantic Era nineteenth-century epic poetry of France Prešeren (1800-1849), the leading author in the Slovene literary catalogue, inspired nearly all of the Slovene literature that followed.

Literature as a whole has been critical to the development and preservation of the Slovene identity because the nation was without its own state until the Republic of Slovenia emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. Poetry, narrative prose, drama, essay, and criticism kept the Slovene language and culture alive during the years before freedom was achieved and allowed Slovenia to become a powerful nation even while it lacked true political authority.

Background

Slovenia is a coastal Alpine country between Eastern and Western Europe that is not known for its literary history; yet literature had a powerful role in its general history because it served as a national unifier until sovereignty from Yugoslavia was accomplished.

In the early nineteenth century, epic poetry was the first genre to draw on historiographical sources. After 1850, novels and tales took on historical topics such as Christianization, feudal quarrels, Turkish raids, peasant rebellions, the Reformation, and the Napoleonic Wars. Ballads and plays were similarly aligned.

Familiarity with the country’s preoccupations regarding identity, pride, and resistance are necessary to understand its literature. For generations of Slovenes, books provided support and meaning during a time of difficult international relations and censorship. Novels were often as essential as food.

The earliest Slovene texts are religious treatises dating from about 1000 CE. Protestant Reformation figures published the first printed Slovene books, including a translation of the Bible, in the sixteenth century, and a flurry of Protestant writing followed in the seventeenth century. The specific Slovene ethnic identity also dates from the sixteenth century, when the preacher Primoz Trubar and his followers wrote and published the first books in Slovene. From those books emerged a specific Slovene language.

Book publishing continued during the Counter-Reformation and Enlightenment, which also deepened interest in the Slovene language and national identity.

Slovenes did not start writing in earnest until the nineteenth century, when poets, Romantic novelists, and playwrights began to form a national literary identity. Slovene literature blossomed during the Romantic period and reached its first peak with Prešeren’s poetry.

The two World Wars dramatically altered the landscape of Slovenia and ultimately affected the future course of its literature. World War I (1914–1918) claimed the lives of many Slovenes. Hundreds of thousands were drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army, and casualties exceeded thirty thousand. After World War I, the defeated Austria-Hungary empire was broken up. Slovenia declared itself independent and joined Montenegro, Serbia, and Croatia on Dec. 4, 1918, to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1929, the name was changed to Yugoslavia.

When World War II (1939–1945) began, Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia, and Slovenia was divided among the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Hungary. The Slovenes fought back in a guerrilla war against the Axis powers. Some Slovenes collaborated with the Nazis, but most fought against Germany. An estimated thirty thousand partisan fighters and about eight percent of Slovene civilians died.

World War II did the country’s writers no favors because when the Axis powers divided the country, they banned citizens from speaking their native tongue. Not until sovereignty was achieved was the language allowed to flourish anew. Slovene writers previously had been among the foremost influencers of social and political change in the 1980s, but the sovereignty of the 1990s meant they—and literature itself—would lose that central role.

Overview

Slovene literature during the second half of the nineteenth century was dominated by the post-Romantic and realistic writings of well-known authors such as journalist Josip Jurčič. Jurčič (1844–1881), one of the most influential Slovene realists, wrote the first Slovene novel, Deseti Brat (The Tenth Brother), published in 1866. The novel portrays the life of a young scholar after he moves to a castle for a teaching position and family drama follows.

The most translated Slovene authors are Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), also one of the most prominent Slovene novelists, and Ela Peroci (1922–2001), whose children’s books are among the most popular in Slovenia. Cankar’s work mostly portrays the unfavorable circumstances surrounding lower- and middle-class life. In The Ward of Our Lady of Mercy (1904), he describes the unfortunate life of young girls living in a hospital for the terminally ill. Peroci’s most beloved picture book, Slipper Keeper Kitty (1957) tells the story of messy children who cannot find their slippers in the morning. They set off on a woodsy adventure to search for Slipper Cat, who is believed to come at night and remove the slippers of untidy children. The book has been reprinted thirty times since its first publication in 1957. The story was made into an animated film in 2024.

