ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 355 received: 2020-02-14 DOI 10.19233/ASHS.2021.23 MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY Ana TOROŠ University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska 13, 5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia e-mail: ana.toros@ung.si ABSTRACT The present paper addresses the issue of bilingual literature and studies the relations between the majority langua- ge and the minority language within the poetry of minority authors. We examined the contemporary phenomenon of producing poetry in the majority (Italian) language by two authors of the Slovenian origin living in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Italy (Antonella Bukovaz, Elena Cerkvenič). In this regard we found out that the linguistic shift from the minority (Slovenian) language to the majority (Italian) language does not inevitably lead to the breakage of the links with the collective memory of the Slovenian minority in Italy and thus does not induce a change in the manner of the literalization of the living space of the Slovenian minority in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Keywords: minority literature, collective memory, Slavia Veneta, Trieste, Elena Cerkvenič, Antonella Bukovaz LETTERATURA DI MINORANZA NELLA LINGUA MAGGIORITARIA: UN NUOVO PARADIGMA? IL CASO DELLA POESIA SLOVENA IN ITALIA SINTESI L’articolo affronta il tema della letteratura bilingue e studia le relazioni tra la lingua maggioritaria e la lingua minoritaria nell’ambito della poesia degli autori di minoranza. In questo ambito è stato esaminato il fenomeno contemporaneo della produzione letteraria in lingua maggioritaria (italiana) da parte di due poeti di origine slovena residenti nella regione Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italia (Antonella Bukovaz, Elena Cerkvenič). Al riguardo è emerso che il mutamento linguistico dalla lingua minoritaria (slovena) alla lingua maggioritaria (italiano) non porta inevitabilmente alla cesura dei legami con la memoria collettiva della comunità minoritaria slovena in Italia e quindi non induce un cambiamento nel modo di rappresentazione letteraria dello spazio vitale della minoranza slovena in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Parole chiave: letteratura di minoranza, memoria collettiva, Slavia Veneta, Trieste, Elena Cerkvenič, Antonella Bukovaz ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 356 Ana TOROŠ: MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY, 355–362 The present paper addresses the issue of bilin- gual literature and studies the relations between the majority language and the minority language within the literature of minority authors.1 We shall examine the contemporary phenomenon of writing poetry in the majority (Italian) language by the authors of the Slovenian origin living in the Friuli Venezia Giulia re- gion in Italy. In this regard we shall study whether the linguistic shift from the minority (Slovenian) language to the majority (Italian) language inevitably leads to the breakage of the links with the collective memory of the Slovenian minority community in Italy and thus induces a change in the manner of the literariza- tion of the living space of the Slovenian minority in Friuli Venezia Giulia. We would thus like to find out whether the linguistic shift from Slovenian to Italian inevitably leads to the loss of those predictable ele- ments of literarization. The latter shall be studied on the case of two contemporary female poets from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, Elena Cerkvenič (Trieste) and Antonella Bukovaz (Cividale).2 The reasons for the literary bilingualism are dif- ferent and subject to not only the author’s intimate relationship with the language but also to the his- torical and socio-political reasons. The quantitative ratio between the languages and the role of each of the languages in literary works differs from case to case. On one hand, one can only witness the usage of individual words in the other language, while on the other hand one can come across a translation of a complete literary work into the other language, as it is the case of Rabindranath Tagore, who translated his works from Bengali into English and adjusted them to the English-speaking audience (Hokenson & Munson, 2007, 168–169). Another specific case is the case of the immigrant literary authors who start writing in another language, the language of the