The study analyzes the spatial fragmentation in the Slovenian settlement area in Italy and highlights assimilation and demographic processes that exert influence on the Slovenian-speaking minority. ...The work builds on the current status of research and is based on official data, their evaluation through qualitative investigations as well as on further results of own research on site. The Slovenian-language population in Friuli Venezia Giulia is currently estimated at about 46,000 people. The main settlement area is the eastern border zone of this region, which is characterized by different cultural and regional identities. While the Slovenian-speaking population of Friuli (Val Canale and Slavia) focuses more on its cultural and regional distinctions, the majority of the Slovenian-language group in Venezia Giulia considers itself a “national minority.” Thus, the overall assessment of the possible future of the Slovenian-language group varies thus from region to region.
Why is memory politics such a contested field? Why is it so hard to change narratives, overcome enemy images, and draw "objective" pictures of the past? In what way can works of art break the ice and ...promote "dangerous memories" (Bekerman/Zembylas 2012, 22)? How can works of art, and especially literature, use their aesthetic potential to help achieve attitude changes?
In this paper, I examine these questions through the lens of literary criticism. I focus on Maja Haderlap's novel Angel of Oblivion in order to illustrate several typical features of (not just) Austria's memory politics after World War II: on the one hand, Austria's claim as Hitler's first victim; the depreciation of the (Slovenian) anti-fascist partisans; the relativization of Nazi crimes by pointing at the (real or fictional) crimes of Yugoslav communists, and as a consequence the denial of the minority rights of Carinthian (and Styrian) Slovenians. And on the other hand, the struggle for a democratic and honest memory culture - not only within Austria's borders but beyond, in the entire "Alps-Adriatic" region. Haderlap's book is itself a wonderful example of the success of this ongoing endeavour.
Background
We examined core assets of collective identity for enhanced psychological well-being among hardly investigated Slovene ethnic minority and Italian majority youth in Italy. The Slovene ...minority is an autochthonous minority living in Italy since the 6th century.
Participants and procedure
We tested a model based on the notion that collective identity derives from familial, ethnic and religious identities as important sources of identification for youth in line with prior work on the salience and relations among these sources. Participants were 114 Slovene and 144 Italian adolescents (aged 14 to 18 years old) living in the North-East of Italy. They filled in standardized measures on ethnic, national, familial and religious identity, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive Affective Schedule.
Results
Path models showed that stronger collective identity was related to higher scores of perceived psychological well-being. Interestingly, for the Slovene minority youth, ethnic Slovenian identity was unrelated to collective identity. Overall, among all youth, all identity components loaded into a single factor of collective identity, confirming previous studies with bicultural minority youth.
Conclusions
The findings shed light on the path linking multiple aspects of collective identities together to adolescents’ well-being and are useful in pragmatic terms for improving and facilitating assets of individual and social/collective well-being and functioning of youth.
This paper analyses Engel des Vergessens by Maja Haderlap, an autobiographical narrative on formation in a traumatized Slovene family in Carinthia. In the family narrative spanning over three ...generations the political and national conflicts are presented on intimate and emotional level to reveal the supressed cultural memory of the Slovene minority, particularly its original trauma, the resistance to Nazism, by which the sliding into social and cultural second-class status and extinction began. By means of exceptional sensitivity, palpability, and poetic language, a sign of faithfulness and pride of the oppressed ones, the author has succeeded to present the peripheral Slovene culture as central to contemporary intercultural dialogue between the co-existing nations.
Članak je napisan kao odgovor na tekst Pamele Ballinger o maritimnim muzejima na sjeveru Jadranskoga mora. Temelji se na autoričinu poznavanju muzeja i mjesta koja su razmatrana u navedenome tekstu, ...na poznavanju okolnosti u kojima su ti muzeji nastali i širega povijesnoga konteksta u kojemu se zbivao cijeli proces. Autorica smatra da je Pamela Ballinger nedovoljno upoznata s tom regijom, kao i s relevantnim publikacijama o njoj iz područja društvenih znanosti. Pretpostavlja se da je Ballinger napisala svoj tekst na temelju nedovoljno argumentirane teze da muzeji koji pomažu očuvati i predstaviti kulturno naslijeđe ljudi u Tršćanskome zaljevu, a koji ne skrivaju svoj slovenski identitet, izgrađuju zidove među kulturama. Svojim pristranim tvrdnjama o njihovim vezama s nacionalističkim presizanjima nad morem i nad kopnom Ballinger se udaljila od znanstvene korektnosti.
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