HOW THE CULTURE OF THE SLOVENE EMIGRANTS WAS RECEIVED IN SLOVENIA
Aleš Gabrič
COBISS 1.02
The cultural and political attitude adopted by the communist regime with regard to the cultural creativity of the Slovene emigration can be, in general, divided into two periods and into two particular ways in which the regime limited the extent to which the cultural public at home was informed of the work of the Slovene immigrant writers and artists.
To begin with, purges were carried out in the cultural institutions immediately after the end of the Second World War, during which those works of art were taken out of the storage areas, which were created by the artists before World War II or during it, i.e. up until the spring of 1945, when they were forced to retreat from Slovenia before the oncoming victorious Partisan army. The leaders of the Liberation Front already gave clear indication of their intent to eliminate certain works of art in the plans formulated at the time of the most urgent measures to be taken upon seizing power. This plan was most explicitly revealed in an expert’s detailed report in April, 1945, signed by Ferdo Kozak, who became the first post-war Slovene minister of education and culture in May, 1945. In his plan, Kozak placed particular emphasis on the problem of book publication, yet contextually, his proposal can be understood as applying to the cultural heritage of Slovenia in its entirety. The report, which was a team work product of the “Ministry of Education” of the Slovene liberation movement, states: “All stocks of books on the territory of Slovenia must be examined and all those books, which must not be sold, will have to be eliminated from the book market. This applies to a number of Slovene books, which were published after the occupation as well as before it, and, in particular, books in foreign languages, which were sold in Slovenia and are being held in storage by different publishing houses.” The sale of all publications which were still in the bookshops was to be temporarily prohibited, and the bookshops and publishing houses were to send complete lists of their stock to the appropriate authorities. These would then pass on the lists to an authorised committee, formed explicitly for the purpose of deciding on the destiny of the books in question.1
Particular attention was focused in the beginning on the books published during the war in the occupied territories - especially the ones that advocated Nazi and
1 Arhiv Republike Slovenije (Archives of the Republic of Slovenia) (ARS), AS 1643, box 526/1, 2.
Dve domovini • Two Homelands 19 • 2004,185-195
Fascist ideology (originals and Slovene translations of Hitler, Goring, Rosenberg, Mussolini etc., Leon Rupnik, reviews Slovensko domobranstvo, Zlatorog). Already in the first post-war days, Ferdo Kozak had appointed members of the Committee for the Examination of Libraries, who immediately commenced with their planned work. They informed publishers and book-keepers of the ban on selling books until further notice, and began compiling lists of books and magazines which were to be taken out of circulation. The committee compiled several lists and made corrections of books, and sent these lists to all the large libraries, book-shops, and publishing houses. The first list, dated July 27lh 1945, contained eight pages of book titles, as well as instructions to book-keepers, librarians and publishers on how to deal with books. The Committee for the Examination of Libraries stressed that “some works are to be eliminated due to the writer’s pro-Fascist ideology, although this cannot be traced yet in their respective earlier works (Knut Hamsun etc.), while others must be eliminated due to their contents which are in contradiction with our views on the most vital issues of life. Naturally, all book-keepers and librarians are also to take out of circulation and eliminate those elements of propagandist printed matter which are not particularly mentioned in the list, but which, due to their contents, are in opposition to the National and Liberation War, or which have, in principle, rejected the new social order, or spread religious intolerance”. The books on the list for elimination were to be kept only in larger libraries, while access to them was regulated by the Committee according to a special regime: “All eliminated publications are to be kept by the libraries and are to be loaned only for the purpose of study. Any interested individuals must submit a special permit issued by the authorities. These permits are to be issued exclusively by the educational authorities and/or the appropriate educational official of the interested person’s trade union. The elimination rules do not however apply to the educational libraries, since books are, by principle, to be eliminated only from those libraries, where they are on loan for the general public.”2 The circular of the Ministry of Education and Culture, in contrast with the explicit instructions given to the larger libraries, however, did not mention what the book-shops and publishing houses were to do with their stocks of eliminated books. When interviewed, however, older people often mentioned having observed heavily loaded trucks after the end of the war transporting books to the Vevče paper factory for recycling.