culture of the country which they settled in, while the usage of their new, acquired language is charac- terized by their mother tongue (Mugerli Lavrenčič, 2005, 190). In the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Italy, at the intersection of the Slavic, Romance and Germanic worlds, literary bilingualism is a common phenom- enon. The roles of the minority language and the ma- jority language have been changing through time. Just prior to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Italian irredentist poets3 from Trieste used certain grammatically incorrect Slovenian expressions (zakai, nazai, zivio Trst Slovenska) in their literary texts when 1 The author acknowledges financial support by the Slovenian Research Agency for the research programme Historical interpretations of the 20th century (P6-0347). 2 Literary bilingualism or the transition from Slovene to Italian can also be observed in the works of other poets from Italy (Ivan Tavčar, Michele Obit, Nelida Ukmar, Claudia Vončina. Tatjana Križmančič and others). 3 About irredentism in the Trieste area, see Vivante (1912). 4 On the history of the Slovenians in Italy see: (Kacin Wohinz, 2000). – On the Slovenian Triestine poetry between the two world wars see Toroš (2011). referring to the Slovenian community. Their aim was to depict the Slovenian community as uncultivated and inferior to the Italian community, and the literary dis- course supported the political discourse of that period, that is the irredentist struggle to annex Trieste to Italy. Let us study an example of such a poem: I nostri cari noni I scazava nazai A colpi de bastoni Quei prodi del zakai. […] In zità i vien urlando: […] Ja, zivio Trst slovenska. (Weiss, 1909, 64–65) The given example shows the relation between the Slovenian and the Italian languages, two minority languages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After World War I, when the Italian language became an official language in Trieste, the use of the Slovenian words in Italian poems changes. The Slovenian words and the Slovenian context are mostly not mentioned, thus the literary discourse supported the then Italian politics of assimilation. If Slovenian words are used, they depict a culture from the past, the culture related to the Austro- Hungarian context, which should no longer exist at the time of the creation of the poem in question. Such an example is Carlo Mioni’s poem titled Ieri e oggi, featur- ing certain colloquial Slovenian expressions, written in italics and symbolizing past times. An example of such a word is the word »mlècherze« (standard Slovenian: mlekarice: women carrying or delivering milk): Done del pan e mlècherze E sin la lavandere A bordo dele eletriche. (Mioni, 1933, 14–16) In the period between the two world wars, the Slo- venian authors in Italy almost never used Italian words in their literary works. The content of these works usually expresses a negative criticism towards the con- temporary, anti-Slovenian focused politics in Italy, and the poets thus had to express the content indirectly, through allusions, symbols, metaphors, metonymies and other figures of speech used in poetry.4 Such is Karel Širok’s poem titled Molitev, in which the author uses an allegory to illustrate the unfavorable conditions ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 357 Ana TOROŠ: MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY, 355–362 for the Slovenians in the Trieste area: “Nekronanega kralja reši nas, Gospod, / krivičnih trum njegovih reši nas, Gospod!” (Širok, 1935, 56). On the other hand, the vocabulary of the majority language can be observed in the contemporary litera- ture of the Slovenian poets in Italy. Such an example is the poem Jutrišnje tržaško jutro by Miroslav Košuta (born in 1936), in which the author wishes to depict his own experience of a double, complex identity: Nekega dne se bom zbudil in si dejal: »Buongiorno, Košuta! Come stai?« /…/ zmedeno vprašam: »Che cosa hai detto? E perché parli per zakaj?