Page 111 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 111
Society as Seen in Slovenian Drama during Socialist Times and Today 111
Moreover, this image of the society is constantly contrasted to the
year 2013, that is, to the immediate neoliberal present, in which Luka
becomes a confused member of the Slovenian Army about to leave on a
peace mission to Afghanistan, Erik’s friend Srečko commits suicide be-
cause he’s a homosexual, and Boris is let go from his job. Socialism, which
in Jovanović appears as a negative utopia, becomes in Semenič, at least at
first glance, a nostalgic image of an organised and just society.
What is, then, the image of the society in both plays? Is it really dia-
metrically different? Does it depend on the position of the author and lit-
erature in society? What is the position that Dušan Jovanović and Simo-
na Semenič take towards society? These are the questions through which
we will try to highlight the relationship between drama and the society
in Slovenia of the 1980s and today.
The Society in Literature; First Example—Dušan Jovanović:
Military Secret
“Jovanović’s sarcastic idea that the orderly façade of the socialist socie-
ty hides madness, chaos and the premonition of disaster very close to the
surface is realised in a series of plays” (Kralj 2006, 136), among which
Lado Kralj also lists Military Secret. Jovanović wrote it in 1983, and it was
staged that same year in the Slovene Repertory Theatre in Trieste, direct-
ed by Slobodan Unkovski. It is a drama of the absurd which describes
a zoolinguistics research institute, an institution in which Dr Medak
and his colleagues are trying to translate animal languages into human
speech. In this way, we might understand animals and mutually coexist
with them. Of course the project has reached a dead end. The institute
has become a poor version of a veterinary hospital or a shelter for sick an-
imals. The institute employees have their own private interests. Gestrin
wants to deflect to the West and sell his knowledge there for hard curren-
cy, Kozlevčar wants to start a business at the institute itself, slaughtering
animals for meat. Then Strel, as a kind of counter-intelligence officer and
soldier, enters into this mess, takes over the institute administration and
introduces a state of emergency. When Medak’s initial effort, his origi-
nal utopian idea, as Dragan Klaić characterises it (cf. Klaić 1990, 130–33),
turns into its opposite, a dystopia, Jovanović performs another absurdist
somersault: Medak and six-year-old Alice succeed in their efforts. Medak
crawls inside Tom (a black village tomcat) and Alice inside Meri (a white
angora cat). Even more so, with the help of the animals, in this concrete
case, Bogo the brown bear, they kill Strel and Medak closes with the line:
“Drop your weapons, the experiment continues!” (Jovanović 1991, 118).
Moreover, this image of the society is constantly contrasted to the
year 2013, that is, to the immediate neoliberal present, in which Luka
becomes a confused member of the Slovenian Army about to leave on a
peace mission to Afghanistan, Erik’s friend Srečko commits suicide be-
cause he’s a homosexual, and Boris is let go from his job. Socialism, which
in Jovanović appears as a negative utopia, becomes in Semenič, at least at
first glance, a nostalgic image of an organised and just society.
What is, then, the image of the society in both plays? Is it really dia-
metrically different? Does it depend on the position of the author and lit-
erature in society? What is the position that Dušan Jovanović and Simo-
na Semenič take towards society? These are the questions through which
we will try to highlight the relationship between drama and the society
in Slovenia of the 1980s and today.
The Society in Literature; First Example—Dušan Jovanović:
Military Secret
“Jovanović’s sarcastic idea that the orderly façade of the socialist socie-
ty hides madness, chaos and the premonition of disaster very close to the
surface is realised in a series of plays” (Kralj 2006, 136), among which
Lado Kralj also lists Military Secret. Jovanović wrote it in 1983, and it was
staged that same year in the Slovene Repertory Theatre in Trieste, direct-
ed by Slobodan Unkovski. It is a drama of the absurd which describes
a zoolinguistics research institute, an institution in which Dr Medak
and his colleagues are trying to translate animal languages into human
speech. In this way, we might understand animals and mutually coexist
with them. Of course the project has reached a dead end. The institute
has become a poor version of a veterinary hospital or a shelter for sick an-
imals. The institute employees have their own private interests. Gestrin
wants to deflect to the West and sell his knowledge there for hard curren-
cy, Kozlevčar wants to start a business at the institute itself, slaughtering
animals for meat. Then Strel, as a kind of counter-intelligence officer and
soldier, enters into this mess, takes over the institute administration and
introduces a state of emergency. When Medak’s initial effort, his origi-
nal utopian idea, as Dragan Klaić characterises it (cf. Klaić 1990, 130–33),
turns into its opposite, a dystopia, Jovanović performs another absurdist
somersault: Medak and six-year-old Alice succeed in their efforts. Medak
crawls inside Tom (a black village tomcat) and Alice inside Meri (a white
angora cat). Even more so, with the help of the animals, in this concrete
case, Bogo the brown bear, they kill Strel and Medak closes with the line:
“Drop your weapons, the experiment continues!” (Jovanović 1991, 118).
