POWER OF REMEMBRANCE, SUPREMACY OF OBLIVION.
The History of the ‘National Monuments’ in Ljubljana
In his article, the author investigates the history of the so-called national monuments in Ljubljana. He depicts how the monuments celebrating important historical figures were raised, describes what their role was and follows their fortunes. While the 19th century monuments dedicated to famous writers and poets mostly survive to this day, those celebrating different rulers and symbolizing political systems usually don’t. In today’s Ljubljana, for example, not one public monument testifies to Slovenia’s historical links with Austria or Yugoslavia.
BARLEY GRUEL FROM ŽABJEK
The article presents a range of documents on the confiscations of the first Slovene satirical bulletin Brencelj (The Horsefly, 1869-1875, 1877-1886) and the jury trials of the proceedings brought against its editor Jakob Alešovec (1842-1901). At the end of 1871 Alešovec was sentenced to two months of imprisonment in the Žabjek Remand Prison in Ljubljana. In memory of the sentence he served, Alešovec published the booklet Barley Gruel from Žabjek in 1873. In his satirical texts and caricatures, Alešovec often made comments on public prosecutors, police censorship and the various bans put on the Brencelj.
CINEMA THEATRE AS A MILLSTONE
In his article, the author describes the responses to the cinema presentations of the so-called risqué films in Slovenia at the turn of the 20th century. The first part of the article deals with the first presentations of such footage at the end of the 19th century, which was released by Johann Bläser, the owner of a travelling cinema, while the second part of the article focuses on the time before and during the First World War, when cinema theatres had already become quite widespread. In this period, these racy films attracted the attention of the bishop of Ljubljana, Anton Bonaventura Jeglič. The article is based on the newspaper coverage of the topic and the documents of the bishop Anton Bonaventura Jeglič, kept in the Archbishopric Archive of Ljubljana, as well as on the bishop’s diary, a transcript/copy of which is kept in the Archives of Slovenia.
»HE WAS WONT TO EAT VERY LITTLE AND TO DRINK MUCH MORE.«
Ivan Cankar, Slovene Bohemian – A Contribution to the History of Bohemianism in Slovenia
The article presents what the author believes to be the far too hushed-up everyday life of Ivan Cankar, one of the most important Slovene writers. To begin with, the author makes a firm statement that Cankar was a bohemian, since his contemporaries called him that, and he himself even compared his life in Vienna to the life of the »bohemians of Paris«. Since bohemianism as a way of life was a characteristic feature of society throughout Europe in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, the author gives a general picture of the phenomenon in the first part of his article, followed by a look at how Cankar fitted into this frame.
THE CARNIOLAN SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANIMALS 1902- 1915
Throughout history, humans have been closely connected to animals. Already in the most distant past, animals were the subject of our material needs for food and clothing. From the time when people tamed animals onwards, they have also used them for work, transport, curative purposes and entertainment. Together with the development of the human race and culture, the general relationship towards animals has also changed.
The first calls for better living conditions for animals appeared in England, where agitation for a more humane treatment of animals was also the strongest. The concept of the need to protect animals reached Slovenia a bit later. In July 1845, the Gorica Society against the Torture of Animals began to operate. It was the first society of its kind in the Austrian Monarchy. The ideas of the Society also found support in the Carniolan Farmers’ Association. A general rise in moral standards, including the principle of the humane treatment of animals, can be seen in the books on morals and good manners published at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Such endeavours were further strengthened by the Carniolan Society for the Protection of Animals, established in 1902, which, as the name itself reveals, fought not only against the torture of animals, but also for their protection.
DEATH AND SELF-PROMOTION
The Cemetery as Medium of Middle Class Representation during the Kulturkampf in Dornbirn
Constructing representative monuments with corresponding legends the cemetery was for the middle classes a place to show wealth, power and taste to the public. In Dornbirn the prerequisite for this habitus was the erection of so-called camposanti, rectangular cemeteries surrounded with arcades. Just as important was the decision of the municipal council to sell the burial-places under the arcades to rich citizens, who founded there family-tombs.
The Kulturkampf did not stop outside the gates of the cemeteries and brought politics inside the consecrated area. Although the liberal dominated municipal council negotiated together with ecclesiastical representatives regulations for the cemeteries, the conservative papers attacked this attempt of co-operation.
So the cemeteries in Dornbirn mean more than just the amount of their graves. Actually they are apart of their function as places for funerals symbols: a symbol for the aspiring middle classes, who created representative monuments on this place of eternal remembrance as well as a symbol for the argument between the secularised state with his liberal government and the more and more political and social relevance loosing catholic church.
“IT IS NOW EVIDENT TO THE PUBLIC THAT PALČEK IS A RUFFIAN, CAPABLE OF ANYTHING”
Some documents on Ivan Laubič, alias “Palček” – the last postwar “bandit”
Founding his narrative on archival sources, the author describes the fate of Ivan Laubič – alias Palček (i.e. “The Dwarf”). After WWII, a number of terrorist groups who fought against the new regime were active on the territory of Slovenia. The leader of one such group, which operated in the Celje region, was a former Partisan by name of Ivan Laubič, alias Palček. Palček and his group began with their tactics of attack and robbery in 1947. The group was broken up that very same year though, and Palček remained in hiding from the authorities until 1950, when he founded a new group and was captured and sentenced to death.