« /…/ ni daleč dan, ko se v meni dva jaza zbudita. (Košuta, 1991, 42) A similar situation can be noted in case of the Slovenian authors in Austria, as they also manifest the inclusion of two cultures and two languages within the literary discourse5. From the perspective of conveying the message, Miroslav Košuta’s poem can be compared to the poem Jaz ich by Jani Oswald (born in 1957), belonging to the collection Babylon/Babilon: Ich ljubim liebe svoj mein dvojni doppeltes jaz-ich (Oswald, 1992, 46–47). As the title Babylon/Babilon suggests, the collec- tion is bilingual and also features poems written only in German. Also, the Slovenian female author Maja Haderlap (born in 1961) from Austria opts to write in the majority language, that is German. Her most re- nowned novel is undoubtedly Engel des Vergessens. In this particular case writing in German does not mean that the bonds with the Slovenian community in Austria have been broken, as the literary work is still based on the traumatic collective memory of the Slovenians in the Carinthia region in Austria, related to the oppression of the Slovenians and the 20th century war trauma.6 In this respect, Silvija Borovnik states that writing in another language offers distance 5 For the purpose of researching literary processes in the Alps-Adria region Janez Strutz came up with the concepts of inter- regionality and regional focus in comparative literary studies. The latter focused primarily on intercultural processes in the Alps-Adria region (Strutz, 2003). Andrej Leben also draws from this research perspective, namely from a model of supra- regional literary places of interaction, which, on a productive and receptive level, transcends the regional bilingual literary field and the borders of the Austrian and Slovene literary systems and exceeds the essentialist categories, such as language, nation and identity (Leben, 2020). More on Slovenian authors in Austria and the use of two languages within the literary discourse see Bandelj (2008). 6 We arise from the memory studies (Halbwachs, 2001; Hirsch, 2008). – On the history of the Slovenians in Austria see for example Moritsch (2000). 7 »Minority literature is not a literature written in a minor language, but a literature created by a minority in a larger language« (Deleuze, 1995, 24). 8 We will focus on the Trieste region and on the Udine region (Slavia Veneta) in Italy. towards the expressed content, which can ease the literary process of writing about hard individual and collective traumas (Borovnik, 2012, 437–448). Based on the classification of the minority litera- ture, arising from Kafka’s supervision and his spe- cific position (the German-writing Jew in Prague), Maja Haderlap’s literary works written in German can be classified as »minority« literature, which has been produced by a member of the minority and written in the majority language (Deleuze & Guattari, 1995).7 This literature is thus filled with the content based on the collective memory of the Slovenian minority in Austria and thus differs from the majority of the literary works written in the Ger- man language. In recent years, the implied linguistic shift from the minority to the majority language, occurring in the literary production process, has also been observed within the Slovenian community in Italy.8 The Slovenian literary criticism in Italy has already sparked reflexion and discussion about the issue how to qualify the literary works of this kind (see Purič, 2018). In this regard Miran Košuta divides contemporary literary bilingual authors with Slo- vene roots in Italy into four categories. The first group includes authors who create exclusively in Italian, usually due to their lack of knowledge of Slovene. This category mainly includes actors from the Udine region. Antonella Bukovaz, for example, falls into this category. The second group includes authors who write in Italian and who occasionally translate their own literature in Slovene. The third group includes authors who write in Slovene and occasionally translate their own literature into Ital- ian. The last category includes authors who speak both languages (Slovene and Italian) well enough for literary creation (Košuta, 2020, 189–199). The transition to the majority language is usually understood as a breakage of the bonds with the minor- ity community and its literary tradition. Vilma Purič addressed this issue in her work Tržaške pesnice. On the one hand, she noticed that the Slovene language is a transmitter of group heritage for poets with Slovenian roots from Italy. On the other hand, she observed that poets with Slovenian roots from Italy who write in Italian have not turned away from their ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 358 Ana TOROŠ: MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY, 355–362 Slovene heritage. That this is so is evidenced by their otherwise active work in support of the