Indeed, similar purges were carried out in libraries and book-shops as part of the process of de-Nazification in all European countries. The difference, however, between the countries on either side of the Iron Curtain is in the fact that the East, apart from Nazi, Fascist and collaborationist propaganda publications, had also included the works of political opponents of its new regime in its lists, although often no signs of propaganda or political convictions could be traced in them. After some alterations of the original list, the final list of the publications in Slovenia deemed ideologically inappropriate by the new regime was circulated throughout the country on November 6th 1945. The
2 ARS, AS 231, box 37, 3159/2-45.
list was not comprised only of publications of Fascist and Nazi ideologists in foreign languages and their Slovene translations, or propagandist publications of Slovene collaborationists who actively opposed the Liberation Movement. With regard to the majority of the Slovene political opponents of the Liberation Movement mentioned, the list noted that all their publications were to be eliminated, regardless of the type of work or its content. Thus the ban on the works of certain authors applied not only to their propagandist publications, but also to their professional, philosophical, sociological and politological publications, as well as their literary works. Furthermore, all the authors who left Slovenia in 1945 and who had joined the wave of refugees who fled from the future Communist regime were also placed on the list, although they had not collaborated with the occupying forces during the war. Among them were also several writers who had always remained faithful to the principle of artistic expression in their works and who had made it a point not to get too involved in the political and ideological conflicts of the time. The list also contained the publications of those writers who were killed during the war serving amongst the ranks of the collaborationist troops, or who were massacred in the first post-war months when the new regime took revenge on its political opponents. The character of the new regime could be perceived also in the way it enumerated publications of Catholic ideologists and Slovene Catholic philosophers - regardless of their relation to the Liberation Movement.
The rather vague definition that those publications were to be eliminated which were “in contradiction with our view on the most vital questions” as well as all printed matter which “had in principle rejected the new social order” made it possible to extend the process of de-Nazification to encompass also the works branded as “inappropriate literature” by orthodox Marxist ideologists. Labelled as such was also a part of the Slovene literary works and religious literature, as well as the works that criticised the Soviet Union and its social order. The general vagueness of the wording of the definitions raised numerous scruples and caused a number of misunderstandings, which also brought about a delay in the process of purging the libraries.
In 1946 the process of eliminating ideologically inappropriate books spread to the book-shops and publishing houses in Ljubljana and the other large Slovene cities, as well as the country’s larger libraries and soon after, spilled out over the Slovene countryside. Yet, in the opinion of the authorities responsible, the political action was not carried out fast enough. The Ministry of Education and Culture of Slovenia was not satisfied with the process of eliminating inappropriate books from libraries and book-shops until May, 1948, when it reported: “All ideologically poor and artistically less valuable books were eliminated from all public libraries last year. The number of all books is now in compliance with the number of ideologically positive books of the right artistic quality.”3
Thus, in the process of eliminating all “inappropriate” books, the works also of the Slovene emigrant authors were taken out of the libraries and book-shops. These,
3 ARS, AS 631, fasc. 1, Report to the Komite za šolo in znanost pri vladi FLRJ (may 1948).
the Communist ideologists believed, should be wiped out of the very consciousness of the Slovene nation. It was the task of the particularly one-sided printing program in the post-war years and the ban on importing foreign literature to ensure that in future also the Slovenes would not obtain any information about these authors. And although the policy laid down in 1945 went through various changes, its general attitude towards the Slovene emigrant writers never changed much. In principle, they were personae non gratae, whose works should not be read in Slovenia and about whom there should be no information available.
