A FETISH OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

written by ALEX DEVETAK

Slovenian literature in Italy is created in a space where language is both an everyday tool and a symbol that connects the community. Language and literature here are never merely aesthetic phenomena. It is true that literature, like any art, is never merely aesthetic, as it is always also social and political; but in border areas or in every minority reality, this political nature takes on a special form. Every sentence written or spoken here carries not only literary or factual meaning, but is also a sign of the presence of language and proof that a community exists and lives in these places. That feminist slogan The personal can be extended politically to any minority community, including ours.

Research cited by Maja Mezgec in her monograph Functional Literacy in a Minority Language: The Case of the Slovenian Minority in Italy (Koper, University Publishing Annales, 2012) paint a clear picture of the decline in the use of Slovene in the Trieste region. Goriška is not mentioned in this research, although the picture would probably not be much different. Language increasingly exists primarily declaratively, as its everyday use is shrinking. As a result, the space in which literature is created is also narrowing. This parallel is telling: where language is alive, literature can breathe; but where it becomes a mere symbol, its space is slowly shrinking. This is of crucial importance for literature. Fewer speakers mean fewer readers, and this directly affects the possibilities of literary creation and lively contact with the modern language.

At the same time, something else is happening: the idealization of the supposedly former purity of language, or, as Matejka Grgič calls it in the monograph Language: System, Means and Symbol (Trieste, Slovenian Research Institute SLORI, 2016), fetishization of language. What is a fetish? The word comes from the Portuguese word facticius , originally used by Portuguese sailors. They used this word to describe the statues of the tribes they came into contact with during their conquests of the world. These statues did not “only represent the deity, but [were] also the deity.” (Grgič 73) A fetish is therefore a sign where the reference has disintegrated. Like the statues of deities: empty, at the same time symbols of the deity and the deity itself.

Nostalgia for a more beautiful Slovene that once lived here often obscures the view of today’s linguistic reality, which is diverse, mobile, and open. The discourse in Primorski dnevnik, analyzed by Grgič, reveals a view of language as a heritage that must be protected. But the language of a community is not just a heritage; it should be a living tool for communication. Resistance to linguistic development is also not just a linguistic issue. There is a common fear that influences will corrupt a language, although the truth is the opposite: a language survives only if it changes. There are no weeds in a language, because every change, every calque, every foreign language is part of its growth. And paradoxically: even those borderline obscenities, such as turning emails that are just a mistake in Slovenian into Slovenian, bring liveliness to the language. The opposite example is, for example, taking exams : nowadays, only the test papers are taken in Slovenian, as exams are passed. Of course, we are talking about the literary language here, not the dialects that are as lively as any dialect. There is only one literary language and the problem arises when we mix it with the non-literary language or when we cannot distinguish between the two. In the Slovenian environment in Italy, development is often perceived as a threat, which is why the belief remains that the literary language has not changed in these decades. Nostalgia for something that was once supposed to be, although no one knows exactly when, does not strengthen the language, but rather limits it, since only a dead language remains unchanged. Behind fetishization lies the fear of losing a symbol, in our case a language, which probably stems from the fascist trauma of oppression. This process leads to the opposite: the symbol is preserved, but loses its value and meaning. Fetishes are therefore destructive for the community, because with such a discourse the language is identity. The fact that this defense mechanism is still being triggered today also tells us that we have not yet processed the trauma.

Can we transfer the same concept to literature? Have we reduced literature to a fetish? Or do we expect only symbolic meaning from it? The answer is not clear, but the symptoms are recognizable: literature finds itself under pressure to become a guardian, instead of a space of freedom, to confirm the identity and traumas of the community. This is also visible in the fact that at the moment when the rest of Slovenian production finally shook off the traumas of World War II and became diverse, mobile, open, it became uninteresting, unattractive, if not corrupt, for us.

In contrast to the Slovenian literary landscape, authors of older generations remain in the foreground, while younger ones are often not even noticed by the community. The border literary space is thus based on authors who published their first book late, and on works that are often more recognized for their symbolic significance than for their literary quality. It is not surprising that among the authors of the Slovenian space in Italy there is hardly anyone younger than fifty, not to mention those even younger. These numbers are not just statistics; they point to a lack of contemporary expression, which should come from the younger generations. Different generations live in different worlds, and it is precisely this diversity that should be the foundation of every literary landscape, also due to the aforementioned thought. The personal is political: the young people’s view of the community is also political and crucial, as it proves that we young people still live and are in the community, but that we probably look at it with new eyes.

The obstacles are not only generational, but systemic. The literary space in the border region is small, sensitive and dependent on a few institutions and limited human and material resources. There is a lack of editorial infrastructure that would find young people, work with them and enable them to take their first steps. Since this is not the case, a vicious circle is established: young creators have no opportunities, the system interprets their absence as proof that there is no interest. Here and there, a workshop or competition is organized, but nothing comes of it.

In such an environment, literature quickly becomes merely the guardian of tradition, a duty of survival. But such literature, which serves primarily to affirm self-image, rarely enables true creativity; it often gets caught in a narrow circle of recurring themes and traumas. As young people, we find ourselves torn between the expectations of the community and our own creative needs. On the one hand, we are supposed to continue this vicious circle; on the other hand, we are tormented by questions that are not necessarily “ours.” This rift is not a sign of disloyalty to the community, but proof that literature breathes and follows the world in which we live. The news has not yet reached our deserted valley that the world has changed. That with multilingualism we are no longer unique, if we ever were. The traumas that we like to proclaim as unique are in fact part of the global stories of numerous nations and minorities who are victims of similar experiences. Some are facing this right now, before our eyes, although it is true that we too often prefer to look away.

If we want the literary space of Slovenians in Italy to develop, we must be prepared to accept more than just what confirms the self-image of our community or what revisits our traumas. We need a space that is wide enough to allow for diversity of views and styles. A space in which not everything depends on the question of “is this foreign enough?” In other words: our literature can (re)maintain importance only if we allow it to breathe. And it needs help to breathe. There is no need for mechanical respirators yet, it would be enough to rethink and modernize the existing infrastructure. Although perhaps the problem lies elsewhere. Perhaps we are not afraid of losing the language, but of starting to use it. Namely, use breaks every fetish, linguistic or literary, and reveals everything we have hidden behind it.