— 124 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian Fin de Siècle Prose Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin ZRC SAZU Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies, Novi trg 2, SI 1000 Ljubljana; Institute of World Literature SAS, Dúbravská cesta 9, SK 841 04 Bratislava, lucija.mandic@zrc-sazu.si; Research Centre for Humanities, University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska 13, SI 5000 Nova Gorica, darko.ilin@ung.si DOI: https://doi.org/10.18690/scn.17.2.124-143.2024 1.01 Izvirni znanstveni članek – 1.01 Original Scientific Article V članku s pomočjo vektorskih vložitev besed raziskujemo čustveno in te - lesno intimno v slovenski in srbski književnosti s konca 19. in začetka 20. stoletja. Ker je čustveno in telesno intimo težko enoznačno definirati, smo pri analizi upoštevali širok spekter medsebojnih odnosov, upodobljenih v književnosti fin de siècla. Z uporabo jezikovnega modela Word2Vec smo ustvarili osem semantičnih polj, ki so zajemala besede, ki se nanašajo tako na platonične kakor erotične odnose, pa tudi na nasilje, saj se je to v analizi - ranih literarnih delih izkazalo za tesno povezano s spolnostjo. S primerjalno analizo srbske in slovenske proze smo odkrili, da med korpusoma obstajajo opazne razlike. Poleg tega smo opazovali relacije med temi semantičnimi polji tudi ločeno v delih avtorjev in avtoric, kar je dalo dodaten uvid v dojemanje intimnosti v kontekstu spolne socializacije. The present paper analyses emotional and physical intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian prose from the late 19 th to the early 20 th century using word embed - dings. Given the complexity of defining intimacy, we consider a broad range of relationships depicted in fin de siècle literature. The Word2Vec language model identifies eight semantic fields encompassing platonic and sexual rela - tionships, including violence, since it seems to be semantically closely related to sexuality in the analysed literary works. Through a comparative study, notable differences between Serbian and Slovenian prose are established. Ad - ditionally, the article examines how these semantic fields manifest in works by male and female authors, providing insights into societal perceptions of intimacy and gender socialization. Ključne besede: vektorske vložitve besed, računalniška literarna veda, slo - venska književnost, srbska književnost, oddaljeno branje Key words: word embeddings, computational literary studies, Slovenian lit - erature, Serbian literature, distant reading — 125 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … 1 Introduction 1 To the present paper offers an innovative perspective on the concept of inti - macy within the literary discourse of the modern era, focusing specifically on Slovenian and Serbian prose from 1880 to 1920. This period, often referred to as the belle époque, fin de siècle, or moderna, represents an important period of literary production serving as a threshold between the classical and the modern literary traditions. While the mentioned terms are widely employed in literary history, they inherently simplify the complexity of the era. The term fin de siècle typically denotes the end of the 19 th century , characterized by a sense of both culmination and transition. It was a time marked by significant social, political, and cultural transformations, including the beginnings of sci - entific psychology, a burgeoning interest in the unconscious, the appropriation of non-Western traditions, explorations of sexual practices, and the subversion of gender norms. This period also witnessed the advent of new paradigms in physics, alongside the troubling rise of scientific racism, imperialism, and anti- Semitism (Saler 2015: 5). These diverse and often contradictory currents were vividly reflected in the literature of the period. In the context of Slovenian and Serbian literature, the fin de siècle period was a time of intense literary activity and innovation. Authors from both regions engaged with contemporary European trends, as a consequence of the rapid internationalization of cultural relations (cf. Dugast 2001) while also addressing local social and cultural issues. The period spanning from 1880 to 1920 is in both literary traditions, Serbian and Slovene, characterized by realist tenden - cies in its first half and modernist tendencies in its second half. However, it is impossible to draw a clear demarcation line between realism and the moderna in either tradition. The realist literary style does not end with the beginning of moderna; rather, it continues to be present and prolific in the moderna period. This highlights the limitations of literary periodization and its tendency to oversimplify