Martin Kačur Cankar, Ivan; Cox, John K
03/2009
eBook
The novel Martin Kačur, which dates from 1907, tells the engrossing story of a young schoolteacher who moves from one provincial Slovene town to the next, trying to enlighten his countrymen and ...countrywomen but instead receiving only the mistrust and scorn of the traditional-minded and petty population. The novel is ruthless in its analysis and self-analysis of the failure of this abstract idealist.
Martin Kacur Cankar, Ivan; Cox, John K
03/2009
eBook
The novel Martin Kacur, which dates from 1907, tells the engrossing story of a young schoolteacher who moves from one provincial Slovene town to the next, trying to enlighten his countrymen and ...countrywomen but instead receiving only the mistrust and scorn of the traditional-minded and petty population. The novel is ruthless in its analysis and self-analysis of the failure of this abstract idealist.Brilliant descriptions of Slovenia's natural beauty alternate with the haze of alcoholic despair, rural violence, marital alienation, and the death of a young and beloved child. The Slovene prose writer, poet, and dramatist Cankar's characterizations of duplicitous political and religious leaders (the village priest, the mayor, other teachers, doctors, etc.) and the treacherous social scene are remarkable in their engaging clarity. No doubt the raw emotional impact of Martin Kacur derives partly from Cankar's portrayal of the way society isolates people, denying them sympathy and solidarity. Cankar's style here owes a debt both to naturalism and to symbolism and contains, in its sometimes frantic pace and associative interior monologues, hints of early expressionism.
Title: Slovenci inJugoslovani (The Slovenes and the Yugoslavs) Originally published: a lecture at the social-democratic society Vzajemnost, 12 April, 1913, published in the social democrat’bulletin, ...Zarja, 15–17 April, 1913 Language: SloveneThe excerpts used are from Ivan Cankar, Izbrana dela (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1973), pp. 314–326. About the author Ivan Cankar 1876, Vrhnika (Ger. Laibach Altober, present-day Slovenia) -1918, Ljubljana (Ger. Laibach): story writer, playwright, poet...
CHAPTER ONE Ivan Cankar
Martin Kačur,
03/2009
Book Chapter
Mudstained and damp with dew, Martin Kačur walked into the small restaurant attached to the post courier’s station.
“Does the coach to Zapolje leave soon?”
“Yes, soon! In half an hour,” answered the ...sleepyeyed tavern-keeper.
Kačur took a seat at the table and ordered brandy and bread. He tossed the large bundle from his thick staff onto the bench.
His ruddy, robust face brimmed with the freshness of an autumn morning, as did his moist, merry eyes. He already had a lengthy pilgrimage behind him, two tough hours; and a whiff of pungent fog and black dawn still clung to
CHAPTER THREE Ivan Cankar
Martin Kačur,
03/2009
Book Chapter
Kačur was making his way to the conference room when his colleague, the teacher Ferjan, came up behind him on the stairs and grabbed his coat.
“Hang on a second!—If you don’t want them to totally ...wring your neck in there, take my advice: be submissive, bow, and say yes, even if they offer to lynch you. These scoundrels can handle anything save pride or protest. Be humble and repentant, and smile, and by evening you’ll have incited all Zapolje to rebellion, if sedition is such a big deal to you. Of me they say I am a drinker
CHAPTER THREE Ivan Cankar
Martin Kačur,
03/2009
Book Chapter
It was fall and Blatni Dol already lay in darkness and frost. Gray, unwelcoming light penetrated the room.
The child slept in a crib. His face was round, bright, and at peace.
“Don’t yell like that ...when the child is asleep!” Kačur hissed. “Wait till he’s awake. Then you can shout as much as you want!”
The woman’s face was flushed and streaked with tears.
“So I’m not supposed to shout? I nurse the child, change his diapers, and get up with him at night! But what do you do for him? You don’t lift a finger! And now you
Introduction Ivan Cankar
Martin Kačur,
03/2009
Book Chapter
The Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949) asserted in her long essay on the history of Antigua that “all masters of every stripe are rubbish, and all slaves of every stripe are noble and ...exalted.”¹ Josip Vidmar, a major literary historian and once the President of the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences, declared that Ivan Cankar, in a radically different setting, held analogous views: “whoever is a victim is pure and exalted” and it is the “‘humiliated and outraged’ of this world” who are “spiritually close to his heart” and receive his “proud melancholy love.”² This notion certainly captures
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