Carinthian (Slovene) War Narratives Between Representation and Discourse

Abstract

Most of the literary representations of war, written by Carinthian Slovenes, authors from Slovenia or German speaking writers since 1945 and referring to the Carinthian Slovene context, tangle the topic of WW II and the partisan movement. The first literary narratives, which were all dedicated to the Slovene readers, were mostly written by authors from Slovenia, having an ideological impact and clear distinctions of the characters (I. Ribič). In the 1970s and 1980s were published several Slovene novels from Carinthian and Slovene authors (M. Turnšek, V. Habjan, V. Polanšek) which ground, already like the first narratives, on chronicle, biographical or autobiographical elements and have the explicit intention to keep alive the memory on the partisan struggle, the protagonists, and the victims of the Nazi terror. They all refer to different oral and textual sources, to historical persons and occurrences, and prefer a third person narrative perspective. Only after 2000, when a number of witness and memory literature was already published, new novels and dramas with Carinthian Slovene war topics issued (F. Lipuš, F. Skuk, K. Vennemann, P. Handke, M. Haderlap; T. Leisch, B. Liepold-Mosser), recently even on WW I (J. Ferk, E. Messner). Most of them are written in German and represent new narrative modes and models, as they refer or relate to the intimate witness and memory literature of Carinthian Slovenes, historical sources and memory discourses, representing in first or third person respectively autobiographical tales different voices and perspectives on wartime, traumas, and post-war experiences, as well as their influence on the descendants. Many of these narratives are not only highly discursive but also take part in the still conflictive discourses in Carinthia about the partisan resistance and memory culture.