complex literary phenomena. The Slovenian tradition of literary history identifies 1881 as a significant turning point, marking the beginning of poetical realism, as defined by Ivan Prijatelj (Dolinar 2018: 141), or mature/classical realism, according to Anton Slodnjak (1968). This period is pivotal for the present research as it includes the mature works of the leading representatives of Slovenian literary realism, Janko Kersnik, and Ivan Tavčar. The Slovenian moderna began in 1899 with the publication of two influential collections of poems, A Cup of Intoxication 1 The paper was written within the framework of the research programs “Studies in Liter - ary History, Literary Theory and Methodology” (P6-0024), and “Historical Interpreta - tion of the 20th Century” (P6-0347), as well as the research projects “Transformations of Intimacy in the Literary Discourse of Slovene “Moderna”” (J6-3134), and “Sexual Desire in Slovenian Women’s Writing from a Transnational Perspective” (N6-0322), which are financed by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency. — 126 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin by Oton Župančič and Erotica by Ivan Cankar, and concluded with Cankar’ s death in 1918. This era witnessed a shift from the realistic depiction of external reality to a modernist focus on subjectivism and the inner world. Writers of this period embraced Western European influences, were closely associated with Croatian and Czech modernism, and were particularly heavily influenced by the Viennese moderna. An informal, diverse literary group emerged, experimenting with symbolism, impressionism, and decadence. These writers worked not only in Ljubljana but also in Vienna and Prague, highlighting a broad geographical and cultural interaction that enriched their literary output. The Serbian realist tradition, with a few exceptions, draws heavily from folk tales, incorporating their thematic elements and stylistic characteristics (Ivanić 1996: 45). This reliance underscores a deeply entrenched patriarchal worldview within the literary tradition. The moderna period presents a complex relationship with both patriarchal and oral national traditions. On the one hand, it seeks to distance itself from these traditions; on the other, it attempts to forge a new and transformative connection, reappropriating elements for its own purposes (Matović 2007: 66). This duality is particularly evident in the poetry of Milan Rakić. Moreover, much of what applies to the poetry and prose of the Slovenian moderna is also relevant to its Serbian counterpart. In the Serbian context, however, we observe the emergence of what Jovan Skerlić termed “lyrical realists,” a group of writers who blend realist narrative tendencies with modern, lyrical, and introspective sensibilities. Some of the most notable writ - ers are Petar Kočić, Borisav Stanković, Ivo Ćipiko, and others (Skerlić 1912). The mentioned blend highlights the transitional nature of the period, reflecting both continuity and innovation within the literary landscape. While intimacy may intuitively seem a straightforward concept, studying it can present numerous challenges. Intimacy is not a well-defined subject, nor is it a simple and stable object that can be easily understood (Dauphin 2003: 68). Consequently, exploring intimacy poses a methodological challenge, as the subject of study, despite being somewhat concrete, remains highly fluid and is significantly influenced by specific interpersonal contexts and the ob - server’s perspective. In academia, the situation is even more complex because researchers frequently consider intimacy to be synonymous with or a euphe - mism for primary areas of study, such as sexuality, romantic love, or family (Lewis 2017: 2). The potential of including diverse phenomena under the broad term of intimacy complicates efforts to comprehensively describe the prevail - ing scholarly interest in the concept. Therefore, to the present study adopts a broader conceptualization of intimacy as a close intersubjective relationship between individuals, whether sexual, romantic, or friendly. This approach will enable the research to explore a wider set of parameters and delve deeper into the broader field of intimacy and its literary conceptualizations. When considering the topics of intimacy, love, and sexuality in the literature of the above mentioned period, Katja Mihurko’s research on love in Slovenian literature proves a most significant study in the Slovenian context. Mihurko — 127 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … concludes that especially in the works of Ivan Cankar and Zofka Kveder, love and intimacy are not merely motifs or narrative devices, that are direct reflec - tions of