Page 113 - 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. 113
Society as Seen in Slovenian Drama during Socialist Times and Today 113
Dušan Jovanović is thus clearly critical of the society, or rather, the
socialist system, of that time, although it seems that in the end, he’s leav-
ing some hope that the freedom of an individual could bring. When Jo-
sip Broz Tito died in the beginning of the 1980s, the question of nation-
alism reappeared in the former Yugoslavia. The demands for reforms were
increasingly louder and in this situation, literature, and particularly dra-
ma within it, played the role of a public forum where taboos were be-
ing pulled down and alternative solutions tested. It’s not surprising that
Dušan Jovanović remembers this period as a period of political drama.
“It wasn’t easy to get the tickets for the première and the first reprises
of Skopje and Brothers Karamazov. At that time, political drama was the
most commercial genre of performing arts. Because there were no dem-
ocratic institutions and independent media, theatre was a substitute for
democracy, a forum where truth was told more or less openly. The influ-
ence of the theatre over the audience at that time was immense” (Troha
2009, 147).
The Society in Literature; Second Example—Simona Semenič:
nineteeneightyone
onethousandninehundredeightyone takes place in a single day thirty-seven
years ago. Essentially, this is a social fresco which Simona Semenič builds
through three main characters (Luka, Erik and Boris), for whom she can-
not decide which one is in fact the main character, but at the same time
it is important that all three of them are at the beginning of their lives.
maybe luka isn’t even our main character and is now leaving, if indeed he
was ever standing here at all
and maybe now enters erik, who is fourteen
and maybe he is our main character (Semenič 2013, 2).
As a seven-year-old, Luka is about to be inducted into the Pioneers’
organisation and the educational system, Erik, the fourteen-year-old ad-
olescent is standing at the door of sexual maturity, and Boris is home on
leave from his military service, entering adulthood. Their stories are set in
Ajdovščina and the entire image of this world is, at first glance, utopian.
if the place of the action were somewhere out there, somewhere out of our
safe world, that is to say, it weren’t here on stage, it would be in gregorčiče-
va street in ajdovščina
Dušan Jovanović is thus clearly critical of the society, or rather, the
socialist system, of that time, although it seems that in the end, he’s leav-
ing some hope that the freedom of an individual could bring. When Jo-
sip Broz Tito died in the beginning of the 1980s, the question of nation-
alism reappeared in the former Yugoslavia. The demands for reforms were
increasingly louder and in this situation, literature, and particularly dra-
ma within it, played the role of a public forum where taboos were be-
ing pulled down and alternative solutions tested. It’s not surprising that
Dušan Jovanović remembers this period as a period of political drama.
“It wasn’t easy to get the tickets for the première and the first reprises
of Skopje and Brothers Karamazov. At that time, political drama was the
most commercial genre of performing arts. Because there were no dem-
ocratic institutions and independent media, theatre was a substitute for
democracy, a forum where truth was told more or less openly. The influ-
ence of the theatre over the audience at that time was immense” (Troha
2009, 147).
The Society in Literature; Second Example—Simona Semenič:
nineteeneightyone
onethousandninehundredeightyone takes place in a single day thirty-seven
years ago. Essentially, this is a social fresco which Simona Semenič builds
through three main characters (Luka, Erik and Boris), for whom she can-
not decide which one is in fact the main character, but at the same time
it is important that all three of them are at the beginning of their lives.
maybe luka isn’t even our main character and is now leaving, if indeed he
was ever standing here at all
and maybe now enters erik, who is fourteen
and maybe he is our main character (Semenič 2013, 2).
As a seven-year-old, Luka is about to be inducted into the Pioneers’
organisation and the educational system, Erik, the fourteen-year-old ad-
olescent is standing at the door of sexual maturity, and Boris is home on
leave from his military service, entering adulthood. Their stories are set in
Ajdovščina and the entire image of this world is, at first glance, utopian.
if the place of the action were somewhere out there, somewhere out of our
safe world, that is to say, it weren’t here on stage, it would be in gregorčiče-
va street in ajdovščina
