ON THE TRAIL OF THE HISTORICAL DRACULA, VLAD ŢEPEŞ, PRINCE OF ROMANIA
Vlad Dracula, also called Ţepeş (Cepeš), occupied the throne of Walachia, one of three Romanian provinces, in three different periods: in 1448, from 1456 to 1462, and in 1476. In German, Turkish, Byzantine, and Slavic (Russian) documents he was described as an extremely cruel ruler. Apart from his famous campaigns against the Ottomans, Dracula was particularly well known for the amount of blood he shed. He chose his victims not only from amongst the Turks, but also amongst his native Romanians, the Germans, Hungarians, and Romanies. His favourite method of torture and execution was impalement. The Turks therefore called him Kaziklu-beg i.e. the prince who impales on a stake.
Already in his lifetime, the name and personality of Vlad Ţepeş were shrouded in a veil of myths and legends. While Byzantine and Russian documents speak of him as a brave warrior who fought against the Ottoman infidels, and a wise and just ruler, the German leaflets talk about: »a vicious and bloodthirsty prince, called Dracula, who committed such un-Christian deeds as the killing of people by impalement, cutting them into pieces, cooking live mothers and their children, and forcing his victims to engage in cannibalism.«
»DO FEMALE TEACHERS REALLY MERIT EQUAL WAGES TO THE MALE TEACHERS’?«
Formally, the national law on primary schools, adopted on 14th May 1869, enforced equality between male and female teachers, but in reality the latter earned less. Female teachers in Carinthia and in the Gorizia and Gradiščansko regions received 80% salaries from 1870 onwards; in Styria 80% salaries for women were legalised on 1st January 1872, and in Carniola at the end of 1872. The Styrian Provincial Assembly adopted a decree on equal wages for male and female teachers at the end of 1873, and the Carniolan Provincial Assembly adopted a similar decree in 1875. The »arguments« put forward by the opponents of equal wages for both sexes did not change throughout the following decades. In 1897, when the Slovene Teachers’ Society proposed in a special memorandum that female teachers should receive lower salaries than their male colleagues, the Slovene female teachers established their own society, with the help of which they fought for their rights.
THE STRUGGLE OF CRAFTSMEN AGAINST THE COMPETITION OF FORCED LABOUR
In the waves of industrialisation during the second half of the 19th century, craftsmanship underwent far-reaching changes. Unlike the other craftsmen in the Slovene lands, the craftsmen of Ljubljana mostly complained about the competition offered them by the craftwork of prisoners in forced labour workshops and prisons. At that time, though, forced labour was considered the most important means of correction for various »labour shirking« marginal groups. This basic opposition between the economical interests of the craftsmen and the public interest of ensuring correctional means for prisoners could only be solved by limiting forced labour to those branches of the economy in which it did not offer any direct competition to the craftsmen.
THE MAN WAS WITHOUT DOUBT UTTERLY TACTLESS
The alleged persecution in Carniola of civil servants who supported the Constitution
The author describes a case, which, regardless of its trivial nature, attracted much public attention as it caused heated Parliamentary debates and newspaper polemics. In spring of 1886, the national MP Tomaszczuk presented Winkler’s decree in the Vienna Parliament, which, in his opinion, proved (in addition to a number of other accusations) that the government (and in particular the provincial president Winkler) were suppressing the Germans of Carniola. According to Tomaszczuk, the decree implemented »inquisitional« methods by forcing all civil servants who supported the Constitution to express their personal opinions on government policy, i.e. forcing them to reply in writing to very specific questions on the matter. The Slovenes refuted the accusations, arguing that that there were only three civil servants in question, who were never sacked, the intent of the entire investigation having been only to drop them a hint to curb themselves and not to proclaim their anti-government opinions publicly. At the same time, the Slovenes also exposed the mistakes of the former German-Liberal government, which had implemented punitive transfers of Slovene civil servants to the remotest parts of the Monarchy on no solid grounds.
JEGLIČ’S CONCERN FOR THE NATION AND ITS MORALITY
In his article, the author deals with an incident caused by Anton Bonaventura Jeglič, the Bishop of Ljubljana, who already in the first year of his service, spurred by his concern for the people and their morality, bought up the greater part of all copies of Cankar’s collection of poems »Erotika« upon publication of the book and burnt them all. The author describes the responses to this deed in the society of late 19th century Slovenia and tries to shed light on what motivated the Bishop to take such drastic action. The article is based on archival sources, i.e. Jeglič’s diary, kept in the form of a transcript in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, and the fond of Anton Bonaventura Jeglič, kept in the Archbishopric Archive in Ljubljana.