the author’s worldview. Authors now scrutinize love as a relational element, examining its nuances and connections to other forms of intimacy such as friendship, sexuality, and marriage (Mihurko 2008). In other words, we see different, nuanced aspects of love connected to other modes of intimacy such as friendship, sexuality, marriage, etc. The situation in Serbian literature during this period appears somewhat more closed when it comes to sexual - ity. According to Dragana Vukićević (2017: 100), discussions about erotic life are rarely explicit and are often conveyed through the metaphorization of the erotic. Sexual relations with one’s (spousal) partner were legitimized through fiction as the only socially acceptable forms of erotic union. As the sphere of the erotic was perceived as “lower” in comparison to the public sphere, dis - cussions about erotic (dis)satisfaction were almost non-existent. It wasn’t until the end of realism, in the stories of Sima Matavulj or the novels of Svetolik Ranković, that the topic of erotic hedonism of the characters emerged, and later in modern literature, with Bora Stanković, autoeroticism, and erotic frustration were explored. 2 Corpora The analysis was carried out on Slovenian ELTeC-slv (Erjavec et al. 2020) and Serbian ELTeC-srp corpora (Stanković et al. 2021). Both are parts of the larger ELTeC ( European Literary Text Collection) collection of corpora, cre - ated in the scope of the COST Action Distant Reading for European Literary History. The goal of constructing the ELTeC collection was the possibility of conducting comparative studies across European literary traditions in the second half of the 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th century. For this purpose, corpora were designed based on same parameters regarding size (100 novels), length of individual texts (more than 10,000 words), representation of female authors, representation of individual authors, even distribution of number of texts per period, etc. (cf. Schöch et al. 2021). The corpora therefore function as a sample roughly representative of published texts in Slovenian and Serbian for the selected period. Both corpora consist of 100 texts, most of which were published in later periods, between years 1890 and 1921 (see Figure 1), while the Serbian corpus has a more even distribution of novels in the last two time slots. As this study focuses on the literature of the fin de siècle, only works from the T3 and T4 time slots were used. The final versions of the corpora therefore consist of 80 novels in Serbian and 85 novels in Slovene. One of the important parameters of the ELTeC collection is the representa - tion of authors according to gender. While the task of finding enough female novelists in the second half of the 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th century was challenging, the Slovenian corpus consists of a slightly higher number of Figure 1: Distribution of novels in both corpora across time periods. — 128 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin female authors (see Figure 2), namely the Serbian corpus includes 72 male and 8 female authors, while the Slovenian one involves 74 male and 11 female authors. All female authors in both corpora are featured only in the last two time slots, therefore all were included in the analysis. Figure 1: Distribution of novels in both corpora across time periods. F 13% F 10% M 90% M 87% Figure 2: Number of works written by male and female authors respectively between 1880 and 1921 in ELTeC-slv (left) and ELTeC-srp (right). — 129 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … The number of individual texts written by male and female authors in respective corpora indicates that each female author is represented by one of her novels The Slovenian corpus for the years between 1880 and 1921 therefore consists of 11 novels written by women and 74 novels written by men, while the Serbian corpus consists of 8 novels written by women and 72 novels written by men. 3 Word embeddings The rapid advancement of machine learning techniques has triggered significant methodological shifts in the humanities. Among such techniques, supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods have proven effective in analys - ing large volumes of textual data. Unsupervised machine learning techniques, particularly, have been found useful for extracting information from unstruc - tured text. In computational literary studies, word embeddings are among the most popular natural language processing methods used for semantic analyses (Hatzel et al. 2023); they are employed for a variety of purposes, including the analysis of literary processes, authorial style, spatial relationships, and senti - ment