Slovenian community in Italy (Purič, 2020, 290–310). This raises the question of whether writing literature in the language of the Other can, at least in some cases, maintain ties with the minor- ity community. In doing so, one can draw on the characteristics observed by Miran Košuta within the Slovene literature in Italy. Košuta speaks of its ontological (vitalistic persistence in the inhuman world), ethical (to be humane), ethnic (commit- ment to the Slovene nation), spatial (writing about the place where the Slovenes live in Italy) and linguistic peculiarities (the Slovene language as a bearer of deeper, ethical and existential con- notations) (Košuta, 2008, 23–63). The question is therefore, whether these categories, which mean a connection with the Slovene community in Italy, can also be preserved in the literature of minority authors writing in Italian. And if so, by what liter- ary tools is this connection maintained? By analyzing two innovative poetry collections written by Antonella Bukovaz and Elena Cerkvenič we will try to find out whether, according to »Kaf- kaesque« definition of the minority literature, the transition to the majority language can in certain cases be understood as a new paradigm of the Slo- venian minority literature in Italy. Antonella Bukovaz, a native of Cividale in the Slavia Veneta area (Italy), wrote her two poetry collections, Tatuaggi (2006) and Al Limite (2011) in Italian. Yet in her first poetry collection, and even more evidently in her second collection, it can be noticed that her literary discourse constantly alludes to the fate of the Slovenian community in the Slavia Veneta area, particularly to the long- term oppression and the consequent dying out of the Slovenian (dialectal) language and the cultural identity of the Slovenian community, which the author says she belongs to.9 As the author herself writes in her verses, she wishes to »conservare la memoria del luogo« (Bukovaz, 2006, 39) within her poetical world. She achieves that by repeat- ing words such as »memoria« (Bukovaz, 2011, 15), »identità« (Bukovaz, 2011, 16), »confini« (Bukovaz, 2011, 26). The key word in the author’s poetics, related to all the above-mentioned words, is the word »parola«. We have to point out that its Slovenian equivalent, the word »beseda«, ap- pears in the titles of the literary works written by her compatriots, namely the authors writing in a Slovenian dialect in the Udine region (Slavia Ven- eta and Resia) in Italy (i.e. Silvana Paletti, 2003; 9 The Slovenians in the Slavia Veneta area belonged to the Venetian Republic until its collapse in 1797, and were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, and to Italy after World War II. Since the second half of the 19th century, this area has been facing assimilation tensions and the oppression of the Slovenian language (Kacin Wohinz, 2000). Renato Quaglia, 1984; Michele Obit, 2004). It is important to understand that this word, »parola«, is turning into a poetic symbol of the struggle to preserve the oppressed Slovenian language in this territory. Only if one is familiar with this context, one can understand the verse: »Al di là della siepe svapora la parola / che è stata terra ed è stata guerra« (Bukovaz, 2011, 14). To understand Antonella Bukovaz’s poetry, the reader must be familiar with the Slovenian lan- guage and the Slovenian dialect used by the author in her poetics, as parts of her poems are written both in Standard Slovenian (»Parlo dal colmo in me razume samo / chi diserta la linea immaginaria«; Bukovaz, 2011, 24), as well as in the dialect of the Slovenian community in the Slavia Veneta (»uova luštrik moko an mlieko / per risentire ľunica voce che mi appartiene«; Bukovaz, 2011, 31). These are the words and excerpts which, in poetic texts, gain the reader’s attention and surprise him, as the linguistic shift occurs unexpectedly. In terms of meaning, these words are extremely powerful, as they disclose a new layer of textual meaning. They convey the message about the painful extinction of the Slovenian identity in the Slavia Veneta. We have to underline that in the Udine region (Slavia Veneta, Resia) the very same topic is characteristic of the literary works written in Slovenian dialect. Such is the collection of poetry by Viljem Černo (1937–2017) titled Ko polno je noči srce (2013), whose title already shows the inflicted pain. As we can see, the key topic is the same, regardless of the choice of the language used. The