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received: 2020-11-12                 DOI 10.19233/ASHS.2021.19
A COMPARISON OF THE PRE-SOCIALIST AND SOCIALIST RECEPTION OF 
MARK TWAIN IN SLOVENIA
Janko TRUPEJ
Laška vas 21, 3273 Jurklošter, Slovenia
e-mail: janko.trupej@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The present article analyses the reception of Mark Twain and his works in serial publications on the territory 
that now constitutes the Republic of Slovenia over a period of circa one hundred years, i.e. it compares Twain’s 
status in the pre-socialist era (until 1945) and the socialist era (1945–1991). The article addresses the extent to 
which the reception was affected by ideology and the contemporary political situation, as well as by the relations 
between the United States and the country of which the Slovenian territory formed part during a particular 
period of time.
Keywords: Mark Twain, reception, ideology, literary translation, American literature
UN CONFRONTO TRA LA RICEZIONE PRE-SOCIALISTA E SOCIALISTA DI 
MARK TWAIN IN SLOVENIA
SINTESI
Il presente articolo si propone di analizzare la ricezione di Mark Twain e delle sue pubblicazioni seriali nel terri-
torio che rappresenta oggi la Repubblica di Slovenia, in un periodo di circa cent’anni, ovvero di porre a confronto lo 
statuto di Twain nel periodo presocialista (fino al 1945) e socialista (1945–1991). L’articolo esamina in quale misura 
la ricezione dell’autore è stata influenzata dall’ideologia, dalla situazione politica contemporanea e dalle relazioni 
tra gli Stati uniti e il paese di cui faceva parte il territorio sloveno durante un periodo specifico. 
Parole chiave: Mark Twain, ricezione, ideologia, traduzione letterale, letteratura americana
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INTRODUCTION
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his 
nom de plume Mark Twain, is most famous across 
the world for writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 
(1876), a classic of juvenile literature, and Adven-
tures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), one of the most 
famous 19th-century bildungsromans and a con-
tender for the title of the ‘Great American Novel’.1 
These are the works for which he is principally 
known in Slovenia, where he has in recent decades 
been perceived primarily as an author for younger 
audiences; as Meta Grosman (2004, 144) notes, this 
even holds true for the latter novel.2 The present 
paper will attempt to establish whether and to what 
extent this was also true of Twain’s status in the past, 
i.e. over the period of around one hundred years 
preceding Slovenia’s modern period: from the end 
of the 19th century, when Twain’s name sporadically 
began to appear in Slovenian publications, to 1991, 
when Slovenia declared independence from Yugo-
slavia. During this period, most of the territory that 
today constitutes the Republic of Slovenia formed 
part of different political entities: until the end of 
World War I, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire, during the inter-war period, it formed part 
of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,3 where after the end 
of World War II, the monarchy was abolished, and 
a socialist regime was established in the country.
As representatives of reception aesthetics have 
asserted, readers actively shape the ‘historical life’ 
of literary works: upon publication of a certain text, 
they compare it to other works, and subsequently 
new generations of readers often re-interpret it 
(Jauss, 1970, 7–9; cf. Jauss, [1982] 1998, 16). In 
recent decades, Slovenian literary scholars have 
published numerous studies about the historical 
reception of American authors in Slovenia (e.g., 
Blake, 2003; Intihar Klančar, 2008; Kern, 2010; 
Potočnik Topler, 2017; Čerče, 2013; 2018; Zupan, 
2015; 2020) and about various ideological issues 
related to the works of American authors (e.g., 
Šalamon, 2007; Burcar, 2018; Čerče, 2019; Virant, 
2019). Since an analysis of Twain’s reception in se-
rial publications by Slovenian émigrés to the United 
States showed substantial differences dependent on 
the ideological orientation of a particular publica-
1 Peter Messent (2007, 12) states that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is “perhaps the most celebrated and best-known novel in American 
literary history”. However, David E. E. Sloane (2001, 63) asserts that outside of the United States, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is better 
known than its more critically acclaimed sequel (cf. Rasmussen, 2007, 198).
2 This assertion is further substantiated by the fact that much of the contemporary Slovenian academic writing on Adventures of Huckle-
berry Finn was published in Otrok in knjiga—a journal devoted to children’s and juvenile literature (see Trupej, 2019b, 336–338).
3 From 1918 to 1929, the country was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
4 The reception was analysed by consulting the bibliography of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences (ZRC 
SAZU) and the Digital Library of Slovenia. Some of the articles about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 
were previously discussed in a paper about the Slovenian reception of select literary works containing racist discourse (Trupej, 2015, 
218–221) and in a paper on the Slovenian reception of both novels (Trupej, 2019b); both papers are written in Slovenian.
tion and the contemporary socio-political situation 
in the country (see Trupej, 2019a), one can presup-
pose that the same would also be true for Twain’s 
reception in the Slovenian ethnic territory.
In the present article, Twain’s work and its re-
ception in the source culture will thus be outlined 
first in order to have a frame of reference, and 
then his Slovenian reception will be discussed. 
The analysis encompassed nearly 2,000 issues of 
serial publications in which the name ‘Mark Twain’ 
appears at least once. The article will thus estab-
lish how several generations of Slovenian readers, 
living in countries with different political systems, 
perceived Twain, and it will shed light upon the 
‘historical life’ of some prominent works of his 
among Slovenians.4
MARK TWAIN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Mark Twain first gained national attention in 
1865 with the sketch “Jim Smiley and His Jumping 
Frog,” which was later published in the collection 
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, 
and Other Sketches (1867) (Railton, 2004, 3), but he 
truly became a household name with the travelogue 
about his trip to Europe and the Middle East entitled 
Innocents Abroad (1869), in which he showed ir-
reverence towards European culture and satirized 
American behaviour abroad (Lamb, 2005, 469; cf. 
Rasmussen, 2007, 575). The book was a great com-
mercial success: it sold 67,000 copies in its first 
year in print (Robinson, 1995, 27) and remained 
Twain’s best-selling travelogue throughout his life-
time (Railton, 2004, 5). Encouraged by its success, 
Twain next wrote a prequel entitled Roughing It 
(1872), in which he described his experiences as a 
reporter and miner in the American West, where he 
spent a large part of the 1860s. Robert Paul Lamb 
summed it up in the following words:
Roughing It thus commences as a flight from 
order, turns into a flight from freedom, beco-
mes a quest for a social order in which mea-
ningful freedom can flourish, and concludes 
with the narrator’s realization of the futility 
of this search and his consequent alienation. 
(Lamb, 2005, 470)
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This book was almost as successful as Innocents 
Abroad had been (Robinson, 1995, 27), but many 
decades later it received scrutiny because of its 
portrayal of Native Americans, as well as for not 
taking issue with the expansion of the United States 
westwards and the effects this had on the native 
population of the lands (Railton, 2004, 28; Lamb, 
2005, 470, 472). On the other hand, Roughing It is 
notable because it condemned racism against Chi-
nese immigrants (Railton, 2004, 27; Lamb, 2005, 
471).
The Gilded Age (1873), Twain’s first novel, was 
co-written with Charles Dudley Warner. It satirizes 
American society and so perfectly captures the zeit-
geist of the post-Civil War decades in the United 
States that the era was later named after the title of 
the novel (Rasmussen, 2007, 144).
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), which 
is today perhaps best-known for its whitewashing 
scene, reflected “a nostalgic desire for a simpler 
and earlier way of life increasingly distant from the 
urban and technological developments of Gilded 
Age America” (Messent, 2007, 13; cf. Railton, 2004, 
39–40). The first novel that Twain wrote by himself 
would go on to sell more copies than any other of 
his novels throughout his lifetime (Messent, 2007, 
12) and has remained his best-selling book until 
the present (Rasmussen, 2007, 477). However, in 
the 20th century it sometimes attracted criticism be-
cause it barely acknowledges the existence of slav-
ery in the South and portrays the Native American 
antagonist named ‘Injun Joe’ in a stereotypical way 
(Sloane, 2001, 75, 78; Railton, 2004, 37, 41–43; 
Lamb, 2005, 478; Messent, 2007, 13).
Twain was extremely prolific in the first half of 
the 1880s, first publishing the travelogue A Tramp 
Abroad (1880) about his trip through southern 
and central Europe,5 and following it up with The 
Prince and the Pauper (1881)—primarily intended 
for younger readers. He then published Life on 
the Mississippi (1883), which is a memoir—previ-
ously serialised as ‘‘Old Times on the Mississippi’’ 
(1875) in Atlantic Monthly—of his experiences as a 
steamboat pilot on the Mississippi river in the years 
leading up to the Civil War, as well as a travelogue 
recounting his return to the river in 1882. In this 
book, Twain criticizes several aspects of both the 
5 Robinson (1995, 41) claims that this is the least interesting of all of Twain’s travelogues (see also Sloane, 2001, 46).