within texts. This paper analyses corpora, especially the works of Zofka Kveder, by performing semantic analysis with the word embeddings method (Pollak et al. 2020). Word embeddings display the semantic proximity of words through numeri - cal coordinates. During the training of a language model, coordinates of mul - tidimensional vectors are assigned to each word based on its context, typically comprising between 100 and 500 dimensions. These dimensions determine the weight and numerical representation of each vector, making it unique. Words with similar meanings and contexts have vectors that are close to each other in the vector space. The distances between these vectors are usually calculated using the Manhattan, Euclidean, or cosine distance. The analysis of words related to emotional and physical intimacy in this paper was carried out by Word2vec technology, developed by Mikolov et al. (2013) and implemented in Gensim Python library. This technology involves a shallow two-layer neural network that transforms texts into a set of unique vectors distributed in a high-dimensional space. 4 Analysis 4.1 Corpora pre-processing Versions of both corpora with added linguistic annotations were employed in the analysis. These corpora are encoded in XML according to the TEI guide - lines (TEI Consortium 2020) and include tokenization, sentence segmentation, — 130 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin lemmatization, and morphosyntactic tagging. Both corpora also feature marked named entities. The existing linguistic annotations made our preparation pro - cess straightforward. In semantic analyses it is a common practice to exclude stop words from the corpus before training a language model. However, we found that extracting words based on their morphological and syntactic markers yielded much better results than removing words based on precompiled stop word lists. During the pre-processing stages, it was therefore decided that only noun, verb, and adjective lemmas be considered and all named entities excluded. 4.2 Model training Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy were constructed using the above mentioned Word2Vec tool in the Gensim Python library. The language model was first trained on the entire ELTeC-slv and ELTeC-srp corpora and then on the sub-corpora of novels by male and female authors in both corpora respectively. Word2Vec allows for parameter fine-tuning during the training of a lan - guage model. As the corpora in question were rather small in size, the Skip- gram architecture seemed the most appropriate tool to use (Mikolov et al. 2013). The window size, representing the number of words on each side of the target word used for training, was set to 3. The number of vector dimensions was set to 100, and the minimum frequency of words was set to 10. By setting a lower limit on the frequency of words used for training, we largely excluded noise, such as incorrectly marked words, which often occurs when older texts are automatically annotated. Word2Vec includes the most_similar function, which identifies the vectors closest to the vector representation of a given word. This function also allows for the simultaneous search of semantically related words for two or more terms by adding their vectors or refining the semantic field by subtracting them. This capability is particularly useful for polysemous words, as it enables more precise context determination. Nine semantic fields related to marriage, family, love, friendship, physical intimacy, passion, desire, and lust were constructed, and upon inspecting the initial results, violence was also added, because it seemed strongly related to sexuality in both corpora. The constructing of these semantic fields involved the use of different words from Slovenian and Serbian corpora, as shown in Table 1. Several different words and combinations were tried out to construct the semantic field for lust in the Serbian corpus, however, without success. The vector representations of words obtained by training a Word2vec model exist in a 100-dimensional vector space. To understand the proximity between vectors more easily, the vector space needed to be reduced to two dimensions. To reduce the vector dimensions, the principal component analysis (PCA) was used, the goal of which is to identify key components in the data set that — 131 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … summarize their variability as much as possible. With the help of PCA, it was possible to reduce the dimensionality of the data and at the same time present the information with as little loss of accuracy as possible. Table 1: Words used for constructing semantic fields in the Slovenian and Serbian corpora, respectively. Semantic