“Like Antigone, we Tossed Some Soil.” Myth of Antigone in Slovene Emigrant Literature

Matic Kocijančič

»Kot “Like Antigone, we Tossed Some Soil.” Myth of Antigone in Slovene Emigrant Literature

Key words: the Antigone myth, emigrant literature, Slovenes in Argentina, Tine Debeljak, Karel Mauser, Ruda Jurčec, Kajetan Gantar

Abstract:
In the 1980s, a strong connection was established in Slovene social discourse between the myth of Antigone and the post-World War II massacres in the Slovene lands. While Tine Hribar was the first to explicitly thematize this connection in philosophy, it has its literary roots in Dominik Smole’s Antigona. Even before 1975 – when the post-war massacres were initially addressed by Edvard Kocbek in his famous Trieste interview conducted by Boris Pahor and Alojz Rebula – the myth of Antigone and the fratricidal conflicts in Slovenia were also intertwined in Nada Gaborovič’s novella Antigone of the North (Antigona s severa). This paper demonstrates that the emigrant reception of this connection – in particular the Argentine-Slovene one – in many respects significantly complemented and even anticipated its development in Slovenia itself. A key role in this was played by Tine Debeljak, who in The Great Black Mass for the Slain Slovenes (Velika črna masa za pobite Slovence) linked the Antigone myth with the massacres as early as the end of the 1940s, while important thematizations of the myth can also be found in works by Karel Mauser and Ruda Jurčec.

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