6 Before publishing Life on the Mississippi, both Twain and the book’s editor James Osgood deleted some passages that could have offen-
ded certain readers (Railton, 2004, 26; Rasmussen, 2007, 307).
7 Twain grew up in a slave-holding society and had no aversion to it, but later changed his views and advocated for racial justice (Lamb, 
2005, 468; see also Sloane, 2001, 10; Rasmussen, 2007, 883, 886–887). Lamb (2005, 489) even claims that “of all the white authors in 
this period, he was the one most fully immersed in and appreciative of African American culture and the one most at home in the com-
pany of African Americans.”
8 Some commentators interpret the ending as a metaphor for the situation African Americans were facing in the post-Reconstruction era; 
they had been emancipated, but were in many respects still at the mercy of their former masters (Lamb, 2005, 483–484). 
9 Peter Messent (2007, 7) speaks of a “darkening imaginative vision on the author’s part”.
antebellum and postbellum North and South (see 
Lamb, 2005, 473–476).6
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, whose socially 
outcast titular character proves himself a mensch 
amidst a slave-owning society by rejecting its racist 
views and helping an escaped slave to freedom, has 
always been a controversial book. Upon its initial 
publication in the United States in 1885, critics 
focused on the title character’s juvenile ‘delin-
quency’ (Messent, 2007, 12) and the book’s profan-
ity (Sloane, 2001, 19; Rasmussen, 2007, 202), etc. 
Especially since the 1980s, the main topic of dis-
cussion regarding the novel has been race—some 
critics object to the frequent use of the racial slur 
‘nigger’ and claim that the novel perpetuates certain 
stereotypes about black people (Sloane, 2001, 112, 
116, 120–121; Rasmussen, 2007, 202–203).7 For 
decades, the concluding chapters of the novel—in 
which the black protagonist becomes a pawn in Tom 
Sawyer’s childish games—have also been heavily 
scrutinised (Sloane, 2001, 121–122; Lamb, 2005, 
483–484; Rasmussen, 2007, 200).8
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 
(1889), a novel about a ‘Yankee of the Yankees’ who 
finds himself back in time at the court of King Ar-
thur and tries to transform society according to his 
own vision, is a work of many contradictions (see 
Sloane, 2001, 123; Lamb, 2005, 487). It might have 
been interpreted by many of Twain’s contemporar-
ies as criticising Europe’s medieval past (Railton, 
2004, 76) and as an affirmation of American values; 
it was generally well-received by American critics 
(see Railton, 2004, 82). However, it can also be 
read as a dystopian condemnation of imperialism 
and technological progress (Lamb, 2005, 485–486; 
see also Messent, 2007, 16; Rasmussen, 2007, 59); 
modern readers are thus more likely to perceive it 
as a critique of the American modus operandi when 
coming in contact with other peoples (Railton, 
2004, 84) and as Twain “holding up a fun-house 
mirror to his own late-19th century America” (Rail-
ton, 2004, 86).9
Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), arguably Twain’s 
last major novel, relates the life story of two men 
who had been switched as babies—one white and 
the other with ‘one drop’ of black blood. The novel 
was described by William E. Moddelmog (2005, 
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403) as a “cynical masterpiece of racial passing [...] 
[which] mocks prevalent legal definitions of race 
based on the percentage of white or black ‘blood’ 
in an individual’s background” (see also Sloane, 
2001, 157–158; Lamb, 2005, 488). It was published 
during a period of racial tension and was met with 
mixed reviews, which is also true of the novel’s 
modern reception (see Sloane, 2001, 146).10
Although Twain would go on to write several 
more full-length works, including Personal Recol-
lections of Joan of Arc, which he proclaimed to be 
his best work (Rasmussen, 2007, 179, 268), and the 
travelogue Following the Equator (1897), which is 
notable because in it Twain expressed anti-impe-
rialist views (Robinson, 1995, 43; Railton, 2004, 
28; Rasmussen, 2007, 141),11 the shorter published 
works from his late period are more noteworthy. 
These were characterised by increasing pessimism 
and a lack of faith in humankind (Lamb, 2005, 485; 
cf. Robinson, 1995, 50; Rasmussen, 2007, 841).12 
For instance, he published anti-imperialist writings 
like ‘‘To the Person Sitting in Darkness’’ (1901) 
and “King Leopold’s Soliloquy” (1905) (see Lamb, 
2005, 485; Rasmussen, 2007, 117, 552, 290–291), 
addressed religion in “Extracts from Adam’s Di-
ary” (1904), “Eve’s Diary” (1906) and “Captain 
Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” (1909) (see Sloane, 
2001, 169–171) and expressed pessimistic views 
about the human condition in “The Man that Cor-
rupted Hadleyburg” (1899), “A Dog’s Tale” (1903) 
(see Sloane, 2001, 165–168) and the anonymously 
published What is Man? (1906); in the latter, he 
articulated his ideas on determinism (Railton, 2004, 
113; Rasmussen, 2007, 841).13
By the end of the 19th century, Twain was widely 
perceived as one of the greatest American realist 
writers alongside Henry James and William Dean 
Howells14 (Sloane, 2001, 27; Krieg, 2006, 407). 
Twain gained further national admiration because 
10 In the previous decade, much of the post-Civil War legislation granting rights to African Americans had been invalidated, lynchings of 
African Americans were frequent in the 1890s, and two years after Pudd’nhead Wilson was published, racial segregation was upheld by 
the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (Sloane, 2001, 158–159; see also Moddelmog, 2005, 403–404)—African Americans were thus 
‘separate but equal’, but in reality they were second class citizens.
11 While his later socially critical writings are better known, Twain addressed various social issues in a satirical manner ever since he was a 
newspaper writer in the 1860s; this earned him the sobriquet ‘Moralist of the Main’ (Sloane, 2001, 16; Rasmussen, 2007, 841). He would 
also continue to occasionally express his critical opinions in his travel writings (Robinson, 1995, 28).
12 The last two decades of Twain’s life were marred by the deaths of many of his close relatives, including his wife and two of his daugh-
ters—this was reflected in his writing (Sloane, 2001, 10–11; Lamb, 2005, 485).
13 Sloane (2001, 8) remarked that “Twain’s quarrel with God was based on his distaste for a world in which death seemed a 
blessed relief from worse pain inflicted by chance or human depravity, and where man seemed a self-centered machine” (cf. 
Rasmussen, 2007, 122).
14 Howells, whose sobriquet was ‘The Dean of American Letters’, made the following ex cathedra statement about Twain after his 
death (qtd. in Rasmussen, 2007, 735): “Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes—I knew them all and all the rest of our sages, poets, 
seers, critics, humorists; they were like one another and like other literary men; but Clemens was sole, incomparable, the Lincoln 
of our literature.” 
15 Rudyard Kipling, who received both a doctor honoris causa from Oxford University alongside Twain and the Nobel Prize in Literature 
that very same year (Rasmussen, 2007, 732), had referred to Twain as “the great and godlike Clemens” in 1903 (qtd. in Rasmussen, 2007, 
757). When Twain arrived in England to be honoured by Oxford University, George Bernard Shaw (qtd. in Twain, [1907] 2006, 612), 
another future Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, proclaimed him “by far the greatest American writer”.
at the behest of his wife he paid off all the debts 
he had accrued through poor business decisions 
(Fisher Fishkin, 1995, 57–58; see also Rasmussen, 
2007, 585–586). His reputation at home was also 
enhanced by his recognition abroad: he was an 
international celebrity (Railton, 2004, 97), who 
was received by several heads of state, including 
those of Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom and 
Germany (Rasmussen, 2007, 583, 677, 942), as 
well as a highly respected man of letters—he was 
even awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford 
University in 1907.15 Twain’s status as an icon was 
reportedly reflected in the reactions to his death:
When Samuel Langhorne Clemens died in 
1910, newspapers carried the news around the 
world in boldface headlines. The people of the 
world had lost one of their greatest friends, the 
newspapers mourned, a friend who had used 
his authorial voice to battle imperialism, repres-
sion, inhumanity, and greed wherever he found 
it. […] [H]e was an icon of humanity at large, 
demanding justice and a reasonable degree of 
freedom from want for all people, especially for 
the downtrodden people of color who were cru-
shed under the heel of Imperialism and racial 
prejudice at home. (Sloane, 2001, 1)
Many of the ‘Great Dark Manuscripts’ from the 
last two decades of Twain’s life—when exposing 
the depraved state of humanity became the telos 
of his writing—were only published after his death 
(Sloane, 2001, 11, 20, 27; see also Railton, 2004, 
98; Messent, 2007, 9). Arguably, the most notewor-
thy among these is the unfinished novel published 
under the title No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger 
(1916), in which Twain expressed his views on the 
futility of humankind’s existence (Lamb, 2005, 492; 
see also Sloane, 2001, 171–173).