fields Language Words used for query Marriage Slovenian zakon, mož, žena Serbian brak, muž, žena Family Slovenian družina, otrok Serbian porodica, dete Love Slovenian ljubezen, ljubiti Serbian ljubav, ljubiti Friendship Slovenian prijateljstvo Serbian prijateljstvo Physical intimacy Slovenian poljub, objem, božati Serbian poljubac, zagrljaj, milovanje Passion Slovenian strast Serbian strast Desire Slovenian poželenje, poželjivost Serbian požuda Lust Slovenian pohotnost, pohoten Serbian / Violence Slovenian surovost, sila, udarec Serbian nasilan, sila, udarac 5 Results 5.1 The relationship between emotional and physical intimacy in Serbian and Slovenian literature In the Slovenian corpus (cf. Figure 3), the semantic fields related to love and friendship are closely associated, while physical intimacy, though not explicitly sexual, stands distinctly on its own. Notably, the institution of marriage in the Slovenian corpus is more clearly separated from both emotional and physical intimacy compared to the Serbian corpus (cf. Figure 4). Marriage, however, is not closely tied to either emotional or physical intimacy in either of the corpora. Both corpora also show strongest associations between explicit descriptions of sexuality, such as desire and lust, and violence. Delving deeper into the words belonging to each semantic field reveals interesting cultural differences (Table 2). 2 In the Serbian corpus, words related 2 Due to errors in automatic annotation, some lemmas that show up in the results are incorrect, i.e zveveti (incorrectly lemmatised zvati) in Table 2 and viščati (incorrectly lemmatised Višava) and županj (incorrectly lemmatised noun županja and adjective — 132 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin to friendship tend to be more patriarchal, suggesting that friendship and ca - maraderie are primarily found between men. Conversely, the Slovenian corpus implies a less platonic vision of friendship with words such as simpatija (sym- pathy/target of affection), naklonjenost (affection), ljubav (love), and vdanost (devotion), indicating a broader and more emotionally expressive understanding of friendship. Figure 3: Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy in the ELTeC-slv corpus. županji) in Table 4. We did not exclude them from the results as their presence doesn’t affect the general conclusions. A similar decision was made in the case of the word Srbin in Table 4, which is incorrectly not tagged as a named entity. — 133 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … Figure 4: Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy in the ELTeC-srp corpus. As regards passion, the Slovenian corpus closely connects words related to passion with love and romantic relationships. In the Serbian corpus, while there are also words pointing towards romantic relationships, there is a notable presence of words related to familial relationships. From a contemporary per - spective, this is rather unusual, as passion is not commonly associated with familial relationships. — 134 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin In the field of desire, words in the Serbian corpus often carry more negative or even violent connotations. In contrast, the Slovenian corpus contains more words explicitly pointing toward sexual desire, with pohotnost (lust) being closely related to desire. This distinction highlights differing cultural attitudes towards desire and its expressions within these two corpora. Table 2: Words included in the semantic fields related to friendship, passion and desire in both corpora. friendship passion desire ELTeC-slv ELTeC-srp ELTeC-slv ELTeC-srp ELTeC-slv ELTeC-srp simpatija naklonjenost naklonjen prepričanje nazor prijaznost navdušenost občevanje navidezen nagon nesebičen hvaležnost razmerje ljubav vdanost svest postopanje nagnjenje poklic idealen dostojan poverenje uvažavati nazivati viteški prisan preporučiti blagostanje državnik vernost Srbin domovina vladalac bratstvo zadobiti zavet dorasti očuvati penzija zamerati oboževati nagnjenje nesebičen vdanost blaznost osrečiti čislati zaničevati ljubosumen nezvestoba čutilo hrepeneti žrtvovati poželenje otročji občutljiv edinec ljubosumnost gojiti edinka grliti milošta materinski bratski očinski zagrljaj poljubac obasipati sebičan čeznuti roditeljski dragati nežnost detinjski miti prigrliti ljuba stvorenje iskren melem pohotnost spolen plemenitost devištvo poosebljen sožalje lahkomišljen nehanje nevoščljivost podžigati koketnost značajnost ničemuren brezsrčnost razkošnost stremljenje zveveti stanovitnost filistrski premagovanje sladost prolazan surovost predose ćanje zverski uliti prevelik potišten trunak strahovanje osjećanje mladački ludilo nedostižan sestrinski preživljavati