With the revival of the cultural activities of the Slovene political emigration in the 1950’s, the problem faced by the ideologists of what to do with the books of “controversial authors” kept in libraries and book-shops gave way to a new issue: how to prevent the Slovenes at home from becoming acquainted with the works of their countrymen who lived abroad and who were regarded as political opponents of the Communist regime by the authorities. As the political emigrants of 1945 gradually recovered and found a solution to their existential problems, they started to dedicate more of their time to cultural creativity. Soon the Slovene political emigration’s cultural activities had developed an enviably high level. The peak of these activities was the Slovene Cultural Action as the most important cultural institution of the emigrants, established in Buenos Aires in February 1954. Similar emigrant societies across the border and all over the world also developed strong cultural activities. Yet, their activities were almost unknown to the Slovenes, since they were deliberately concealed by the regime.
Immediately after they came to power, the Communist ideologists drew a sharp line between Slovene culture in the homeland, and the culture developed by the emigrants, whom they termed “national enemies”. “Nowhere in Slovenia, it seems, is such a sharp line drawn as in the field of cultural work: on the one side there is everything that is of some quality, both in content and in form, and on the other there is putridity, decadence, and morbidity. In the middle - there is nothing”4 as was written already in mid-May 1945 by Boris Ziherl, who was later to be one of the most important Slovene communist ideologists in the field of culture. In December, 1945, the paper of the Liberation Front Slovenski poročevalec gave a clear indication of what would be the prevalent attitude of the authorities to “unwanted” books in an article with a title which left no doubts - “The Books We Shall Not Write About ”.5
The censors in Slovenia paid the greatest attention to the publishing activities of the emigrants and the Slovenes who lived across the border. They did not care much about the theatre performances, artistic exhibitions and other activities, though, as the Slovenes at home did not have many opportunities to attend these. The easiest way by means of which the Communist regime limited the inflow of the ideas of the political emigration (and of foreign ideology in general) was the ban on importing printed matter. This resolution was written already in the first post-war Law On Printed Matter,
4 Novi čas, 12. 5. 1945, No. 19, p. 1.
5 Slovenski poročevalec, 11. 12. 1945, No. 199, p. 6.
adopted on 24th August, 1945. The law contained a very loose provision pertaining to the ban on the dissemination and sale of books and other publications which encouraged national or religious intolerance, spurred the citizens to rebellion against the state and its system or constituted an insult against state authorities and public morals. The law also provided for a ban on all publications financed from abroad by “the enemies of the state and state system”. A special stipulation stated that foreign publications could enter the country freely, but limited their import solely to the companies issued a special permit by the Federal Ministry of Information. Similarly, other publications printed abroad in the languages of the other Yugoslav nationalities and intended for the Yugoslav market could be imported only under exceptional conditions (which, of course, were not defined!) - again only upon approval by the Federal Ministry of Information. If the minister did not issue an import permit, the ban on the respective printed matter had to be published in the Official Gazette.6
Despite the democratisation that took place in Yugoslavia over the following decades, further legal acts pertaining to the dissemination of publications and information retained similar demands to those stipulated already in the 1945 law. This meant that, in principle, all books or newspapers printed abroad could be imported only by special import permit. It should be stressed, however, that the regime itself did not obey the strict legislation it had passed. Not many official bans were, published in the Official Gazette, and the ones that were, were mainly printed after the adoption of the new Constitution in 1963. In contrast with the scarcity of official bans, there was a large number of unofficially banned books, for which it was publicly known that they were not deemed acceptable by the state authorities, although this was not particularly stated in any Official Gazette.