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In the decades following Twain’s death, several 
literary scholars expressed the opinion that Twain 
would have published more daring works had he 
not been as influenced by his mother (Rasmussen, 
2007, 608, 638–639) and especially had he not 
acquiesced to his wife’s taste (see Fisher Fishkin, 
1995, 53; Sloane, 2001, 7)16. Nevertheless, he 
remained very popular in the United States, and 
after World War II his canonization surged, with 
his status of an American institution largely being 
based on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Budd, 
1995, 19–24). Perhaps part of what makes him so 
enduringly interesting is that his life and work are 
full of contradictions:
He was a foremost advocate of America, 
progress, and the nineteenth century, but 
also their most bitter and effective critic. He 
was both idealist and cynic, dreamer and 
pragmatist, believer and skeptic. He hated 
power and its abuses, but was fascinated by 
powerful men, and his works are filled with 
such characters, toward whom he shows a 
maddening ambivalence. (Lamb, 2005, 469)
Despite this complexity, Rasmussen (2007, 179) 
remarked that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gen-
erates as much commentary as all of Twain’s other 
works together. The frequent (mis)interpretations of 
this novel led Robert Paul Lamb and G. R. Thomp-
son (2005, 10) to proclaim Twain as “arguably 
America’s best known and least understood major 
author”.
OVERVIEW OF THE SLOVENIAN TRANSLATIONS OF 
TWAIN’S WORKS
During Twain’s lifetime, translations of his 
works into Slovenian were limited to sketches and 
short stories appearing in newspapers. The first of 
his books to be translated was The Prince and the 
Pauper, which was published by Iv. Pr. Lampret in 
1910 under the title Kraljevič in berač; new editions 
of this translation by Ferdo Kleinmayer were pub-
lished after the end of World War I, i.e. in 1919 and 
1921. The same year as the latter edition appeared, 
Ivan Mulaček’s translation of The Adventures of 
Tom Sawyer, entitled Mali klatež Tom Sawyer, was 
16 Even before he married, i.e. as early as when preparing his travel letters for publication in the travel book Innocents Abroad, Twain alte-
red a number of passages that could have potentially offended ‘respectable society’ (Railton, 2004, 14–15).
17 The lack of translations does not necessarily signify that during the time that the Slovenian territory was part of Austria-
-Hungary and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Slovenians did not read Twain. During the former period, several of his works 
were already available in German and can still be found in Slovenian libraries; furthermore, according to reports, some 
representatives of the Slovenian intelligentsia, for instance renowned prose writers Ivan Cankar (Löffler and Slodnjak, 
1976, 520) and Ivan Tavčar (Lavrič, 1987, 423) read Twain’s works. During the Yugoslav period, some of Twain’s works 
were available in Serbo-Croatian, which was the lingua franca both during the time that Yugoslavia was a monarchy and 
during its socialist era.
published by Omladina. However, this novel would 
remain the last of Twain’s full-length works to be 
translated until the end of World War II.17
In 1947, Mladinska knjiga published Milena 
Mohorič’s re-translation of The Adventures of 
Tom Sawyer, this time titled Pustolovščine Toma 
Sawyera. The following year, the same publishing 
house put out Pavel Holeček’s translation of Adven-
tures of Huckleberry Finn, entitled Pustolovščine 
Huckleberryja Finna. In 1952, Slovenski knjižni 
zavod published Avgust Petrišič’s translation of the 
short story “The Million Pound Bank Note” under 
the title Bankovec za milijon funtov. Next year, 
Pavel Holeček’s re-translation of The Prince and the 
Pauper, entitled Kraljevič in berač, was published 
by Mladinska knjiga, which in 1957 also put out 
Holeček’s translation of Tom Sawyer, Detective, 
titled Tom Sawyer, detektiv. In 1960, Mladinska 
knjiga published yet another re-translation of The 
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which was titled 
Prigode Toma Sawyerja; it was translated by Janez 
Gradišnik, and new editions of it were published 
in 1965, 1972, 1977, 1979 and 1984. The same 
publishing house put out Primož Kozak’s transla-
tion of Life on the Mississippi in 1961 under the 
title Življenje na Misisipiju. The following year, 
Mladinska knjiga published Janez Gradišnik’s re-
translation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 
this time titled Prigode Huckleberryja Finna; a new 
edition of it appeared in 1974. The year after it put 
out the latter edition, Mladinska knjiga published 
Jenki iz Connecticuta na dvoru kralja Arturja, Ferdi-
nand Miklavc’s translation of A Connecticut Yankee 
in King Arthur’s Court. In 1977, the same publish-
ing house put out a collection of some of Twain’s 
shorter humorous writings; the book was titled 
Humoreske and translated by Branko Gradišnik. 
The same translator also re-translated The Prince 
and the Pauper, which was published under the 
title Princ in beraček in 1982 by Mladinska knjiga. 
This was the last translation of a full-length book of 
Twain’s to be published during Slovenia’s socialist 
period.
The fact that in the pre-socialist period only 
two translations of Twain’s full-length works were 
published, while as many as eleven new translations 
(five of them re-translations) appeared during the so-
cialist period—two in the first five years after World 
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War II, three in the 1950s, also three in the 1960, 
two in the 1970s, and one in the 1980s—indicates 
that the author’s status differed significantly between 
the two periods.
TWAIN’S RECEPTION ON THE SLOVENIAN 
TERRITORY DURING THE PRE-SOCIALIST PERIOD
The first recorded mention of Mark Twain’s name 
in Slovenian print dates back to 1880, when an an-
ecdote about him was published in the liberal news-
paper Slovenski narod.18 During Twain’s lifetime, 
this newspaper reported about Twain several more 
times, for instance about the amount of money he 
was supposedly earning each year,19 his visit to the 
parliament in Vienna,20 his presence at a press event 
in Budapest,21 etc. During the same period, Twain 
was featured even more often in the conservative 
newspaper Slovenec; a search in the Digital Library 
of Slovenia reveals that by his death, Twain’s name 
had appeared in Slovenski narod 16 times, while the 
number was as high as 50 in Slovenec—in many is-
sues, translations of Twain’s sketches or anecdotes 
about his life were published. For instance, when a 
translation of the sketch “The Capitoline Venus” was 
published, it was accompanied by a footnote with a 
short biography, in which Twain was referred to as 
the greatest American humorist.22 
Several publications also honoured Twain’s 70th 
birthday. An article published in the Catholic literary 
magazine Dom in svet claims that he never—not even 
in the face of bankruptcy—lost his sense of humour, 
which supposedly helped him to make it to old age 
(N. N., 1905, 764). The literary magazine Slovan 
notes that Twain is one of the writers known across 
the world (c. r., 1905, 188), while in Slovenski narod 
he is named the greatest humorist in the world.23
Many articles about Twain appeared in the year 
of his death. In Slovenski narod, he is referred to as 
the greatest American humorist,24 and he is lauded 
in similar terms in Štajerc and Popotnik.25 In an 
18 Slovenski narod, 22. 9. 1880: Zoper slovensko revolver-žurnalistiko Brencelj-Aleševčevo, 1. If the name of the author of a certain article 
is not mentioned, the text is anonymous.
19 Slovenski narod, 2. 1. 1890: Nesreča Marka Twaina, 3.
20 Slovenski narod, 8. 11. 1897: Mark Twain v parlamentu, 3.
21 Slovenski narod, 29. 3. 1899: Proslava svobode tiska, 1–2.
22 Slovenec, 2. 7. 1898: Kako je prišla Venera na Kapitol, 2.
23 Slovenski narod, 9. 12. 1905: Mark Twain, 6.
24 Slovenski narod, 23. 4. 1910: Pisatelj Mark Twain, 5.
25 Štajerc, 1. 5. 1910: Mark Twain, 5; Popotnik, 1910, 31, 5: Pisatelj Mark Twain, 160.