odlanuti nasilan kužan izgladiti 5.2 Does the relationship between emotional and physical intimacy show up differently in the works of male and female authors? One of the most striking differences observed in both the Serbian and the Slovenian corpus is the absence of the words poželenje and požuda (desire) and their related terms in the works of female authors. Conversely, the words for lust and its related terms are found exclusively in the works of Slovenian male authors. The absence of these semantic fields consequently creates a clear separation between the semantic fields related to physical intimacy and violence in the sub-corpora of female authors in both languages (cf. Figures 5–8). When examining the topic of love (cf. Table 3), significant differences emerge between male and female authors. In the works of Serbian female au - thors, love and passion are described using more general concepts, while Serbian — 135 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … male authors more frequently associate these emotions with family and partner relationships. In the works of Slovenian male authors, love is often linked with intense and ambivalent emotions such as adoration, frenzy, lust, jealousy, sacrifice, childishness, and even distinctly negative emotions like contempt. Figure 5: Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy in works by Slovenian female authors. — 136 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin These associations often cross into the realm of eroticism. Female authors, on the other hand, primarily connect love with happiness and thus use more conventional metaphors such as heart and soul. Interestingly, they also associ - ate love with care and marriage — the latter an expression also used by male authors, however, positioned closer to love in the works of female authors. Figure 6: Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy in works by Serbian female authors. — 137 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … Figure 7: Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy in works by Slovenian male authors. — 138 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin Figure 8: Semantic fields related to emotional and physical intimacy in works by Serbian male authors. In the Serbian corpus, friendship (cf. Table 4) is portrayed differently by male and female authors. Female authors often place friendship within the context of family and other personal relationships. In contrast, male authors situate friendship within the public sphere, reflecting a patriarchal, political, and nationalistic context. This sharp division underscores the public-private dichotomy in their works. — 139 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … Regarding marriage, the works of Slovenian authors show a notable differ - ence in focus. Male authors frequently associate marriage with negative notions such as infidelity, and even disease, while female authors link it more with fam - ily. In the works of female authors, family is depicted with significantly more positive or neutral terms than in the case of male authors. And male authors’ overall portrayal of family life is far from idyllic. Their works include numer - ous references to death, poverty, and even mutilation, presenting a distinctly pessimistic view of family, childhood, and growing up, devoid of emotional intimacy, closeness, and expressions of love and affection. Table 3: Words related to the semantic field of love in sub-corpora of works written by male and female authors in both languages. ELTeC-slv ELTeC-srp Male authors Female authors Male authors Female authors oboževati zaljubiti hrepeneti vdanost otročji nezvestoba hvaležnost blaznost poželenje vzljubiti čutilo nesebičen čislati osrečiti zmožen sočutje koprneti zakonski zaničevati žrtvovati čutiti srce sreča srečen nesrečen duša zakon želeti vera življenje čustvo nega pravi slutiti beseda moči stvar svet spomin čuvstvo milošta bratski grliti dragati izgubljen roditeljski detinjski materinski ljuba očinski tepati zagrljaj obasuti blažiti iskren čeznuti blagosloven majčin obasipati mit osećati srce duša verovati čovek svet život moći poštovati misliti poštovanje srećan poljubac lepota razumeti vrlina čist bog duh činiti Table 4: Words included in the semantic fileds related to Friendship, Marriage and Family in the sub-corpora of works written by male and female writers. Friendship – ELTeC-srp Friendship – ELTeC-slv Family – ELTeC-srp Male authors Female authors Male authors Female authors Male authors Female authors dostojan Srbin domovina viteški nazivati bratstvo smisao brat nuditi prositi pokvariti odrasti hvaležnost vzgoja naklonjenost smatrati prijaznost predsodek svoboden gotov uničiti zveza preja