The first official ban on a Slovene book was published in 1967, with the prohibition against bringing the book Slovenija včeraj, danes, jutri (Sloveniayesterday, today, tomorrow) by Ciril Žabot across the border into the country was issued. In his book, Žabot supported the demand for a confederate Yugoslavia (or a system which would have enabled Slovenia to have greater independence), with a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Another three Slovene books were officially banned in the following decade, and all of them were, like Žabot’s book, printed by Slovene emigrants, just across the Yugoslav border.7
The task of collecting banned Slovene books was entrusted to the National and University Library in Ljubljana, where a special department was established to keep publications which could only be borrowed following a special procedure. The department was called the “director’s fond”, but soon became known under the acronym of “D-fond”. It kept all Slovene books and other publications from abroad, regardless
6 Uradni list Demokratske federativne Jugoslavije, No. 65, 31. 8. 1945, pp. 633-635.
7 Marjan Horvat: Prepovedi in zaplembe tiskane besede v Saloveniji 1945-1980, in: Temna stran meseca: kratka zgodovina totalitarizma v Sloveniji 1945-1990 (ed. Drago Jančar), Ljubljana 1998, pp. 126-139.
whether a ban on them was officially issued in the Official Gazette or not. This caused a great discrepancy between the number of “officially” and “unofficially” banned publications. Only 11 titles of banned books (and many more foreign newspapers!) were published in the Official Gazettes. By the end of the 1980s, the D-fond had compiled an impressive collection of about 700 book titles. For the books kept in the D-fond, even the management of the National and University Library had to obtain a special import permit from the Federal Government in Belgrade. Publications from the D-fond were kept separately from other books and were not accessible to the broader public. Nor were their index cards filed in the public catalogue. In contrast to previous principles, however, the books from the D-fond were often entered in the Slovene bibliographical lists and were thus not entirely unknown. Users who were interested in the D-fond books could gain access to them only upon signing a declaration to the effect that they needed them for study purposes - upon gaining a special permit from the library’s director first, of course.8
True, the national library did fulfil a part of its task - namely, to collect Slovene publications in general regardless of their origin. The policy of limiting access to them, however, produced numerous harmful effects. In the course of time, even those emigrant authors who were willing to co-operate with Slovene cultural institutions, lost confidence in the National and University Library. After they found out that it was not possible to gain access to the books they had sent to the national library and that they were not in the public catalogue/they naturally concluded that all emigrant publications were destroyed upon arrival in the homeland. The Slovenes at home were not very enthusiastic about borrowing books from the D-fond, since one had to obtain numerous permits statements for each book. Plus, the records kept on the borrowers of “forbidden books” were available also to the Ministry of the Interior. Nor could the books be taken home. Therefore, the majority of the Slovenes who wanted to borrow emigrant literature preferred to looked for it in the Slovene libraries just across the border. In this way, they could take these publications home, and they also avoided fulfilling the strenuous conditions placed upon borrowing them, and the watchful eye of the police.9
In 1990, the University Library of Maribor published a booklet entitled Prepovedana - izobčena literatura v UKM (Forbidden - Banished Literature in the University Library of Maribor) which enumerated “all books and magazines whose book numbers are underlined in red and which were, in most cases, eliminated from the repository and put into the ‘bunker’. Similarly, all corresponding index cards were also eliminated from the catalogue”. “The forbidden fond” of Maribor has 223 titles which are now,10 like the D-fond, a part of the literature completely accessible to the library’s readers.
s Rozina Švent: Prepovedani tiski v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici, in: Knjižnica, 1997, No. 1, pp. 137-141; Eva Kodrič: Jaz, Cerberus ali cenzura v knjižnicah, Ljubljana 1996.