26 Straža, 25. 4. 1910: Mark Twain umrl, 2. Quotes originally in Slovenian were translated into English by the author of the present article.
27 Narodni dnevnik, 26. 4. 1910: Humorist Mark Twain. 4; Rdeči prapor, 4. 5. 1910: Humorist Mark Twain, 4; Gorenjec, 14. 5. 1910: 
Humorist Mark Twain, 9. Taft’s exact words are as follows: “He never wrote a line that a father could not read to a daughter.” (Retrieved 
from: http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/sc_as_mt/obitap.html (last access: 14. 2. 2019)).
28 Učiteljski tovariš, 29. 4. 1910: Mark Twain, 2. 
29 Gorenjec, 4. 6. 1910: Kraljevič in berač, 3.
30 Soča, 16. 7. 1910: Kraljevič in berač, 5; Jutro, 19. 7. 1910: Kraljevič in berač, 2.
31 Jutro, 7. 11. 1910: Zapuščina Marka Twaina, 2.
obituary published in Straža, Twain is named the 
most popular modern American writer, whose works 
have been translated into all ‘cultured’ languages; 
the article ends as follows: “The essence of Mark 
Twain’s art is humour, which is expressed in comical 
storytelling and in funny, burlesque storylines with 
numerous contrasts. A common thread in his work is 
stinging sarcasm, with which he excoriates the bad 
habits of everyday life.”26 An article first published 
in Narodni dnevnik and later also in Rdeči prapor 
and Gorenjec includes a quotation from President 
William Howard Taft, who stated that Twain never 
wrote a line that children should not be allowed to 
see. The anonymous author of the article gives the 
following assessment of Twain’s work: “His books 
are inexhaustible sources of laughter; they contain 
the haughtiest nonsense, the most unbelievable ex-
aggeration and matchless pleasantry.”27 In Učiteljski 
tovariš, writer and pedagogue Ferdo Kleinmayr, writ-
ing under the pseudonym F. Plemič, names Twain 
as the most noted of all American authors and the 
only humorist whose death resonated across the 
world and whose works have been translated into 
many ‘cultured’ languages. He also heaps the highest 
praise upon The Prince and the Pauper and calls for 
this novel to be translated into Slovenian.28 When 
the publication of the Slovenian translation of The 
Prince and the Pauper is announced in Gorenjec, it is 
erroneously stated that Twain was an English humor-
ist whose humour has reached almost every nation.29 
An anonymous review of this translation published 
in both Soča and Jutro praises the way the story is 
written, and describes Twain as a man of the peo-
ple.30 In an article about Twain’s legacy published 
later that year in the latter progressive newspaper, he 
is referred to as a humorist of world renown.31
In the years following his death, noteworthy arti-
cles discussing Twain were published only sporadi-
cally. In Dom in svet, he is named as the only notable 
American author besides James Fenimore Cooper 
who ‘needs’ to be translated into Slovenian (Gra-
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dovin, 1913, 118). In Mentor, it is stated that Twain’s 
writing was despised by critics as literature of the 
low kind, but that the public was enraptured with it. 
His works are called refreshing, his satire is praised 
and the level of fantasy in his works is compared to 
that of Edgar Allan Poe.32 In an announcement of the 
publication of a new edition of the translation of The 
Prince and the Pauper, it is stated in Slovenec that 
the book is written in an educational and entertain-
ing way, and that young people will benefit from 
reading it.33 In Ljubljanski zvon, writer Fran Albrecht 
(1913, 52) compares the quality of Branislav Nušić’s 
feuilletons and sketches to those of Twain.34 
In 1920, virtually the same review of the newly 
translated The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is published 
in Slovenski narod, Jutro, Slovenec and Naprej. The 
anonymous reviewer refers to Twain as an unsurpass-
able storyteller, erroneously states that this publica-
tion marks the first Slovenian translation of one of 
his books, and praises its plot, characterisation and 
humour.35 In a further article, the latter newspaper 
states that the novel would be entertaining to young 
people and would remind adult readers of their 
happy younger days.36 Pedagogue and writer Josip 
Brinar (1921, 120) publishes a positive review of the 
novel in Pedagoški zbornik, and particularly praises 
the way the relationship between the protagonist 
and his love interest is portrayed. In a footnote ac-
companying the translation of the short story “The 
Million Pound Bank Note” in Slovenski gospodar, 
Twain is referred to as not merely the best American 
humorist, but the best humorist ever to have writ-
ten in English.37 However, reserved opinions about 
Twain’s humour are also expressed occasionally; 
for instance, in Slovenski narod, an author with the 
initials ‘M. Z.’ states that Twain’s type of humour left 
him/her cold,38 while in a later article in the same 
newspaper his humour is characterised as typically 
American.39
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Twain’s 
death, Mariborski večernik »Jutra« published a few 
anecdotes about him and claimed that he found plenty 
of humour in everything.40 In an in-depth review of 
Upton Sinclair’s monograph Mammonart, published 
32 Mentor, 1913, 6, 3: Mark Twain, 58.
33 Slovenec, 15. 7. 1913: Twain, Kraljevič in berač, 6.
34 At the beginning of the next decade, Gledališki list also compares Nušić’s writing to that of Twain, claiming that the latter “has realistic 
ideas, but when he develops and paraphrases them, he often goes astray into the fantastical and incredible, and loses his foothold and 
his starting-point” (M. P., 1921, 18).
35 Slovenski narod, 24. 12. 1920: Mark Twain: Mali klatež Tom Sawyer, 3; Jutro, 24. 12. 1920: Mark Twain: Mali klatež Tom Sawyer, 5; 
Slovenec, 25. 12. 1920: Mark Twain: Mali klatež Tom Sawyer, 4; Naprej, 27. 12. 1920: Mark Twain: Mali klatež Tom Sawyer, 2.
36 Naprej, 28. 12. 1920: Mark Twain: Mali klatež Tom Sawyer, 3.
37 Slovenski gospodar, 27. 4. 1922: Bankovec za milijon funtov zlata, 1–2.
38 Slovenski narod, 4. 4. 1924: Cezar in Kleopatra, 2.
39 Slovenski narod, 15. 11. 1925: Mark Twain, 3.
40 Mariborski večernik »Jutra«, 17. 4. 1930: Ob dvajsetletnici smrti Marka Twaina, 3.
41 Slovenski narod, 22. 1. 1935: 100 letnica rojstva Marka Twaina, 4.
42 Družinski tednik, 21. 2. 1935: Mark Twain in ameriški humor, 5.
in the literary magazine Modra ptica, writer and lit-
erary critic Filip Kalan (1933b, 176–177) notes that 
Sinclair criticised Twain for not expressing his true 
opinions about contemporary American society in 
his works, instead settling for the role of a harmless 
‘clown’, which enabled him to remain successful 
throughout his long a career as a writer. In a review 
of Sinclair Lewis’s novel Arrowsmith, published in 
the same magazine, Kalan himself expresses a criti-
cal sentiment about Twain:
However, Mark Twain was first and foremost 
perceived as a romantic, extravagant Yankee, 
who played the role of some kind of consul of 
American literature in “cultured” countries. 
Nowadays, his clown-like humour is merely 
evidence of Twain the desperate pessimist, and it 
inspires us with more pity towards the clown than 
with laughter at a joke—and if he had not created 
the brilliant urchins Tom and Huck, we would no 
longer be interested in the roaring of this literary 
lion. (Kalan, 1933a, 216)
The 100th anniversary of Twain’s birth did not 
pass unnoticed in Slovenian serial publications. In 
Slovenski narod, it is noted that no writer has ever 
been as revered in America as Twain; his popularity 
is even compared to that of the presidents George 
Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Wood-
row Wilson.41 Družinski tednik publishes a few 
anecdotes about Twain and states that his humorous 
writings smite society’s hypocritical morals and that 
there is much unflattering truth behind some of his 
famous statements. The article concludes with the 
following assessment:
Twain did not reach the heights of artistic creati-
on because he was missing something which his 
compatriot Edgar Allan Poe had too much of: 
a sense of tragic contrast. But that is not to say 
that Twain’s satire of humankind will remain any 
less true; furthermore, his satire has the virtue of 
never offending the vanity of those at whom it 
is directed. 42
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In another issue of the same weekly, a few addi-
tional anecdotes about Twain are published, and he 
is lauded as the greatest American humorist,43 while 
in yet another issue of Družinski tednik published in 
the same year, the events that led to Samuel Lang-
horne Clemens adopting the penname Mark Twain 
are related.44 An article in Življenje in svet states that 
both Benito Mussolini and Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
were admirers of Twain. The author with the initials 
‘A. D.’ states the following: “Mark Twain jested in a 
cold, American way, on account of his compatriots. 