Slovenian words in the Italian text thus work as an encrypted text, as dispersed clues which can be decoded and assembled into a whole, but only if being familiar with the collective memory of the Slovenian community, which the author claims to belong to, and the socio-political situation in the Udine region (Slavia Veneta area). Antonella Bukovaz’s linguistic shifts from the majority to the minority language most likely repre- sent the author’s complex identity (Pertot & Kosic, 2014), and possibly also the trauma of the suppres- sion of a part of her linguistic identity, which could not develop due to the socio-political situation in the Slavia Veneta area. One can also assume this on the basis of her linguistic identity self-definition, mentioned in her curriculum vitae in her first poetry collection: »[H]o una lingua per sentire e una per lavorare« (Bukovaz, 2006, 44). Antonella Bukovaz actually makes a personifica- tion of her native (Slovene) language, starts a dialogue ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 359 Ana TOROŠ: MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY, 355–362 with her native language, in which one can feel the author’s frustrations arising from the battle between her desire to preserve this part of her linguistic iden- tity, and, on the other hand, the restrictions set by the environment: »Ti ho attraversata per tradirti [...] saresti lingua di ciottoli« (Bukovaz, 2011, 24). And once again at another spot: »Lingua sconfinata / io ti sono sentiero!« (Bukovaz, 2011, 27). The poetic refrain “Ciò che scompare …” and the variations of the refrain (see below) in her second poetry collection suggest that the author, despite using the majority language or actually with the help of the majority language, in which she is fluent, hopes to preserve the collective memory of the Slovenian community: • »Ciò che scompare infatti contiene [underlined by A. T.] un luogo più interno / più profondo per farsi seme« (Bukovaz, 2011, 13). • »Ciò che scompare infatti indica [underlined by A. T.] un luogo più interno / più profondo per farsi seme« (Bukovaz, 2011, 15). • »Ciò che scompare infatti rivela [underlined by A. T.] un luogo più interno / più profondo per farsi seme« (Bukovaz, 2011, 15). One can make such an assumption also on the basis of the title of the chapter Canto per lingue sconfinate (Bukovaz, 2011, 21) from her second poetry collection. Meaningful is also the quotation of Pier Paolo Pasolini,10 used as an introductory motto to one of the chapters in her second collection: »Bisognava forse, per portare il Friuli a un livello di coscienza che lo rendesse rappresentabile, esserne sufficientemente staccati, marginali, non essere troppo Friulani« (Bukovaz, 2011, 23). In her poetry, Elena Cerkvenič, a contemporary Triestine poet of Slovenian origin, unlike Antonella Bukovaz, does not focus on a linguistic topic. The au- thor does not discuss her linguistic choice (writing in the majority language) and does not take this choice as a problem-inducing core of her poetry. Despite this apparent alienation from the minority community, which her ancestors belonged to, her poems occa- sionally feature Slovenian elements, showing that the author has not yet totally broken the bonds with the collective memory of the Slovenian community in the Trieste area. 10 Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) is credited with reviving the Friulian language and literature, the founder of the “Academiuta di lenga furlana” in Casarsa and the author of the programe manifesto (1945), in which he sees the development of the Friulian language and literature as based on the 13th century Romance tradition. As a result of his actions, a group of poets formed, which began writing poetry by following his programe guidelines (Faggin, 1987, 51–52). 11 The existence of the Germanic component is probably the result of the author‘s inclusion within the Triestine context, related to the Austro-Hungarian tradition. The author thus mentions Goethe, Sciller and Nietzsche. This tradition in not present in the case of Antonella Bukovaz, as she grew up in a different cultural environment (Slavia Veneta), connected to the Romance world. 12 Ščavo: a derogatory expression used to refer to the Slovenians in Italy. 