9 Rozina Švent: Zaklenjena misel (still unpublished manuscript).
10 Prepovedana - izobčena literatura v UKM, Maribor 1990.
All persons or institutions who did not meet the (unspecified) demands of the regulations pertaining to the prohibition of the import of certain books, had their books from abroad seized and faced an uncertain destiny. Not even the central scientific libraries, which were authorised to collect all Slovene documentation could avoid being punished when caught out. In May 1973, for example, the Ministry of the Interior confiscated several parcels of Slovene emigrant literature and works written by Slovenes from across the border from the Higher Education and Study Library of Maribor (today the University Library of Maribor) which had been sent to the Library by the Studia Slov-enica, a publishing house and institute in New York, which published books about the Slovenes in English. With a written statement the Ministry of the Interior explained in very flat legal terms that the reason for confiscation of the consignment was the fact that the “foreign literature” in question had been imported without permission.11
Nor did the ban on the import of books, extend only to those Slovenes in emigration or across the border who were considered as old political enemies by the Communist regime, but also encompassed all those who had co-operated with the Liberation Movement or were its sympathisers during the war. The most illustrative case in point is the example of Boris Pahor, a writer who lived in Trieste, Italy. In 1952 Pahor lost the favour of the Communist ideologists for the first time, when, during the political purges carried out by the regime which were aimed against the writer and politician Edvard Kocbek, he stood up for his good friend. Pahor had problems of an even greater extent in 1969, when he published the book Odisej ob jamboru (Odysseus at the Mast) in Trieste, a collection of essays (which had already been published in different magazines) on the Slovene national character, Slovene uniqueness and sovereignty. In his essays he attacked the ruling Communists and their red clericalism, as well as the most important Slovene communist ideologist Edvard Kardelj, who was not aware enough, in Pahor’s opinion, that he was also a Slovene.
Immediately, his book was unofficially banned in Slovenia, although there was never an official statement to the effect published in the Official Gazette. Pahor’s friends and acquaintances, whom the author sent the book by mail, received summons by the police to appear at the competent department of the Ministry of the Interior due to the possession of “foreign literature” and to bring the book Odysseus at the Mast by Boris Pahor with them. The authorities, if possible, confiscated the book, and thus - as is normally the case - produced exactly the opposite effect to the one they had aimed for. Due to the great demand engendered by the authorities’ measures the Odysseus at the Mast was soon out of stock and a reprint of the book followed only two years later in Trieste.12
A large group of Slovene writers and artists from Trieste reacted against such
11 Ervin Dolenc, Bojan Godeša, Aleš Gabrič: Slovenska kultura in politika v Jugoslaviji, Ljubljana 1999, p. 153.
'-Boris Pahor: Odisej ob jamboru (tretja izdaja), Koper 1993, pp. 6-7; Boris Pahor: Cenzorji 20. stoletja.: Tržaška glosa, in: Delo, No. 88, 16. 4. 1998, p. 53.
uncivilised procedures instigated by the Ministry of the Interior. “With a cordial request that this be published” they sent a public Statement to the media in Slovenia, protesting against the state of affairs in which administrative pressure hindered the process of opening the borders between the countries of Europe and the endeavour to form a unique Slovene cultural identity: “It is known to us from reliable sources that a book written by the Slovene writer Boris Pahor, a member of the Society of Slovene Writers and the PEN-club, has been confiscated by the authorities on the territory of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. Even the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts of Ljubljana was forced to return the copy of this book sent it.”13
In examining the conflict between the Communist regime and Boris Pahor, it must also be stressed that this case was not a typical example of the attitude taken by the authorities towards political emigrants. Pahor was a sympathiser and not an enemy of the Liberation Movement, and apart from condemning Communist crimes - as was common amongst the post-war political emigration - he also strongly denounced the crimes perpetrated by the collaborators in Slovenia and was thus very unpopular amongst the political emigration. If even Pahor’s work was met with such a negative reaction on the part of the regime in Slovenia, it was clear that, in a similar situation, a political emigrant from 1945 would have met with even stricter procedures at the hands of the Slovene Ministry of the Interior.