He did not hesitate at all to ridicule their peculiari-
ties and faults, which can of course also be found in 
other nations.”45 The magazine Radio Ljubljana refers 
to Twain as one of the greatest humorists in world 
literature, praises the humour of his characters Tom 
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and laments the lack of 
Slovenian translations of Twain’s works, while many 
lower quality works were allegedly being translated.46 
In the bi-weekly newspaper for youth Mlada pota, it is 
mentioned that Twain opposed war and colonialism,47 
while in Slovenski dom he is referred to as the father 
of American humour and satire.48
In the late 1930s, Slovenians had a chance to see 
two films based on Twain’s works. In an announce-
ment that a film based on The Prince and the Pauper 
would be released, an anonymous writer in Radio 
Ljubljana states that Twain is the greatest Ameri-
can humorist, and that for a long time no director 
attempted to film one of his novels, on account 
of his humour being too refined and unapproach-
able. Furthermore, hope that a film version of The 
Adventures of Tom Sawyer would also be made is 
expressed in the article.49 When announcing that 
The Prince and the Pauper would be shown in a 
local cinema, Gorenjec praises the story and lauds 
Twain as the ‘greatest writer’.50 Slovenec claims that 
the Norman Taurog directed film The Adventures of 
Tom Sawyer is one of the most beautiful examples of 
cinematic art, and that both the film and the book 
43 Družinski tednik, 4. 7. 1935: Mark Twain in kralj, 3.
44 Družinski tednik, 28. 11. 1935: Dvojno rojstvo Marka Twaina, 1.
45 Življenje in svet, 30. 11. 1935: Mark Twain, 240–241.
46 Radio Ljubljana, 8. 12. 1935: Stoletnico Marka Twaina, 7.
47 Mlada pota, 18. 1. 1936: Mark Twain proti vojni in nasilju, 7.
48 Slovenski dom, 30. 4. 1936: Čudna pota dovtipov, 4.
49 Radio Ljubljana, 11. 4. 1937: Mark Twain v filmu, 138.
50 Gorenjec, 14. 1. 1939: Šmartin pri Kranju, 4.
51 Slovenec, 16. 3. 1939: Mark Twain in njegov znameniti roman »Pustolovščine Toma Swayerja«, 7.
52 Slovenec, 18. 3. 1939: Pustolovščine Toma Sawyerja v kinu Unionu, 7.
53 Jutro, 20. 2. 1939: Twainova dela v filmu, 8; Jutro, 15. 3. 1939: Pustolovščine Toma Sawyerja v filmu, 3; Jutro, 18. 3. 1939: Pustolovščine 
Toma Sawyerja v kinu Unionu, 4.
54 Slovenski narod, 15. 3. 1939: Pustolovščine Toma Sawyerja v filmu, 4; Slovenski narod, 18. 3. 1939: Pustolovščine Toma Sawyerja 
v kinu Unionu, 4.
55 Radio Ljubljana, 19. 3. 1939: Iz filmskega sveta, 4.
56 Mariborski večernik »Jutra«, 15. 4. 1939: Tommy Kelly, nov filmski zvezdnik, 9.
57 Vzajemna svoboda, 1938, 2, 11: Iz zgodovine cenzure, 191–192.
58 Slovenski poročevalec, 20. 7. 1947: Pišite za mladino!, 5.
are of great value,51 while a further review in the 
same newspaper states that not for a long time has a 
film displayed “so many deep and noble sentiments, 
so much beauty and heartfelt goodness”.52 Similarly 
positive assessments of this film are also expressed 
several times in Jutro53 and Slovenski narod,54 while 
in Radio Ljubljana merely the storyline is given.55 
In yet another rave review of the film in Mariborski 
večernik »Jutra«, the novel on which the film was 
based is referred to as ‘immortal’.56
A further notable mention of Twain in the late 
1930s can be found in an article on the history of 
censorship published in Vzajemna svoboda, where 
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures 
of Tom Sawyer are referred to as ‘immortal’, and it 
is mentioned that while they are no longer banned 
from many libraries in the United States, the books 
had recently been banned in Brazil, because the 
dictatorial government there found communist ten-
dencies in both of them.57 After World War II broke 
out, and especially after Yugoslavia was occupied in 
1941, Twain was featured in Slovenian serial publi-
cations far less often: a search in the Digital Library 
of Slovenia reveals that from 1941 to 1945, Twain’s 
name appeared in less than one hundred issues of 
Slovenian serial publications, while in the five years 
preceding that period the number was higher than 
four hundred.
TWAIN’S RECEPTION ON THE SLOVENIAN 
TERRITORY DURING THE SOCIALIST PERIOD
In the first years after a socialist regime was es-
tablished in Yugoslavia in 1945, Twain’s reception in 
Slovenia was somewhat influenced by his reception 
in the Soviet Union. For instance, journalist Dušan 
Željeznov, credited as ‘nv’ in Slovenski poročevalec, 
designates Twain as one of the authors Soviet chil-
dren should be encouraged to read, since his works 
would inspire them to strive for a better life.58 The 
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same year a translation of an article by A. Fadjejev 
(i.e. prominent Soviet writer Alexander Fadeyev) 
about Soviet literary criticism was published in Novi 
svet—Twain is one of the authors discussed, and as 
the following excerpt illustrates, his reception was 
highly ideologically charged:
Mark Twain is undoubtedly a realist, who 
truthfully portrays and criticizes the sanctimony, 
hypocrisy, greed and ignorance of American 
society, he truly shows the contradictions of 
poverty and wealth. At the same time, there is 
no doubt that Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and the 
heroes of the Mississippi have many romantic 
characteristics, and these figures carry the po-
sitive natural ideals of Mark Twain. And it is not 
a coincidence that these works have survived 
for so long and that they are children’s favourite 
reading. Everybody knows that this peculiarity 
of Twain’s arose from the liberation struggle of 
the northern against the southern states. And 
everybody knows that in the United States such 
merry and authentic books have never again 
existed. (Fadjejev, 1947, 633–634)
A slightly adapted translation of the above pas-
sage was published in Obzornik in a review of the 
recently published translations of The Adventures 
of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry 
Finn—without Fadeyev being credited.59 Željeznov 
(credited as ‘PJ’) published a review of the newly 
re-translated The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in Slov-
enski poročevalec,60 and when shortly afterwards a 
translation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was 
published, he expanded this text for a review in Mla-
dinska revija. He asserts that in these novels, Twain 
addressed slavery, political systems, purism, con-
ventionalism, conservatism, and so on. The reviewer 
cites part of the above statement by Fadeyev, claims 
that American publishing houses refuse to reprint 
some of Twain’s works because they are too demo-
cratic and progressive, and do not portray the United 
States in a favourable light. Furthermore, Željeznov 
alleges that primarily in Western Europe, only pro-
American works of questionable quality are being 
translated; he therefore advocates for Twain’s works 
to be translated into Slovenian. In the concluding 
remarks, the reviewer poses the question whether 
the two newly published translations are not more 
suitable for adult readers than for young people, and 
59 Obzornik, 1948, 3, 5: Pustolovščine Huckleberryja Finna, 222.
60 Slovenski poročevalec, 13. 1. 1948: Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, 5.
61 Ljudski tednik, 29. 1. 1948: Berimo nove knjige, 7. The source of this quote was Fadeyev’s article referred to above—the original author 
is not credited.
62 Ljudski tednik, 22. 4. 1948: Berimo nove knjige. 7.
63 Ljudska pravica, 15. 4. 1948: Pustolovščine Huckleberryja Finna, 5.
64 Slovenski poročevalec, 15. 5. 1948: Mark Twain, Pustolovščine Huckleberryja Finna, 4.
suggests that an adequate introduction be added 
in order to explain the historical circumstances to 
younger readers (Željeznov, 1948, 444–445). In a 
review of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in Ljudski 
tednik, an author with the initials ‘S. R.’ states that 
Twain “truthfully portrays and criticizes the sancti-
mony, hypocrisy, greed and egoism of contemporary 
American society”,61 while in a review of Adventures 
of Huckleberry Finn published in the same weekly, 
an author with inverted initials similarly claims that 
in this novel Twain “lashes out at the hypocrisy and 
egoism of 19th-century American society”.62 In a 
lengthy review of the latter novel in Ljudska pravica, 
an author under the pseudonym ALPA asserts that 
the struggle against slavery is the main theme of the 
story, and introduces Twain as a critic of contempo-
rary American society:
Twain writes under the guise of innocent humo-
ur. Only seldom does he make use of sarcasm, 
and only with irony does he successfully expose 
the iniquities that began to emerge with the 
increasing advancement of capitalism. He is an 
expert at describing the aspirations of the petty 
bourgeoisie and in ridiculing the religious and 
secular representatives ruling in his homeland.
