Feuilleton and Political Invective as Sources of Kosovel’s Spiritual and Poetical Coming of Age

Abstract

Srečko Kosovel’s letters as well as his politically and stylistically revolutionary poems, which remained concealed from the public for many decades after his death, contain evidence of the poet’s precocious, lively response to the political and ideological disputes among the Slovenes under Italian rule in the Julian region. The bitter conflict between the organized labor movement and the political leadership of the nationalistic camp, with its liberal and Christian-social wings, reverberated with gravity among teachers. In 1921 they had been stirred by the call to a rigorous ideological differentiation by the fierce communist ideologue Dragotin Gustinčič. In March 1922 his three instalments of a feuilleton entitled “The Spiritual Crisis of Young Slovene Intellectuals”, published in the Slovene communist journal Delo in Trieste, severely and sarcastically reprimanded Srečko’s brother Stano, a teacher and newly appointed editor of Novi Rod, a magazine for young readers edited by the teachers’ association, for refusing to declare for one side or the other. Divided between family solidarity and his commitment to the intimate friendship with some young communists, notably Vladimir Martelanc and Fanica Obid – Mirjam, Srečko Kosovel chose not to take one side or the other, preferring an independent and profound study of the literature that Gustinčič had recommended to overcome the ideological confusion among teachers and the puzzlement of young intellectuals. In this respect, a particularly telling statement can be found in the poet’s letter to Josip Ribičič of 9 November 1922: »I’m now reading Bogdanov: Proletariat und Kunst, a thorough and deep explanation of proletarian art, deeper and more valuable than Gustinčič’s.« This choice was facilitated by the fact that Srečko and Stano, who was nine years older, had always had quite distinct intellects and temperaments. Srečko’s studies proved both a sort of directive and accelerant, leading him to gradually abandon his naive emotional commitment to socialism and embrace with the vigor of a newly informed stance the young communist intellectuals on both sides of the border between the kingdoms of Italy and SHS (later Yugoslavia), determined by the Treaty of Rapallo. As a result, the obituaries written for Kosovel in Delo and Ljubljana’s Mladina won them the battle for his spiritual legacy within the first weeks of his death. Moreover, Ivan Regent, a Triestine Kosovel family acquaintance and high officer of the Comintern in Moscow during the 1930s, sealed the outcome of the battle for Srečko’s legacy by gaining him public recognition through official Soviet literary organs.