Vladimir Bartol (1903–1967) has the book that has been translated into the most languages, Alamut (1938), which is set in the Middle East amid a fake paradise a fortressed ruler creates to control the young warriors he transports there. The men wake up in a harem of beautiful women and believe their ruler is so close to God that he can grant entrance to paradise to anyone. After the enthralling experience, the men are sent off to fight. Some die, while others learn the truth.

Goran Vojnović (1980–) is one of the most prolific Slovene authors of the present day. The author of at least three best-selling novels is also a screenwriter, director, and columnist for one of Slovenia’s biggest newspapers. His famous Čefurji Raus (Southerners Go Home) tells the story of a rebellious teenager and son of Bosnian immigrants as it portrays typical life stories of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and their children. After its publication in 2008, it became an instant bestseller and has been translated into multiple languages. It was also the subject of a film adaptation in 2013.

Poetry has also long been popular throughout Slovenia. Prešeren is considered Slovenia’s most dominant poet. Poems, first published in 1846, is his own selection of his best work. His unrequited love for the woman he longed for until his death inspired most of his writing. A verse of Prešeren’s A Toast was chosen for the lyrics of Slovenia’s national anthem after the country declared independence in 1991

Katja Perat is one of the most prominent young poets in Slovenia. Her debut book of poetry, Najboljši So Padli (The Best Have Fallen), published in 2011, garnered an award for best first published author at the Slovenian Book Fair, and the Slovenian Literary Critics’ Association named it best book of the year. Her second book, Davek Na Dodano Vrednost (Value-Added Tax), also received several award nominations and established her as one of the country’s best contemporary poets.

Svetlana Makarovič (1939–) is one of the most versatile Slovene authors, having written at least three hundred literary works, ranging from children’s books to poetry. She published her first poetry book in 1964. Slovenia’s political conflict and upheaval have factored heavily into its literature. Drago Jančar (1948–), among the most read Slovene authors of the twentieth century, was jailed in the former Yugoslavia for his anti-regime activities, and his captivity inspired much of his work, which abounds with reflections on repressive institutions and the Yugoslav war.

Boris Pahor (1913–2022) often described Slovene minorities in Italy. He was awarded the order of the Legion of Honour in France and the Cross of Honour for Science and Art by the Austrian government. His Pilgrim Among the Shadows (1995) captured his memories of fourteen months in a concentration camp. He wrote the book after revisiting the camp in 1966 and beginning to relive the horrors of life there.

Political struggle also has influenced Karel Destovnik Kajuh (1922–1944), a representative of Slovene partisan resistance literature. His poetry, with its social, political, and love themes, boosted the morale of partisans and helped recruit new resistance members. An army attack took his life before he turned twenty-two, and in 1953 he was declared a national hero of Yugoslavia.

Slavko Grum (1901–1949) was a doctor and playwright, and his works represent the peak of Slovene Expressionism in literature. His An Event in the Town of Goga describes town life as a terrible dream. Residents torture each other while waiting for the “event,” though they do not know what the “event” is or when or if it actually will happen.

Contemporary Slovene literature also has ventured into experimental territory. Bojan Meserko tested those waters with 69; A Ti O Tem Pojma Nimaš (69; But You Have No Idea of It), a non-linear reading gambit involving sixty-nine unnumbered pages with text facing up and down. Readers can turn and mix pages as they desire. The book has infinite combinations of coherent text, but the general storyline follows a man and his thoughts on village life.

Many contemporary authors consider the novel The Newcomers by Lojze Kovačič one of the best Slovene novels. It is a dense and difficult autobiographical work that recounts how the author and his family moved from Basel, Switzerland, to Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital and largest city. The work (in three books) was published in Slovene in the 1980s and has been considered a literary masterpiece of the twentieth century since. The Los Angeles Review of Books described The Newcomers as “The Great Slovenian Novel.”

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