When describing the plot, the reviewer states that 
it addresses the injustice, backwardness, religios-
ity, sensationalism, etc. of contemporary American 
society, and in the continuation of the review asserts 
that the novel will have a positive influence on the 
morality and humanity of young readers. In the clos-
ing remarks, ALPA criticises the illustrations as too 
comical for this kind of text.63 An author credited as 
‘fj’ in Slovenski poročevalec has a similar opinion 
about the illustrations, laments the lack of an intro-
duction to the translation, and gives the following 
assessment of the content:
The writer wittily makes fun of faults like nar-
row-minded puritanism and the false morality 
that is not reflected in actions, especially not in 
the treatment of black slaves, he ridicules the 
hypocritical Christianity of Sunday schools, the 
narrow-mindedness and backwardness of his 
compatriots, their gullibility and slovenliness, 
and he also makes fun of the foolish and sen-
seless remnants of the Middle Ages and their 
customs, such as blood feuds.64
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An anonymous author in Primorski dnevnik 
strongly condemns American publishers for alleg-
edly flooding the book market with low quality, 
anti-Soviet publications, which distort reality and do 
not allow people to know the truth, while suppress-
ing (i.e. not re-printing) some of the works by Twain, 
who, according to the author of the article, laid 
the foundations of American critical realism. In the 
continuation of the article, the author describes how 
in a satirical piece entitled “A Defence of General 
Funston,” Twain criticises American imperialism in 
the Philippines, while in an essay entitled “To the 
Person Sitting in Darkness” he “strongly condemns 
American imperialist policies in Europe, and lashes 
out against missionaries who are pulling poor blacks 
and Chinese ‘out of the darkness’ and thereby paving 
the way for imperialists and their slave civilisation.”65 
A further anonymous article in the same newspaper 
entitled “From the Literary History of American 
Imperialism” claims that Twain exposed the vileness 
of American imperial politics and quotes Twain’s 
condemnation of President Theodore Roosevelt and 
General Leonard Wood for the ‘Moro Crater Mas-
sacre’—in part, the original quote reads:66
We are by long odds the most ill-mannered 
nation, civilized or savage, that exists on the 
planet to-day, and our President stands for us 
like a colossal monument visible from all the 
ends of the earth. He is fearfully hard and co-
arse where another gentleman would exhibit 
kindness and delicacy. Lately, when that slimy 
creature of his, that misplaced doctor, that 
dishonoured governor of Cuba, that sleight of 
hand Major General Leonard Wood, penned 
up six hundred helpless savages in a hole 
and butchered every one of them, allowing 
not even a woman or a child to escape, Pre-
sident Roosevelt—representative American 
gentleman, First American gentleman—put 
the heart and soul of our whole nation of 
gentlemen in the scream of delight which he 
cabled to Wood congratulating him on this 
“brilliant feat of arms,” and praising him for 
thus “upholding the honor of the American 
flag.” (Twain, [1906] 2013, 9)67
65 Primorski dnevnik, 28. 9. 1948: Mark Twain na indeksu, 3.
66 Primorski dnevnik, 12. 10. 1948: Iz literarne zgodovine ameriškega imperializma, 3.
67 While Twain used the term ‘savages’ when referring to the Moro people, in the translation ljudje (i.e. ‘humans’ or ‘people’) was 
used. This is in line with the tendency to censor discourse that could be deemed racist in translations during the socialist period 
(see Trupej, 2017, 336).
68 Mladina, 10. 12. 1949: Mark Twain: pisatelj sonca in smeha, 5.
69 Ljudska pravica, 3. 11. 1951: Pogovor o ameriški književnosti, 5.
70 Similarly to the aforementioned quotation from Twain on American atrocities in the Philippines, ‘Nigger Jim’ is translated as črni 
Jim, i.e. ‘black Jim’.
71 In the same magazine, literary critic and translator Rapa Šuklje (1961, 963–964) later also asserts that Hemingway’s writing was heavily 
influenced by Twain, especially by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
After the ‘Tito–Stalin Split’ in 1948, Yugoslavia 
began moving closer to the West; thus, it is not sur-
prising that the criticism of the United States began 
to be substantially less severe, which is also reflected 
in the reception of Twain’s works. For instance, in 
Mladina, writer and editor Ivan Potrč asserts that the 
greatness of Mark Twain’s humour lay in the fact that 
it was intended not only to entertain, but often also 
to severely criticise society’s faults, for example its 
treatment of disfranchised children or black peo-
ple.68 Ljudska pravica published Ernest Hemingway’s 
famed statement about the status of Adventures of 
Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s magnum opus, in the 
American literary system:69
All modern American literature comes from one 
book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If 
you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is 
stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest 
is just cheating. But it’s the best book we’ve had. 
All American writing comes from that. There was 
nothing before. There has been nothing as good 
since. (Hemingway, [1935] 2002, 23)70 
In Novi svet, poet and translator Bogomil Fatur 
(1951, 648) asserts that Twain fought against “the 
puritan narrow-mindedness of his country and his 
era”, and that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was 
an epic story from the early American period. He 
goes on to claim that with Twain an idyllic era of 
American literature came to an end, and that by 
the time the next generation of writers established 
itself, the country had made “its enormous step into 
the abyss of modern, immense capitalism”. In Naša 
sodobnost, Fatur (1953, 748) rephrases part of the 
above statement, and in the continuation of the 
article (Fatur, 1953, 753), he mentions that Ernest 
Hemingway considered Adventures of Huckleberry 
Finn the greatest prose work in American literature.71 
As Yugoslavia’s relations with the USSR began 
to normalise after Stalin’s death in 1953, Twain 
was again used to criticise the West more often, 
although articles about him and mentions of him 
are generally not as lengthy and ideologically 
charged as had previously been the case. For in-
stance, both Ljudska pravica and Primorski dnevnik 
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condemned Senator Joseph McCarthy’s efforts 
to suppress Twain’s works,72 while in two similar 
reviews of The Prince and the Pauper published in 
Slovenski poročevalec and Delavska enotnost, it is 
stated that the novel portrays the poverty, violence 
and suffering of the poor in the England of old.73 
Ljudska pravica and later—in a slightly shortened 
version—Slovenski Jadran publish a review of the 
film The Million Pound Note, stating that Twain 
was a satirist and a philosopher, who in the short 
story on which the film was based, criticised the 
narrow-minded, greedy bourgeoisie of British 
capitalist society; furthermore, the reviewer with 
the initials ‘S. K.’ laments that the film softened 
the story’s satire.74 The magazine Tovariš describes 
this film in similar terms.75 A short review of Tom 
Sawyer, Detective in Slovenski Jadran states that the 
novel is well-written and includes social satire.76 
In Slavistična revija, literary scholar Emil Štampar 
(1958, 79) claims that in the Soviet Union, Twain 
was perceived as an opponent of the tsarist regime, 
while in Slovenski Jadran, British writer Jerome 
Klapka Jerome is referred to as a worthy successor 
to both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain because of 
his humour and his championing of social justice.77
Yugoslavia became one of the most prominent 
members of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1960s, 
and Twain continued to be used to criticise the West, 
although the criticism was never again as severe as 
it had been in the first post-War years. In a review 
of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in Sodobna pota, 
an anonymous author states that this novel addresses 
the relations between white and black people.78 An 
article in the most widely-read Slovenian newspaper 
Delo claims that Twain was not merely a humorist, 
but also a social philosopher, who criticised American 
society, European feudalism, war-profiteering, capital-
ism, etc. It is furthermore stated that in the 1920s, the 
72 Ljudska pravica, 5. 7. 1953: McCarthyjeve grmade, 4; Primorski dnevnik, 1. 8. 1953: Kaj bodo tudi v ZDA zagorele grmade?, 3.
