Page 99 - 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. 99
Searching for the Image of the Village in the Swirl of 20th Century Ideological Conflicts 99
sense. I have a feeling he was with his character and life’s example better ex-
emplar for the neighbourhood than with his whole devotion and pastoral-
ity” (Kovačič 1990, 94).
And a bit further:
At his place there sat a young student of theology, who had been lately in
the parish for praxis … Young and ignated like a spring. Only around his lips
there had always been floating this derision en masse, how it is said, nothing
disposed to forgiving … He was not clever, but through and through indoc-
trinated (Kovačič 1990, 95–96).5
A few pages earlier Kovačič describes the narrator’s own experience of
the church:
So for the first time in twenty years I approached to the church and from
curiosity I read the first message on the door and first journals, they were
selling at the table by the contribution box for the offerings near the over-
flooded stoup... and I almost couldn’t believe myself: in front of my eyes
there popped out the same words like 20, 30, 50 years ago, the same ex-
pressions that made me feel like sick already back then… the same rhythm
of the invocations, the same limitation on dogma from before… as if the
church in this dirty flood, which was spreading with suffering and humil-
iation around and around, has not found the new shine, new spiritual dis-
covery, new human quality, it was solving so to speak an old dialectic riddle
„gain from loss“… it didn’t introduce the second language of communicat-
ing with people, new, fluent pastoral speach… Nothing. No renewed, vigor-
ous view of the rules of cosmic order, the incidents of time, no Jesus‘s attack
on wrath, hatred, envy, intolerance (Kovačič 1990, 91).6
5 “Govorila sva zato samo o življenju na kmetih, in tisto, kar lahko doseže kmet ob svo-
jem delu z zdravo logiko in običajnim ljudskim razglabljanjem. On je bil se mi zdi s
svojim značajem in življenjskim primerom boljši zgled soseski kot z vso pobožnostjo
in pastoralo” … “Pri njem je sedel mlad diplomiranec teologije, ki je bil od nedavna na
praksi župnišču … Mlad in zagnan kot prožina. Le okoli ust mu je plaval ves čas tis-
ti posmeh en masse, kot se reče, nič naklonjenega odpuščanju … Ni bil bister, ampak
skoz in skoz indoktriniran.”
6 “In tako sem se po dvajsetih letih prvikrat približal cerkvi in iz radovednosti pre-
bral prvo oznanilo na njenih vratih in prve časopise, ki so jih prodajali na mizici
ob puščicah za milodare zraven preplavljenih kropilnikov… in skoraj da nisem ver-
jel samemu sebi: v oči so mi skočile iste besede kot před 20, 30, 50 leti, isti izrazi, pri
katerih se mi je obračalo v želodcu že takrat… isti ritem invokacije, isto zamejenost
na dogmo od nekdaj … kakor da cerkev zasvinjani povodnji, ki jo je s trpljenjem in
poniževanjem preplavljala okrog in okrog, ni našla iz svoje šibkosti moči in proniclji-
sense. I have a feeling he was with his character and life’s example better ex-
emplar for the neighbourhood than with his whole devotion and pastoral-
ity” (Kovačič 1990, 94).
And a bit further:
At his place there sat a young student of theology, who had been lately in
the parish for praxis … Young and ignated like a spring. Only around his lips
there had always been floating this derision en masse, how it is said, nothing
disposed to forgiving … He was not clever, but through and through indoc-
trinated (Kovačič 1990, 95–96).5
A few pages earlier Kovačič describes the narrator’s own experience of
the church:
So for the first time in twenty years I approached to the church and from
curiosity I read the first message on the door and first journals, they were
selling at the table by the contribution box for the offerings near the over-
flooded stoup... and I almost couldn’t believe myself: in front of my eyes
there popped out the same words like 20, 30, 50 years ago, the same ex-
pressions that made me feel like sick already back then… the same rhythm
of the invocations, the same limitation on dogma from before… as if the
church in this dirty flood, which was spreading with suffering and humil-
iation around and around, has not found the new shine, new spiritual dis-
covery, new human quality, it was solving so to speak an old dialectic riddle
„gain from loss“… it didn’t introduce the second language of communicat-
ing with people, new, fluent pastoral speach… Nothing. No renewed, vigor-
ous view of the rules of cosmic order, the incidents of time, no Jesus‘s attack
on wrath, hatred, envy, intolerance (Kovačič 1990, 91).6
5 “Govorila sva zato samo o življenju na kmetih, in tisto, kar lahko doseže kmet ob svo-
jem delu z zdravo logiko in običajnim ljudskim razglabljanjem. On je bil se mi zdi s
svojim značajem in življenjskim primerom boljši zgled soseski kot z vso pobožnostjo
in pastoralo” … “Pri njem je sedel mlad diplomiranec teologije, ki je bil od nedavna na
praksi župnišču … Mlad in zagnan kot prožina. Le okoli ust mu je plaval ves čas tis-
ti posmeh en masse, kot se reče, nič naklonjenega odpuščanju … Ni bil bister, ampak
skoz in skoz indoktriniran.”
6 “In tako sem se po dvajsetih letih prvikrat približal cerkvi in iz radovednosti pre-
bral prvo oznanilo na njenih vratih in prve časopise, ki so jih prodajali na mizici
ob puščicah za milodare zraven preplavljenih kropilnikov… in skoraj da nisem ver-
jel samemu sebi: v oči so mi skočile iste besede kot před 20, 30, 50 leti, isti izrazi, pri
katerih se mi je obračalo v želodcu že takrat… isti ritem invokacije, isto zamejenost
na dogmo od nekdaj … kakor da cerkev zasvinjani povodnji, ki jo je s trpljenjem in
poniževanjem preplavljala okrog in okrog, ni našla iz svoje šibkosti moči in proniclji-