A consequence of the Slovene authorities’ adhering to these principles was that in Slovenia, apart from a few exceptions, the cultural creativity of the Slovene emigration abroad was unknown to the public. The discrepancy between the cultural circles’ wish to create a unique Slovene cultural identity and the prevailing reality, which was shaped by the cultural and political decisions of the regime, was brought to light most obviously in the case of France Balantič. The image of the poet Balantič, who had been killed in November 1943 as a soldier of “Domobranci” (Slovene troops which collaborated with German occupying forces) was used for political and propaganda purposes. This was in striking contrast with the completely lyrical and intimate character of his poetry, which did not reflect the social and political split among the Slovenes in any way. Already during the war, as well as after it, he was praised as a “Domobranci” soldier hero by the political emigration. In Slovenia, however, his poetry could not be published. Balantič’s poems and memoirs about this author could only be published abroad, while in Slovenia, his work was mentioned only sporadically and briefly. The writers and literary historians abroad, though, were of the strong opinion that both the author and his opus should be presented to the Slovenes in the homeland. The first attempt to print Balantič’s collection of poems was made in 1966, during the period of the more “liberal” government of Stane Kavčič in Slovenia. The Državna založba Slovenije publishing house had already announced the publication of Balantic’s poems, selected by Mitja Mejak who also wrote the introductory essay, to its readers. However, after the book was printed and the usual complementary (and
13 Boris Pahor: Odisej ob jamboru (tretja izdaja), Koper 1993, pp. 239-242.
compulsory) copies sent to all the main libraries in Slovenia, the authorities took action. It is still not clear today at whose initiative this intervention took place; only that the discussions that ensued amongst the forums of political authority resulted in the book’s being “temporarily” withdrawn from sale even before it had reached the shelves of book-shops. Immediately after, the confiscated books were destroyed, with the exception of a few copies only.1'1
Such uncivilised activities, of course, could not completely hinder the cultural contacts between the Slovenes at home and abroad. As the expert on Balantic’s work, France Pibernik, reports, he became acquainted with Balantic’s poetry already in high school. He was very surprised that “although in secret, everybody wanted to read Balantič’s poems at the Slavistic seminar (conducted at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana); even the students who were members of the Communist party. A special type of unofficial literary clubs existed, where Balantic’s poetry also was read and discussed.”15
In this way the Slovenes became acquainted with the writings of other emigrants, too and Balantič, as the most appalling example of the politicisation of literature, was not an isolated case. The regime also had a similar attitude towards other Slovene artists, who had emigrated in 1945. In the period of Kavcic’s rule, an exhibition by the sculptor France Gorše was banned in the summer of 1972. Gorše emigrated at the end of the war in 1945, and lived in Italy, the USA, and Austria. His exhibition, which was already staged in a gallery in Kostanjevica na Krki, was never opened. In the opinion of the art historian Milček Komelj, it was “banned on Kardelj’s order, probably because its catalogue cited some texts by emigrant Homeguard writers from Argentina.”16 The regime did not hinder the general reading public alone from obtaining information about the culture of the Slovene emigrants, but also prevented experts from studying the topic. The state authorities made a point of not allocating the necessary funds from the budget to finance the research of Slovene emigrant cultural creativity. As a result of this, individual researchers studied the subject on their own - without the support of the appropriate institutions. A literary historian Dr Jože Pogačnik also described the problems he had when he studied Slovene emigrant culture. During the Communist regime, Dr Pogačnik was regarded as suspect, as he was the bishop’s nephew and a candidate for the post of assistant teacher to Dr Anton Slodnjak. Dr Slodnjak, a professor of Slavic studies at the University of Ljubljana, was dismissed from the faculty after a bogus affair in 1959. Later Pogačnik found employment in the other Yugoslav republics, at the departments of Slavic languages of the faculties in Zagreb, Novi Sad, and Osijek. According to the professor, though, this turn of events
14 France Pibernik: Temni zaliv Franceta Balantiča. Ljubljana, 1989, pp. 237-242.
15 France Pibernik: Jeklo na žametu ali kaj vse je bila cenzura, in: Delo, No. 121, 28. 5. 1988, p. 16.
16 Milček Komelj: Socialistična ideološka indoktrinacija in povojna slovenska likovna umetnost, in: Temna stran meseca: kratka zgodovina totalitarizma v Sloveniji 1945-1990, Ljubljana 1998, p. 314.