73 Slovenski poročevalec, 16 .8. 1953: Kraljevič in berač, 6; Delavska enotnost, 28. 8. 1953: Kaj bomo brali, 6.
74 Ljudska pravica, 3. 2. 1955: Bankovec za milijon funtov, 6; Slovenski Jadran, 9. 9. 1955: Te dni bomo gledali „Bankovec za mili-
jon funtov“, 12.
75 Tovariš, 4. 2. 1955: Bankovec za milijon funtov, 123.
76 Slovenski Jadran, 4. 7. 1957: Tom – mali detektiv, 5.
77 Slovenski Jadran, 23. 10. 1959: Jerome Klapka Jerome: Trije možje se klatijo, 5.
78 Sodobna pota, 1960, 5, 8: Prigode Toma Sawyerja, 363.
79 Delo, 1. 4. 1960: Nocoj Mark Twain, 6.
80 Delo, 4. 3. 1961: Pustolovščine Toma Sawyerja, 6.
81 Rudar, 1. 2. 1962: Mark Twain Življenje na Mississippiju, 6; Delo, 14. 1. 1962: Zbirka mladinske knjige, 4.
82 Delo, 9. 9. 1962: Objava antireligioznih esejev Marka Twaina, 5.
83 Knjiga, 1962, 10, 11/12: Prigode Huckleberry [sic] Finna, 202.
84 Naši razgledi, 22. 12. 1962: O novih knjigah. 487.
85 Slovenski Jadran, 1. 1. 1963: Mark Twain: Prigode Huckleberryja Finna, 16.
86 Primorski dnevnik, 19. 11. 1963: Burkež Mark Twain, 3.
87 Tovariš, 1. 5. 1964: Smeh skozi solze, 88–89.
88 Ljubljanski dnevnik, 15. 7. 1964: Rusi imajo svojo podobo o Ameriki, 9–10.
89 Delo, 28. 4. 1967: Velika pustolovščina Toma Sawyerja, 5.
90 Dolenjski list, 8. 5. 1969: Avtobiografija, 17.
Lost Generation did not hold Twain in as high esteem 
as previous generations, but that this changed later 
and that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn began to be 
regarded as one of the greatest American novels.79 
In the same newspaper, someone writing under the 
pseudonym ‘Jaš’ laments that the severe social satire 
of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer got lost in the film 
based on this novel.80 Rudar publishes a positive re-
view—which earlier also appeared in Delo in a slightly 
shortened version—of Life on the Mississippi; the book 
is described as both a typical travelogue and a typical 
artwork of Twain’s, which includes moral and social 
satire.81 In a further article in Delo, there is a report 
on Twain’s anti-religious writings.82 In a review of 
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, an anonymous author 
in Knjiga states that through the protagonist’s eyes, we 
are witnessing the “dark sides of the American civiliz-
ing movement”.83 In Naši razgledi, writer Jože Snoj 
describes this novel as a boys’ adventure story,84 while 
in Slovenski Jadran it is stated that this is one of the 
works that brought Twain immortality, and Ernest Hem-
ingway’s opinion about it is once again mentioned.85 
In Primorski dnevnik, writer France Magajna presents 
Twain as the greatest American humorist and substanti-
ates this claim by anecdotes from Twain’s life.86 Simi-
larly, an article in Tovariš recounting Twain’s life story 
focuses on his path as a humorist, but also explains 
how the tragedies he suffered in his later years af-
fected his worldview.87 Ljubljanski dnevnik publishes a 
translation of an article by American scholar of Russian 
literature Edward Wysiolek (i.e. Wasiolek), in which he 
discusses Twain’s canonised status in the Soviet literary 
system.88 In a review in Delo, film critic and journalist 
Stanka Godnič criticises a play based on The Adven-
tures of Tom Sawyer, deeming its anti-racist agenda too 
obvious,89 while Dolenjski list publishes excerpts from 
Twain’s Autobiography—in the accompanying note he 
is hailed as the greatest American humorist.90 
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Only a few noteworthy articles about Twain were 
published in the 1970s. In Delo, a writer with the 
initials ‘R. V.’ claims that Adventures of Huckleberry 
Finn is one of the books that brought Twain immortal-
ity and states that in it, the author addressed the sad 
truth that slavery was once regarded as something 
completely legitimate and natural in the United 
States.91 In the newspaper Glas, Huckleberry Finn 
and Tom Sawyer are described as classic characters 
of juvenile literature,92 while an anonymous article 
in Informativni fužinar claims that Twain’s humorous 
sketches are both funny and educational.93
Twain’s reception in the last decade before 
Yugoslavia fell apart is livelier. In an article pub-
lished in Delo commemorating the 70th anniversary 
of Twain’s death, philosopher Marko Uršič focuses 
on Twain’s life experiences before he married and 
settled down in 1870. He does, however, proclaim 
Twain to be the ‘American Homer’ and asserts 
Huckleberry Finn to be the author’s most well-
rounded literary figure.94 Primorski dnevnik reports 
on a play about Tom Sawyer being performed by 
the pupils of a local primary school.95 In the sup-
plement of Delo, Rapa Šuklje notes that in the 
United States, Twain is widely regarded as a major 
writer, while in Slovenia, his works—even Ad-
ventures of Huckleberry Finn, his most important 
socially critical piece of writing—are considered 
to be juvenile literature. Šuklje further claims that 
Twain “discovered a lot of thallium among the gold 
of European culture”.96 When Jože Snoj reviews a 
play based on Twain’s “Eve’s Diary” in Delo, he 
uses the terms conventional, conformist, dogmatic 
and sentimental to describe the male protagonist.97 
In an open letter published in the same newspaper, 
actor and writer Dušan Mevlja criticizes Snoj’s 
review of this play, claiming that the reviewer 
failed to grasp the meaning of the story.98 The 
same year, Delo reports that there are frequent 
demands for censoring Adventures of Huckleberry 
Finn across the United States,99 while next year the 
same newspaper reports on a particular primary 
school in the United States having forbidden the 
91 Delo, 21. 6. 1975: Osem novih BISEROV iz svetovne književnosti za mladino, 31.
92 Glas, 23. 9. 1977: Ta teden na TV, 10.
93 Informativni fužinar, 1977, 14, 24: Mark Twain, Humoreske, 16.
94 Delo, 19. 4. 1980: Mojster peresa in ladijskega krmila, 28.
95 Primorski dnevnik, 1. 6. 1980: Naše šolske prireditve, 7.
96 Delo, 6. 2. 1981: Mark Twain: Med nami, lažnivci, n.p.
97 Delo, 19. 3. 1981: Humor z brado v protokolu, 11.
98 Delo, 28. 3. 1981: Humor z brado v protokolu, 18, 30.
99 Delo, 12. 8. 1981: Cenzurirani književniki, 6.
100 Delo, 16. 4. 1982: Latentni rasizem, 13.
101 Delo, 28. 11. 1985: 30. november, 8.
102 Delo, 10. 7. 1986: Arhitektonsko stilizirane realistične ilustracije, 9.
103 Slovenski vestnik, 23. 12. 1987: Tom Sawyer, 9.
104 Delo, 21. 1. 1988: Jezikovna policija postavlja sanitarne kordone, 8–9.
105 Naš čas, 31. 5. 1990, Nomen est omen!, 11.
reading of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, owing 
to the relationship between the two protagonists 
allegedly being ‘latently racist’.100 A further article 
in Delo commemorating the 150th anniversary of 
Twain’s birth states that that Life on the Mississippi 
is considered to be Twain’s best work, but that he 
is best known for his characters Tom Sawyer and 
Huckleberry Finn. Furthermore, the anonymous 
author of the article praises Twain’s writing style 
and claims that he described the world and people 
with considerable warmth and humour.101 The 
following year, an article by writer and art critic 
Tatjana Pregl in the same newspaper states that in 
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain portrayed 
contemporary American puritan society.102 In Slov-
enski vestnik, a film based on the latter novel is 
described as very interesting and exciting.103 In the 
academic journal Acta Neophilologica (1987), lit-
erary scholar Meta Grosman discusses Adventures 
of Huckleberry Finn: she comes to the conclusion 
that the protagonist perceives reality differently to 
his peers and has a pluralistic conception of the 
world because he grew up without the constant 
presence of his parents and because he frequently 
associated with African Americans. In Delo, writer 
and translator Branko Gradišnik describes Twain 
as the ‘father of the American novel’ because of 
the way he employed language in ‘The Celebrated 
Jumping Frog of Calaveras County’ and Adventures 
of Huckleberry Finn.104 In Naš čas, poet and jour-
nalist Ivo Stropnik, writing under the pseudonym 
Toni Prosivk, states that after Twain started to 
publish satires in which he ridiculed society, some 
people began to challenge him.105 
CONCLUSION
In the last three decades of his life, Twain was 
sporadically mentioned in the Slovenian press, 
where he was not primarily presented as a man of 
letters, but as a humorist, a public figure and a bon 
vivant; there are no major differences in the manner 
of writing about Twain in left-wing and right-wing 
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publications. The reactions to his death and the 
few noteworthy articles published in the first few 
years afterwards also indicate that Twain was not 
perceived as one of the preeminent literary figures 
of his day during the time that the Slovenian terri-
tory was part of Austria-Hungary. Further proof of 
this is the fact that it is only after Twain’s death that 
the first book of his, i.e. The Prince and the Pauper, 
was translated into Slovenian and did not receive 
many reviews.
