Just over two million people live in Slovenia. The small country, once part of federal Yugoslavia, is still haunted by its communist past. But its landscapes are beautiful and calm, and its literary scene has many strong voices.
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00:00 majestic and rugged mountains,
00:05 winsome towns and villages,
00:08 and the capital Ljubljana, where Habsburg monarchy architecture meets
00:13 Mediterranean congeniality.
00:15 For centuries today, Slovenia stood under foreign rule,
00:19 after the Second World War, as part of the multi-ethnic Yugoslavia.
00:24 Slovenia declared its independence in 1991,
00:27 a factor in the years of war that led to the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
00:31 Today, Slovenia has a population of just over two million,
00:36 and literature is a key component of its national identity.
00:40 These days, a broad range of Slovenian literature is available in translations.
00:47 In Ljubljana, we met with author Roman Rozina,
00:51 whose new novel was recently released in German. In "One Hundred Years of Blindness",
00:56 Roman Rozina casts a storyline through 100 years of Slovenian history.
01:01 It's a family novel with a blind man as the main character.
01:05 Matija is born on May 24th, 1900,
01:09 in a mountain village, the same day the ground opens and swallows his family's home.
01:14 The earthquake was caused by a nearby coal mine, where deep underground,
01:18 tunnels are blasted out that wreck the countryside. The mine is both a curse
01:23 and a blessing.
01:28 They had to follow the dictates of the coal.
01:31 Coal decided what kind of community there'd be,
01:35 and what industries would develop.
01:39 And of course, the people were the victims.
01:43 On the other hand,
01:47 it was also a blessing. Towns got bigger and grew together.
01:54 New people moved to them,
01:59 and they could develop.
02:06 After the disaster, Matija's father has to abandon the farm and,
02:11 like many before him, go to work in the mine. It's hard work.
02:15 While the women keep house and family together.
02:20 To Matija, who was born blind, the trials and tribulations of the 20th century,
02:25 like the First and Second World Wars, are more than just background noise.
02:29 Matija witnesses how politics can drive wedges between people,
02:34 how old rulers are disposed of and replaced with new,
02:37 no less merciless ones.
02:43 100 years of blindness tells of love, death, passion,
02:47 wars and ideologies with echoes reaching into the present day.
02:54 The story has also captivated Drago Jancar,
02:58 one of Slovenia's most world-renowned authors.
03:02 His books have been translated into many languages.
03:07 In his hometown of Maribor, there's even a museum dedicated to him,
03:10 albeit a tiny one housed in a former newsstand.
03:14 Like many of his books, his most recent novel, "At the Creation of the World" is
03:18 set in Maribor.
03:19 It's 1959. The Second World War is receding into history
03:23 and a new age is dawning. But the war lives on in people's heads
03:27 and divides society into former anti-Nazi fighters
03:31 and former pro-Nazi collaborators.
03:34 The main character of this novel is young Danil.
03:37 His father was once a partisan. Now he's a broken man.
03:41 His mother is devout and sends her son to church service and religious instruction.
03:45 Danil feels torn. He experiences death and loss.
03:49 His world is shaken. Jancar experienced his own childhood in the 1950s and 60s
03:54 in much the same way.
03:57 My hero, Danil, he sees that good and evil is in every person,
04:02 is everywhere around somebody who is good. In the next chapter,
04:07 make something what is evil. So good and evil are struggling
04:12 within us and within the history.
04:17 There are no clear solutions in history as there are no clear solutions
04:22 in a single human being.
04:25 "At the Creation of the World" is a parable of Slovenian society
04:28 under Yugoslavian communism. It's also an amalgamation of stories
04:33 Jancar heard as a child. Today, as an author and essayist,
04:39 he's a partisan for democracy and for Europe.
04:44 Nowadays, Europe, for modern contemporary Europe,
04:50 what could connect it without over-economy, politics and pragmatic solution?
04:57 I believe this is art. This could be literature.
05:01 Because if somebody from the other part in Europe can read through my literature
05:08 experience of a nation or surrounding that I am writing,
05:14 so this is a kind of automatically for understanding
05:21 and suddenly we are closer because of this.
05:25 In "At the Creation of the World" today, this new bookseller
05:28 carries a very distinctive choice selection.
05:32 One of the proprietors is Anja Golub. The shop is an attempt
05:36 at making a stand against the big monopolists.
05:40 Anja Golub is a publisher and editor, as well as one of Slovenia's
05:46 most celebrated poets.
05:52 You know how degrading it is when I am invited, for example, to Berlin
05:57 and then people come to me and basically say to me,
06:01 "Yeah, but your German is good, you know, we understand you."
06:05 It's like, "Go f*** yourself, seriously." You know, I am here because
06:12 I thought that you want to speak to me about my literature,
06:19 not because you want me to represent something that you will check out
06:23 because I am from Slovenia or because I am married to a woman.
06:30 Anja Golub is a public figure known in Slovenia for her work as a columnist
06:35 and her political engagement. Yet her poems are not political.
06:39 More than anything, they are simply poetry.
06:42 For me, this is a sense of poetry. Yes, of course it is political,
06:46 but I don't think that in my poetry, I don't believe that this is something
06:50 that why I write it. But this is a part of me, and as a part of me,
06:55 it's a natural thing that it will come there and that it will be there.
06:58 It's the most natural thing that comes like this.
07:01 Golub's latest poetry volume tells of the end of a great love.
07:05 It's intense, fraught with pain, and in places almost harsh.
07:12 One after another. One after another. One after another.
07:19 Verse, prose, history and emotion. Slovenia's literature is strong and diverse,
07:29 and more accessible than ever to international readers.
07:36 That brings us to the end of this literature special.
07:40 Thanks for watching. We hope you enjoyed.