13 The Slovenian Cultural Centre (Narodni dom in Slovenian) in Trieste was a multimodal building of the Slovenian minority in the Trieste area, designed in 1904 according to Max Fabiani’s plans. It hosted the headquarters of all-important Slovenian associations based in Trieste. It was burned down in 1920. – For more about this refer to: Kacin Wohinz & Pirjevec (2000). Her poetry thus shows her belonging to the two cultures, the Slovenian and the Italian, as it is evident from the introduction to her second poetry collection sapor di.vini, in which she refers to Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and France Prešeren (1800-1849), the most renowned representatives of the Italian and Slovenian poetries, and to their two poetry muses, Dante’s Beatrice and Prešeren’s Julija: »versi endecassiillabi di Dante pensando a Julija / e versi endecassillabi di Prešeren pensando a Beatrice« (Cerkvenič, 2012, 9). Her Central European component,11 the cultural intertwining of the Slavic, Romance and Germanic worlds is evident in the poem Libertà nel suicidio? no: »Werther / (amato da Massenet) / Zorin / Ja- copo / ed altri. // Giovani sognatori sentimentali« (Cerkvenič, 2009, 70), in which she includes the examples of epistolary novels by authors belong- ing to three different national literatures (German, Slovenian and Italian: Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1802), the novel by Ugo Foscolo; Zorin (1870), the novel by Josip Stritar; The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), the novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). A similar literary approach (showing similarities) is used in the poem non tutti siamo uguali: »Juden raus! / Sporco sc’iavo! / Gulag [...] La bellezza sta / nelľessere diversi” (Cerkvenič, 2009, 51), referring to the oppression of the Other in different countries. One cannot overlook the fact that in this poem the author uses the word sc’iavo!, which could be categorized as »meta-image« (Leerssen, 2016), that is the assumption of the I about how the Other sees and values him. The word »sc’iavo«12 actually often appears in the Slovenian Triestine literature of the 20th and 21st centuries written in the Slovenian language and it symbolized the Italian’s derogatory behavior towards the Slovenian community. On this basis, it could be said that Elena Cerkvenič wrote the text from the perspective of a minority, that is the Slovenian Triestine community and its traumatic collective memory. This hypothesis can be sup- ported by her poem la Memoria: »e dimentico la Memoria [...] sai, ai miei nonni hanno bruciato il / Narodni dom« (Cerkvenič, 2009, 23). As it can be seen from the poem, the author refers to the Slovenian literary symbol, the Narodni dom – the Slovenian Cultural Centre.13 ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 360 Ana TOROŠ: MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY, 355–362 Further analysis reveals that Elena Cerkvenič uses the same literary tools as Antonella Bukovaz, that is the personification of her Slovenian origin and the dialogue between her and her personified Slovenianness. In this particular case (in the poem la Memoria), Elena Cerkvenič as a lyric subject starts the dialogue with the personified memory of the Slovenian Triestine community, while sug- gesting her ambivalent perception of this part of her own identity. On one hand, she would like to suppress it due to its traumatic content, but on the other hand she assumes it to be a duty to preserve and accept it. This attachment to her Slovenian origins is constantly reflected in her poetry. Like Antonella Bukovaz she alludes to this part of her identity by using Slovenian words and by referring to the Slovenian literary characters, poets, politicians etc. In the poem idiot(a): »dovoli mi, Slavoj14 // mi permetta Žižek« (Cerkvenič, 2012, 47) and in the poem Caro medo:15 »predragi / medota nikakor ne umoriti / Erjavec16 bi tega ne želel storiti [...] orsetti protetti« (Cerkvenič, 2012, 53), the poetry actually alludes to the current Slovenian politics (Karel Erjavec), the Slovenian literary history (Fran Erjavec) and to the world-famous Slovenian phi- losopher (Slavoj Žižek). In the poem a Dragotin Kette17 (Cerkvenič, 2012, 46) it further alludes to an excerpt from the life of the Slovenian poet Dragotin Kette (1876–1899), his residency in Tri- este prior to his death, and to his renowned poetry cycle Na molu San Carlo, written on the basis of his own experiencing of the Trieste area. The author’s notes attached to the poems Caro medo and a Dragotin Kette create a slightly ironic effect, describing in details the Slovenian context and