made it possible for him to study unhindered the literature of Slovene emigrants which was not approved of in Slovenia at the time. “I could not get emigrant literature in Ljubljana, but I could receive it at home in Novi Sad. I received all the newspapers and books from Argentina and other countries immediately. Thus, I was well-informed as to what our emigrants were publishing”, said Pogačnik. He also stressed that the situation in Slovenia changed in the 1960s, when Stane Kavčič became president of the Slovene government and the authorities “wanted to build a kind of bridge between Slovenia and its emigrants”.17
France Pibernik, an expert on Balantič’s work, said that even in the late 1970s and early 1980s people “would regard him with surprise” when they found out what manner of studies he pursued, and that comments such as: “What’s wrong with you that you feel compelled to study an author for whom it is well-known that he is blacklisted!” were not uncommon. Because he had studied the material in the National and University Library, said Pibernik, he “was placed on the black list of the visitors to the D-fond”.18
The contacts between Slovene culture in the homeland and the culture of the emigration became more intensive after the democratisation of Slovenia in the 1980s, when the previous obstacles that had been placed in the way of forming cultural ties with the Slovene emigrant communities by the ruling politicians in Slovenia started to be removed. After several years of effort, the National and University Library was finally able to employ a librarian in 1982 in charge of the D-fond, who arranged it according to the principles of library science which were already established in the library’s other departments. The new librarian was nicknamed “Lady D” by her colleagues. The material of the D-fond gradually became more and more accessible. In 1984, library users could gain access to literature and religious books, and later, at the end of the decade, other banned publications were opened to the public. And although the books and publications still could not be taken home (now for the sole reason that the library only had one copy of most of the publications), once prohibited books were now freely available for study in the library’s reading room. A nice example of how the attitude towards the emigrant culture had at this point changed was the publication in 1984 of a collection of poems by France Balantič - in almost the same form as the one which had experienced such an uncivilised end in 1966.
17 Gost meseca akademik dr. Jože Pogačnik, in: Ognjišče, 1999, No. 10, p. 7.
18 France Pibernik: Jeklo na žametu ali kaj vse je bila cenzura, in: Delo, No. 121, 28. 5. 1988, p. 16.
POVZETEK
KAKO JE BILA SLOVENSKA EMIGRANTSKA KULTURA SPREJETA V
SLOVENIJI
Aleš Gabrič
V prispevku so pojasnjene idejno-politično motivirane akcije slovenske komunistične oblasti, s katerimi je hotela domači javnosti v Sloveniji onemogočiti spoznavanje uspehov kulturnega udejstvovanja slovenske politične emigracije. V čistki knjižnic so v prvem povojnem obdobju iz knjižnih fondov poleg nacistične in fašistične literature izločili tudi dela tistih Slovencev, ki so jih šteli za politične nasprotnike nove oblasti. Z omejitvami pri uvažanju knjig so oblasti onemogočile seznanjanje z literaturo, ki so jo v tujini tiskali tam živeči Slovenci. Tovrstna dela je zbiral t. i. D-fond Narodne in univerzitetne knjižnice, ki pa je bil nedostopen za širšo javnost. Tudi zamolčevanje kulturne ustvarjalnosti Slovencev v emigraciji v javnih medijih v Sloveniji in odvračanje znanstvenikov od raziskav tovrstnega dela sta pripomogli k temu, da domača javnost ni poznala bogate kulturne dejavnosti rojakov v tujini. Do širšega stika med slovensko kulturo v domovini in emigraciji je prišlo v osemdesetih letih, ko so začeli odtranjevati ovire, ki jih je pred tem slovenski emigrantski kulturi postavljala slovenska politika.
Aleš Gabrič je doktor znanosti na Inštitutu za novejšo zgodovino v Ljubljani.