After the conclusion of the Great War and the 
dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The 
Adventures of Tom Sawyer was translated into Slo-
venian and received some attention in the press, but 
it would remain the only book of Twain’s translated 
during the inter-war period, when Slovenia was part 
of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Twain was evidently 
perceived as mainly an author for the young; he 
was frequently referred to as a great storyteller and 
a comedic tour de force, and most articles about 
him seemed to lack an ideological agenda. Only 
rarely were Twain’s works discussed in-depth, and 
the differences between how he was portrayed in 
left-wing and right-wing publications are not as 
pronounced as was the case in the serial publica-
tions of Slovenian immigrants in the United States 
from the same period (see Trupej, 2019a, 144–149). 
However, when the Slovenian territory was occu-
pied by the Axis powers during World War II, Twain 
was markedly less present in the press than had 
previously been the case.
After a socialist system was established in Yu-
goslavia in 1945, Twain became one of the most 
prominent foreign writers in the Slovenian press. 
While during the previous periods, relations be-
tween the United States and Austria-Hungary / 
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia did not seem to have 
substantially affected Twain’s reception, in the first 
post-war years he was presented as a sort of literary 
spiritus agens of anti-Americanism; as a result, re-
views of his works were frequently used to condemn 
capitalism, organized religion, racism, imperialism 
and other aspects of American society; sometimes 
this is true even for works that were not particularly 
socially critical, for instance The Adventures of Tom 
Sawyer—a novel painting a rather idyllic picture of 
the antebellum American South.
106 Some of Twain’s major works, including Pudd’nhead Wilson and The Innocents Abroad, have not yet been translated into Slovenian.
107 Three new editions of the translation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and four short adaptations with Tom Sawyer as the protagonist 
were published during this decade, while the translation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was reissued only once—it has not been 
published since, which speaks volumes about the difference in the status of these two novels in Slovenia.
108 The argumentum ad infinitum between those who hail Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as anti-racist and those who advocate removal 
from libraries and reading lists is barely acknowledged even in this decade. While this issue is less prominent in Slovenia because of the 
nation’s limited experience with black people, the fact that some racist elements were softened in Slovenian translations of the novel may 
also have been a somewhat significant factor (see Trupej, 2017, 329–330, 332).
109 After declaring independence from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991, Slovenia became a parliamentary democracy and did not join the Non-
-Aligned Movement. Instead, it sought membership in the European Union and NATO, eventually joining both in 2004.
Soon after Yugoslavia broke off relations with the 
Eastern Bloc in 1948 and aligned itself more closely 
with the Western Bloc, criticism of the West when 
discussing Twain’s works became less severe. After 
Yugoslavia’s relations with the Soviet Union began 
to normalize in the mid-1950s, criticism of the West 
again became more pronounced, although the con-
demnations were never again as harsh as they had 
been in the first post-war years. The fact that Yugo-
slavia co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement was 
probably an additional factor affecting which themes 
were foregrounded when writing about Twain and 
his works in the 1960s.
In the 1970s, only a few noteworthy articles on 
Twain were published in Slovenian serial publica-
tions. Perhaps this is partially because—since sev-
eral of Twain’s important works had been translated 
or re-translated in the previous decades—not many 
new translations of his works were published in 
that decade.106 However, new editions of existing 
translations continued to appear along with adapta-
tions in which Tom Sawyer is the main character; 
this indicates that younger readers were increasingly 
the intended audience for Twain’s works; a gradual 
reversal to the status quo ante as far as Twain’s per-
ception is concerned thus begins to take place.107
In the 1980s, Twain is again discussed in serial 
publications more frequently and—although he did 
not enjoy a status nearly as high as in the United 
States—several statements by prominent literati sug-
gest that he was still held in high regard.108 Thus, it ap-
pears that it is only after the socialist period ends and 
Slovenia transforms its social system and changes its 
political allegiances109 that Twain’s reception comes 
full circle, and he again begins to be portrayed pri-
marily as a humorist and an author for youth, which is 
how he was perceived during the pre-socialist period, 
when his works were not used to further ideological 
agendas and not much attention was paid to the so-
cially critical aspects of his writing.
We can therefore conclude that Twain has always 
had a much higher status in socialist Slovenia than 
in its pre-socialist era. The substantial differences 
between his reception during the two periods in 
question are a testament to the extent to which ide-
ology can influence the perception of a particular 
œuvre littéraire.
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PRIMERJAVA RECEPCIJE MARKA TWAINA V SLOVENIJI PRED IN MED 
OBDOBJEM SOCIALIZMA 
Janko TRUPEJ
Laška vas 21, 3273 Jurklošter, Slovenija
e-mail: janko.trupej@gmail.com
POVZETEK
V obdobju, ko je bilo slovensko ozemlje del monarhij, tj. sprva Avstro-Ogrske in nato Jugoslavije, ni večjih 
razlik glede Twainove recepcije. Tako v konservativnih kot tudi v progresivnih serijskih publikacijah je običajno 
predstavljen kot izjemen pripovedovalec in humorist ter mladinski avtor, članki o njem pa večinoma nimajo jasne 
ideološke usmeritve in prav tako ni razvidno, da bi na recepcijo občutno vplivali odnosi katere od obeh monarhij 
z ZDA. Poglobljene razprave o Twainovem literarnem opusu so precej redke, razlike v tem, kako pogosto so bili 
zapisi o pisatelju objavljeni v desno usmerjenih in levo usmerjenih publikacijah, pa prav tako niso tako izrazite, 
kot je to npr. značilno za publikacije slovenskih izseljencev oz. zdomcev v ZDA v obdobju med obema svetov-
nima vojnama (gl. Trupej, 2019a, 144–149). V obdobju, ko je bilo slovensko ozemlje med drugo svetovno vojno 
okupirano, pa je bil Twain v slovenskem tisku sicer prisoten bistveno manj kot prej. Po vzpostavitvi socialističnega 
sistema v Jugoslaviji leta 1945 je Twain postal eden najvidnejših tujih pisateljev v slovenski publicistiki. Zlasti v 
prvih povojnih letih so se njegova besedila pogosto uporabljala za obsodbe organizirane religije, kapitalizma, 
rasizma, imperializma oz. kolonializma, političnega sistema v ZDA ipd. Ko je Jugoslavija leta 1948 prekinila 
odnose z vzhodnim blokom in se bolj približala Zahodu, so zapisi o Twainu postali občutno manj kritični do 
Združenih držav. Po začetku postopne normalizacije odnosov s Sovjetsko zvezo sredi petdesetih let in po tem, ko 
je Jugoslavija leta 1961 soustanovila Gibanje neuvrščenih, so se Twainova besedila spet bolj pogosto uporabljala 
za kritiko ZDA, čeprav obsodbe niso bile nikdar več tako ostre kot v prvih povojnih letih, ko je bila Jugoslavija 
tesno povezana s Sovjetsko zvezo. V sedemdesetih letih je bil Twain v serijskih publikacijah prisoten občutno 
manj kot dotlej in tudi na podlagi prevodov njegovih del, ki so bila objavljena v tem desetletju, je razvidno, da je 
bil že v nekoliko večji meri obravnavan kot avtor za mlajše bralce. Vendar se je v osemdesetih letih o njem spet 
pisalo pogosteje in bolj poglobljeno, iz česar je mogoče sklepati, da je vse do konca socialističnega sistema Twain 
zavzemal občutno bolj središčni status v slovenskem literarnem polisistemu kot v predsocialističnem obdobju, ko 
so bile nekatere izmed tem, ki jih je ta ameriški klasik obravnaval, precej manj relevantne.
Ključne besede: Mark Twain, recepcija, ideologija, prevodna književnost, ameriška literatura
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