slast naslediti familija sirotan dečica sestrica naslednik smatrati udavati razmišljati zet dovesti bratac — 140 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin ujedinjenje zadobiti poštovanje državnik otadžbina brak naklonost vaspitanje poverenje plemenit zaštitnik blagostanje uvažavati ličan smatrati budućost loš neprijatelj nekadašnji simpatičan seka sestrić račun bratac ocena plemić mariti pomiriti lastnost stanje ozir razmerje zagotavljati poklic odločnost nazor ljubeznivost preudaren posledica gorečnost prepričanje uvaževati sedanji čin laž prijateljica zavest blagor naklonjenost ogibati izkušnja imenovati pridobiti zaroka namen ponižati rođenu udat mezimica sirot udovac vaspitavati Sevinjski nejak odrastati zadrugarз odrasti de-Rivijera rodbinaр dorasti pokvariti obrazovati uvraditi nazvati zavoleti smisao zamerati dopadati roditi momak pristati nena putovati oženiti Family – ELTeC-slv Marriage – ELTeC-srp Marriage – ELTeC-slv Male authors Female authors Male authors Female authors Male authors Female authors stariš pomreti sirota reven roditelj gospodinjiti vdovec pestunja jetika starš vdova odrasti sosedov pohabljen nezakonski stradati županj revež pokopati varčen pripovedovati skrbeti stric izvedeti dovoliti rodbina pošten omožiti poroka roditelj učiti prilika delati navada hčerka vdova roman pomoč pustiti obljubiti udaja porođaj udavati proživeti zavoliti ženidba zaboravljati rođenu dorasti udovac naslednik mezimica udat pomreti sirotica zasluživati vaspitati vaspitavati udovica venčati udati naći velim srećan zaljubiti pametan umreti nesrećan ljudi priroda učiti morati zlo dužnost živeti živiti stvar bogat volja sirot ljubimec pošten odrasel vzgojiti družica oženjen omožiti roditelj vdova nevesta viščati ločen jetika stariš oženiti nezvest bedak oboževati starš nezvestoba hči pošten dekle otrok sin omožiti ubog ime pravica rodbina brat hčerka zadovoljen oče delati sramota prilika pripovedovati soprog skrbeti 6 Conclusions The analysis of the semantic fields within the Serbian and Slovenian literary corpora reveals noteworthy, though not stark, distinctions. The Serbian corpus illustrates a homosocial vision of friendship, indicative of a more male-centered and patriarchal conceptualization of this semantic field. This trend likely stems from the folkloristic and rural orientation prevalent in Serbian realist literature. In contrast, the Slovenian corpus presents a more courtly and flirtatious vision of friendship, highlighting one of the key differences between the two national — 141 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … literatures. Another significant difference is the prevalent negative and violent connotations associated with the semantic field of desire in the Serbian corpus. While desire is negatively portrayed also in the Slovenian corpus, the intensity is markedly greater in the Serbian literature. This suggests that sexual desire is depicted as a more disruptive force within Serbian narrative prose, challenging the established social norms. The differentiation between the corpora is also gendered, though the conclu - sions are less definitive due to the small number of female writers included in both corpora. Nonetheless, the vocabulary associated with the semantic fields of Friendship, Marriage, and Family in works by male and female authors points to a more sentimental, familial, and optimistic depiction in the sub-corpora. This gendered perspective underscores the nuanced ways in which intimacy and interpersonal relationships are portrayed across Serbian and Slovenian fin de siècle prose. The results from this paper’s comparative research of the semantic field of intimacy begin to chart an underexplored territory and raise new ques - tions about the analysed semantic fields. Future research should address these questions through more specific studies of semantic sub-fields. Such targeted studies would provide more nuanced insights into both Slovenian and Serbian literatures of the period, enhancing our understanding of South Slavic literary studies within the broader context of computational literary studies. LITERATURE Cécile DAUPHIN, 2003: Ecriture de l’intime dans une correspondance familiale du XIXe siècle. Le Divan familial 11/2, 63‒73. doi:10.3917/difa.011.0063 (15. 4. 2024). Darko DOLINAR, 2018: Slovenska literarna veda od Trubarja do druge svetovne vojne. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU. Jacques DUGAST, 2001: La vie culturelle en Europe au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Tomaž ERJAVEC, Miran HLADNIK, Marko JUVAN, Katja MIHURKO PONIŽ, 2021: Slovenian Novel Corpus (ELTeC-slv): April 2021 release (v2.0.0). Zenodo. https://doi. org/10.5281/zenodo.4662600 (30. 5. 