The southern part of the Austrian state of Carinthia has a long history of language contact between Slovene and German. Since the beginning of the 19th century a decrease in bilingualism and the use ...of Slovene has been taking place which has accelerated in the last few decades. This contribution analyzes this transformation and in particular the influence of local and regional factors on the development of bilingualism in Carinthia. A multi-methodological approach is adopted, combining data from two different sources: (1) cemeteries and gravestones as public witnesses of language use and markers of (self-)identification, and (2) data on language use from the census and other (parish language, language in schools) for a quantitative analysis. Using this approach, data from two case studies is discussed in detail: two villages/parishes with similar initial conditions (high percentage of Slovene in 1880) but different outcomes. In one case, bilingualism is preserved (albeit on a low level); in the other, the bilingual reality of the past has been transformed into a monolingual German one. Such differences can be attributed to general political developments regarding the status of Slovene in Austria, but also to local factors such as the presence of a Slovene cultural association. Our analyses further show the political character of census data, which has little overlap with actual language usage, but depicts attitudes towards bilingualism and Slovene. Cemeteries, on the other hand, bear witness to the Slovene past long after “active” bilingualism has disappeared.
Contemporary discussions often focus on questions such as What is Slovene literature and Who can be considered a Slovene writer. This shows that literature is one of the central fields of discourse ...related to topics including the understanding and definition of the Slovene nation and questions concerning national minorities. The authors discuss the functionality, practical value and arbitrariness of concepts such as the common Slovene cultural space, “matična” (kin-state literature) and “zamejska literatura” (literature of Slovenes living in neighbouring countries), minority literature, the supra-regional sphere of interaction, and literary affiliation. On the example of Carinthian Slovenes’ literature and with due consideration of contemporary literary multilingualism in Slovenia, the authors show that the common ethnic, identity and lingo-cultural discourses are highly problematical and do not reflect the diversity of contemporary literary practices.
Südkärnten/Južna Koroška vollzog in den ungefähr letzten 100 Jahren einen ethnischen und sprachlichen Wandel. Die slowenische Sprache ist in der Kulturlandschaft zwar nach wie vor präsent, doch hat ...sie in weiten Teilen die Rolle einer vielverstandenen und vielgesprochen Umgangssprache eingebüßt. Der sich verändernde Stellenwert der slowenischen Sprache wird in diesem Beitrag anhand der Südkärntner Erinnerungskultur unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erinnerungszeichen des Totengedenkens untersucht (Friedhöfe und Grabsteine sowie Kriegerdenkmäler). Diese Erinnerungskultur, die auch als Sepulkralkultur bezeichnet werden kann, ist v.a. von den Gewalterfahrungen des 20. Jahrhunderts und der schwindenden Bedeutung der slowenischen Sprache geprägt.
Sodobne razprave - od diskusije prešernovske strukture do vprašanja, kaj je slovenska literatura oziroma literatura na Slovenskem in kdo je lahko slovenski avtor - ponazarjajo, da je vprašanje ...literature eno izmed osrednjih diskurzivnih polj, ki se neposredno dotikajo tako problematike pojmovanja in opredeljevanja slovenske nacije kot tudi vprašanja narodnostnih manjšin. Avtorja osvetljujeta funkcionalnost, uporabnost in arbitrarnost konceptov, kot so skupni slovenski kulturni prostor, matična in zamejska književnost, manjšinska književnost, nadregionalni literarni interakcijski prostor in literarna pripadnost. Na primeru sodobne literature koroških Slovencev in z ozirom na literarno večjezičnost v današnji Sloveniji opozarjata na problematičnost etničnih, identitetnih in jezikovno-kulturnih opredelitev in oznak, ki ne odslikavajo raznolikosti sodobnih literarnih praks.
During the time of National Socialism, the Slovenes in Carinthia/Koroška were persecuted. The present study examines the transmission of transgenerational trauma in Carinthian Slovenes. Qualitative ...problem-centred interviews were conducted with second generation Carinthian Slovenes and analysed with psychoanalytic text interpretation. Even though there were no indications of trauma disorders in the present sample, there was clear evidence of mental burden linked to many of the respondents’ family histories. The familial past was often experienced as a burden. The experiences of the first generation seemed to have a significant impact on the second generation. The study holds important implications for the psychotherapeutic treatment of the offspring of Holocaust survivors and highlights the societal responsibility to acknowledge the trauma of oppression and persecution.
The article presents the political participation of the Slovene minority in Carinthia from the plebiscite of 1920 until the present. The changed electoral franchise agreed by the ruling parties in ...Carinthia in the 1970s blocked attempts of the minority to be incorporated adequately in a broader political sphere. The political actors of the minority followed two strategies: one of building up their own political structures in local parties and one of joining Austrian and Carinthian mainstream parties. This paper gives a brief overview of the minority's struggle for self-governance and political participation. It introduces the organisational structure of the minority and its opportunities for political participation. Its aim is to deal with the question of which factors led to political differentiation and how to assess this.
The article, a revised version of a lecture given at the Institute for Ethnic Studies in Ljubljana, discusses the domestic and international dimensions of minority politics in postNazi Carinthia. ...Based on archival research in Britain, Austria and Slovenia (Yugoslavia) it argues that despite Austria's transition from National Socialist rule to post-war democracy there was evidence of a basic continuity in the stigmatisation (and self-stigmatisation) of the Slovene minority. This continuity largely explains why Carinthian politics moved in an increasingly anti-Slovene direction in the 1950s, leading in 1958 to the demolition of the bilingual school system which had been introduced in 1945. The international dimension, Yugoslavia's territorial claim, the policies of the West and the Cold War are also discussed but the article argues that they were secondary to the dynamics of provincial politics.
In 1939, agents of the D Section of British Secret Service M16 started to build a secret sabotage and intelligence organization in Yugoslavia directed against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The ...article identifies various actors of the network who developed crossborder links into Italy as well as into former Austria. The focus lies on two types of activist: German intellectuals in Yugoslavia and actors from the Slovene- and German-speaking mixed populations in the borderland of former Austria, Slovenia and Italy. In contesting older national historical interpretations, the set up is characterized as a transnational subversive network aiming at the transfer of spirit, knowledge and techniques of Anti-German resistance. Furthermore, the article analyses the proceedings of a German trial in 1941 which reconstructed the network as a communist endeavour lead by British Jews. The article concludes by investigating how the executions of members of the sabotage organisation had been dealt with in Austria after 1945.
