PARIAHS IN SLOVENIA – RESEARCH BRIEF
Overview
Slovenia is an ancient country, recognised as a newly composed promising community after the Yugoslav wars. In December 1991, the Slovenian constitution was adopted, and in January 1992, the European Union recognised it as an independent country; on May 22, 1992 The United Nations accepted it as a member on May 1, 2004 it entered the European Union . Slovenia is almost a natural border between the old Austria-Hungary and the Balkans.
It is a tiny country (20,271 km2), with a little over two million inhabitants. Landscape is spreaded between four contiguous geographical environments: the Alps in the North, the Sea in the West, the Plains in the East and the hilly-plain central and southern areas.
Today, Slovenia is a parliamentary democratic republic with the Prime Minister as the highest executive authority. The government has executive and administrative powers. The Prime Minister and ministers are elected by the Parliament. Intra-EU trade accounts for 67% of Slovenian exports. The most important sectors of the Slovenian economy in 2020 were industry (27.2%), trade, transport, accommodation and catering (19.1%) and public administration, defence, education, healthcare and social welfare (18.1%).
Community research sessions
The research focused on:
- Land and ownership
- Society and social organisation
- Education
- Margins
The memory of the Slovenian older generation was strongly influenced by the organisation of life in the former common state of Yugoslavia: For the first time in history, women were given the right to vote and workers were given the opportunity to take a direct stake in managing the country.
Their long memories of the country’s cultural, political and agricultural traditions were formed through challenging historical times and events. The Slovenian nation has distinctly preserved its original national character. In the character there is no strong connection to specific personalities – revered or marginal. Slovenes remember the bad historical experiences of a small nation on the southern border of the former Austria-Hungary and the northern edge of the Balkans, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This period was experienced as the suppression of their own cultural and political character, the annihilation of the national essence.
Two community sessions were organised by Jasa on November 23rd 2023, with groups of school students and their history teacher, who had as a task to engage with their older family members and gather collective memory and historical facts.
CONCLUSIONS
- It transpires that this “pariah” is found in quotidian acts, in public spaces and in schools and homes. This “pariah” does not acquire a performative and theatrical dimension; they do not accommodate newly emerging forms of subjectivization.
- Opposing the mass media’s sense of reality, Slovenian collective memory society relies on forms of public service, public manifestation which are based on the notion of a freely acting “modern” subject, without deference to heroic acts.
- Social cohesion and social organisation were heavily represented in Maribor alongside the transition between the social self of the former Yugoslav Republic and the current technology-driven, digitally imposed capitalist reality. Young and old alike agree that this is a necessary debate that must be conducted both in the context of Slovenia’s historical consistency and its future as a European country.
- Regarding the role of the historical centre and the historical margin, Slovenes place the idea of socialism against a cruel backdrop of hard “capitalist menace” (23/11/23 session participant) as a thematic and intellectual margin. This “menace” in its reality and practices threatens to flatten tradition, language and character into one data-controlled unified model. Slovenian historical heroes who worked on the margins are philosophers, poets and writers who were able to articulate thinking beyond the accepted boundaries and challenge the dominant opinion.
- There was a distinct aversion to the idea of a “hero” or figure of historical significance. Even though the question was asked, the tenacity of groups to distance themselves from romantic personalities was obvious. The question of the creation of the new country of Slovenia was emphasised by the presence of two students who had just arrived in Slovenia.
- Overall, the sessions and anonymous feedback from students indicated that Pariahs provided an important opportunity to identify the intergenerational thread between the life experiences of grandparents, parents and youth, given their varying levels of exposure to war, new media, technology, education and modern European languages.
- Among the surveyed groups of grandparents, Slovenian historical memory was formed on the basis of geography and political upheavals in the centre of Europe. Deeply steeped in the history of Austria-Hungary in the north and the Balkans in the south, Slovenia’s path in the twentieth century is torn between its loyalty to former socialism under President Tito and its newly acquired status as a full member of the European Union.
- The thread of a silent understanding of common “natural laws” pervades Slovenian life, and the traces, values and practices of socialism are vividly present in the Slovenian consciousness.
- According to feedback, Pariahs offered a space and opportunity for existential reflection, moral improvement, and reflection on our “global village” (23/11/23 participant) for dialectical and intellectual exercises. The participants concluded that the importance of memory now is to provide a precise connecting thread by fostering a “sense of transgenerational belonging” in which older generations transpose their domain of historical memory to current events. The strongest bond that binds older Slovenians is their commitment to solid principles of social cohesion and community. For young people, the transition from the socialist sphere to the new European world is characterised by a pronounced intergenerational anxiety regarding the level of disintegration and corrosion that “hard capitalism” will cause to Slovenian society.
- Given that all individual memories are socially conditioned, there is an acceptance that the questions raised by the Pariahs project have sparked an indispensable conversation about conventional literacies, old and new epistemologies, what to remember and what not to remember, and to what practices of remembrance. Citizens are expected to serve. In this sense, the “apostates” of Slovenia are collectively those who insist on “socialism within capitalism” (anonymous participant, 23/11/23); a non-partisan, unaffiliated ontology, which perpetuates solidarity, social values, and community and non-classist allegiance.
Read the more about the research here:
Pariahs D2.2 Guide_final
THE LOCAL PARTNER
The non-profit, non-governmental organisation Jasa, was founded in 1996 to actively “co-shape” the society by intervening in the areas of sustainable development and active citizenship and, in particular, environment, ecology, business ethics, European education, human rights, and consumerism.
The main work area is raising awareness and finding solutions to important social, development and environmental problems. Jasa’s expertise lies in information dissemination and two-way communication through narrative literature, strengthened by high artistic illustration. Jasa cooperates with the most established Slovenian experts in education, writing and art of painting. The transfer media, which Jasa uses to raise knowledge and awareness, is a high-quality art book.
Jasa’s track record in active citizenship and awareness-raising is admirable. JASA cooperates with more than 500 Slovenian companies, more than 100 Slovenian municipalities, with the most important Slovenian ministries and development institutions, as well as with all Slovenian primary schools (451), all kindergartens (402) and high schools (183). More than 10,000 participants get yearly involved in its projects. These strong national contacts make Jasa a reliable partner for achieving high project results and ensure a wide dissemination effect across all levels. Jasa cooperates also in specific international projects, financed mainly by the National Ministry and EU funds.