2024). Hans Ole HATZEL, Haimo STIEMER, Chris BIEMANN, and Evelyn GIUS, 2023: Machine Learning in Computational Literary Studies. it – Information Technology 65/4–5, 200–217. Dušan IVANIĆ, 1996: Ka modelu folklornog pripovedanja u srpskoj umjetničkoj prozi. Književnost i jezik 44/1–2, 43–54. Philippa LEWIS, 2017: Intimacy and Distance: Conflicting Cultures in Nineteenth- Century France. Cambridge: Legenda. Katja MIHURKO PONIŽ, 2008: Labirinti ljubezni v slovenski književnosti od romantike do II. svetovne vojne. Ljubljana: Sophia. — 142 — Slavia Centralis 2/2024 Lucija Mandić, Darko Ilin Tomáš MIKOLOV, Kai CHEN, Greg CORRADO, and Jeffrey DEAN, 2013: Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space. International Conference on Learning Representations. https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.3781 (12. 4. 2024). Senja POLLAK, Matej MARTINC, and Katja MIHURKO PONIŽ, 2020: Natural Language Processing for Literary Text Analysis: Word-Embeddings-Based Analysis of Zofka Kvederʼs Work. Proceedings of the Workshop on Digital Humanities and Natural Language Processing (DHandNLP 2020). Ed. Maria José Finatto et al. Aachen: CEUR- WS. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2607/paper4.pdf (12. 4. 2024). Michael SALER, 2015: Introduction. The Fin-De-Siècle World. Ed. Michael Saler. London, New York: Routledge. 1–8. Christof SCHÖCH, Roxana PATRAS, Tomaž, ERJAVEC, and Diana SANTOS, 2021: Creating the European Literary Text Collection (ELTeC): Challenges and Perspectives. Modern Languages Open 25/1, 1–19. Jovan SKERLIĆ, 1912: Istorija nove srpske književnosti. Beograd: Knjižara S. B. Cvijanović. Anton SLODNJAK, 1968: Zgodovina slovenskega slovstva. Celovec: Drava. Ranka STANKOVIĆ, Cvetana KRSTEV, Šandrih TODOROVIĆ, and Mihailo ŠKO - RIĆ, 2021: Annotation of the Serbian ELTeC Collection. Infotheca – Journal For Digital Humanities 21/2, 43–59. TEI Consortium, 2020. TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Inter- change. https://tei-c.org/guidelines/P5/ (30. 5. 2024). Dragana VUKIĆEVIĆ, 2017: Erotsko kriptogramsko pismo i patrijarhalni svet. Ro- manoslavica 52/4, 99–105. ŽIVI, ŽELI, LJUBI: POMENSKA POLJA INTIMNOSTI V SLOVENSKI IN SRBSKI PROZI FIN DE SIÈCLA V članku je predstavljena analiza čustvene in telesne intime v slovenski in srbski knji - ževnosti s konca 19. in začetka 20. stoletja. Osredotočili smo se na besedila, objavljena med letoma 1880 in 1920, pri čemer smo uporabili metodo vektorskih vložitev besed za analizo semantičnih polj, povezanih z intimo. Prispevek ponuja nov pogled na intimo znotraj literarnega diskurza fin de siècla , obdobja, ki so ga zaznamovale pomembne družbene, politične in kulturne transformacije. Slovenska in srbska književnost tega časa kažeta tako realistične kot modernistične težnje, nanju pa so vplivali sočasni toko - vi v tujih literaturah. Preučevanje intimnosti predstavlja metodološki izziv, saj zajema širok spekter intersubjektivnih odnosov. V analizi smo zato upoštevali tako platonične družinske in prijateljske odnose kot tudi erotiko, pa tudi nasilje, ki se je med analizo pokazalo kot tesno povezano s spolnostjo v obeh korpusih. Za analizo smo uporabili slovenski korpus ELTeC-slv in srbski korpus ELTeC-srp, ki v celoti obsegata po sto besedil, objavljenih med letoma 1836 in 1921. Za konstruiranje semantičnih polj smo uporabili orodje Word2Vec, s pomočjo katerega smo ustvarili jezikovni model, v katerem je vsaki besedi dodeljen vektor glede na njeno semantično podobnost z drugimi bese - dami. Rezultati analize so pokazali predvsem razlike med opisovanjem prijateljstva in poželenja; v slovenskem korpusu je prijateljstvo opisano bolj čustveno ekspresivno, med - tem ko je v srbskem korpusu vezano na patriarhalne odnose in tovarištvo med moškimi. — 143 — Live, Lust, Love: Semantic Fields of Intimacy in Slovenian and Serbian … Besede v semantičnem polju, povezane s poželenjem, imajo v srbskem korpusu pogosto bolj negativne ali celo nasilne konotacije, nasprotno pa je v slovenskem korpusu več eksplicitno erotičnih besed. Primerjava med deli avtoric in avtorjev v obeh korpusih je pokazala, da se avtorice izogibajo besedam, povezanim s spolnim poželenjem. Po drugi strani avtorji ljubezen povezujejo z intenzivnimi (tudi negativnimi) čustvi in erotiko, avtorice pa s srečo in skrbjo za druge. V nasprotju s srbskimi avtorji, ki prijateljstvo umeščajo v javni, politični kontekst, ga srbske avtorice povezujejo z družinskimi odnosi in zasebnim življenjem. Razlika med slovenskimi avtoricami in avtorji se je pokazala tudi pri opisovanju zakona; avtorji zakon v veliki meri povezujejo z nezvestobo, avtorice pa z družinskim življenjem, čeprav tudi avtorice na splošno predstavljajo pesimističen pogled na družinsko življenje, z odsotnostjo čustvene intime.