the Slovenian accent to the Italian readers. We can assume that Elena Cerkvenič once again writes her poetry from the perspective of the Slovenian minority as she wrote the notes on the basis of the tipical Slovenian presupposition about the Italian’s insufficient knowledge about the Slovenian con- 14 Slavoj Žižek, a contemporary Slovenian philosopher; pronunced slàvoi (with the sound representing the initial letter »s« in the Italian word »senza«) jijek (with the sound representing the letter »j« in the French word »journaliste«). [fn. E. C.; the footnote is originally written in Italian language] 15 In Slovenian the word medo is a hypocorism of medved, which means »bear«; the title of the poem could therefore be: »dear teddy-bear« in English. [fn. E. C.; the footnote is originally written in the Italian language.] 16 Erjavec is the surname of a Slovenian author, as well as a surname of a contemporary Slovenian politician, and it is pronounced eriàvez, with the sound representing the letter »z« in the Italian word »senza«. [fn. E. C.; the footnote is originally written in the Italian language] 17 Kette is the surname of a Slovenian poet, his first name being Dragotin, and is pronounced chette. [fn. E. C.; the footnote is origi- nally written in the Italian language] text (see for instance Vidau, 2009). We can also assume that the author deliberately used irony to describe her negative attitude towards the igno- rance of members of the majority (Italian) nation in the Trieste area about the Slovenian reality, as she does not use irony in the poem la Memoria when mentioning the Slovenian Cultural Centre, the Narodni dom (she does not offer an explana- tion in the form of a footnote about Narodni dom). By acting in this manner, she most likely wanted to show respect towards the members of the Slo- venian community, who perceived the burning down of the Narodni dom as an utterly traumatic experience. The manner of (not)using footnotes in the poem la Memoria once again shows that the poet’s perspective is that of the Slovenian minority in the Trieste area. We can therefore conclude that using the ma- jority (Italian) language in the poems of Antonella Bukovaz and Elena Cerkvenič does not mean that the links with the collective memory of the Slo- venian community in Italy have been broken, the poetry is thus still bound to lateralization of the issues faced by the Slovenian community in Italy. In both cases we can notice the combined use of the majority and the minority languages. In terms of quantity, the minority language has a minor role. Nevertheless, the Slovenian words used in the poems are meaningful and can be understand as key words that lead into the deeper semantic layers of the literary texts, which strive to reveal the author ’s links with the Slovenian community in Italy and to preserve the traumatic collective memory of this community. From this perspective, both poets, and other similar authors in Italy (with Slovenian roots and writing in Italian), could be classified into the new paradigm of the Slovenian minority literature in Italy, which uses the ma- jority language to literarize the very same issues which are characteristic of the Slovenian authors in Italy writing in Slovenian, in an innovative and fresh manner. ANNALES · Ser. hist. sociol. · 31 · 2021 · 2 361 Ana TOROŠ: MINORITY LITERATURE IN THE MAJORITY LANGUAGE: A NEW PARADIGM? THE CASE OF THE SLOVENIAN POETRY IN ITALY, 355–362 MANJŠINSKA LITERATURA V VEČINSKEM JEZIKU: NOVA PARADIGMA? PRIMER SLOVENSKE POEZIJE V ITALIJI Ana TOROŠ Univerza v Novi gorici, Vipavska 13, 5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenija e-mail: ana.toros@ung.si POVZETEK Pričujoči prispevek obravnava vprašanje dvojezične literature in ponuja razmislek o relaciji med jezikom večine in jezikom manjšine v procesu književnega ustvarjanja manjšinskih avtorjev. Osredotočili smo se na novodobni pojav pisanja poezije v večinskem (italijanskem) jeziku pri dveh pesnicah slovenskih korenin v Furlaniji Julijski krajini (Antonella Bukovaz, Elena Cerkvenič). Ugotovili smo, da jezikovni premik ni nujno po- vezan s prekinitvijo vezi s kolektivno memorijo slovenske skupnosti v Italiji in torej ne vodi nujno v spremembo načina literarizacije njenega prostora bivanja. V obeh primerih se srečujemo s kombinirano rabo večinskega in manjšinskegan jezika, pri čemer ima manjšinski jezik, količinsko gledano, minorno vlogo. 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