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Typology of Dark Tourism Heritage With It's Implications on Slovenian Future Dark Tourism Products
Lea Kuznik
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism.
Corresponding author's e-mail: lea.kuznik@gmail.com
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Abstract: Dark tourism is the phenomenon of the twenty-first century, but also has a very long heritage.
This is a special type of tourism, which involves visits to tourist attractions and destinations that are associated with death, suffering, accidents, disasters and tragedies venues.
Dark tourism in Slovenia is very poorly developed comparing to the world. Therefore the paper proposes a typology of dark tourism in the world and in Slovenia. The research based on in-depth analysis of literature and fieldwork give a variety of new opportunities based on storytelling for development of this type of tourism in Slovenia, with emphasis on the design of dark and innovative thematic trail.
Key Words: dark tourism, death, typology, dark cultural heritage, storytelling, Slovenia
320 RSC, Number 7, Issue 3, September 2015 Introduction
You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
(Paulo Coelho)
Dark tourism has been recognised as a distinctive tourism phenomenon of the twenty-first century, with increasingly significant numbers of visitors and tourists going to dark tourism attractions and sites, new dark tourism products and attractions emerging, and modern global communication media generating interest in dark tourism attractions, while at the same time affecting the image of destinations. The phenomenon of dark tourism has been examined in academia from the mid-1990s. Since then, study of this phenomenon has increased, and the scales of relevant studies have been enlarged.
Dark tourism in Slovenia is very poorly developed comparing to the world and it is mostly limited only on tourist sites connected with both wars. Therefore the theme is a novelty in Slovenia, as well as in Slovenian professional and scientific literature and is almost unknown comparing to the world. The main purpose of this article is to explore the current situation of dark tourism in Slovenia and propose a typology of dark tourism in Slovenia, which should serve as a basis for further efforts in the design of a new dark tourism products based on the dark heritage in Slovenia, as shown below in the case of witchcraft.
That is why the article proposes a typology of dark tourism heritage sites in Slovenia (and sites in the world) based on in-depth analysis of literature and fieldwork which contains the method of unstructured interviews with curators in Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Museum of Ribnica and Celje Regional Museum as well as the method of observation with participation in a guided tour through the exhibition at Ljubljana Castle: The Barbarism of Torture - an exhibition of torture devices from the 16th to the 18th century.
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The term dark tourism was coined by Foley and Lennon (1996: 198) to describe the attraction of visitors to tourism sites associated with death, disaster, and depravity. Other notable definitions of dark tourism include the act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly macabre (Stone, 2006: 146), and as visitations to places where tragedies or historically noteworthy death has occurred and that continue to impact our lives (Tarlow, 2005: 48). Scholars have further developed and applied alternative terminology in dealing with such travel and visitation, including thanatourism (Seaton, 1996), black spot tourism (Rojek, 1993), atrocity heritage tourism (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996), and morbid tourism (Blom, 2000). In a context similar to »dark tourism«, terms like »macabre tourism«, »tourism of mourning« and »dark heritage tourism« are also in use. Among these terms, dark tourism remains the most widely applied in academic research (Sharpley, 2009).
The concept of dark tourism is in contrast to marketing slogans that prefer the broader promotional aspect and call this type of tourism »historic tourism«. Major encyclopaedias of tourism identify »dark tourism« also as »thanatourism«, in which the core meaning of the term relates mostly to visits to the tombs, cemeteries and memorials of prominent people (Gosar, 2015a). In Croatia it is called »mračnjaški turizam« in slovene tourist literature the terminology is not yet clearly defined. The terms »črni«, »temni«, »temačni«, »mračni« tourism are in use.
Although this is a newer type of specialized tourism, we can speak as one of the oldest types of tourism, because death is historically always attracted human inquisitiveness. Some kind of organized »thanato tourism« were already gladiator games in the Coliseum of ancient Rome (Gosar, 2015b). Popular festivals in the past have been a public hanging, beheading and burning of witches. Walking and paid visits to the battlefield at Waterloo in Belgium, the place of Napoleon's last battle between the English nobility had been ongoing since the time of the battle in 1815. Therefore the kind of dark tourism has a very long heritage.
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Dark tourism relates to tourist travel, which interprets the heritage through tragedies and conflicts and is raising awareness of dark historical realities, or the heritage of it (Stone, 2013). The central research centre for dark tourism is located at the University of Central Lancashire, in England. The Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) is led by Dr. Philip R. Stone. According to iDTR, the main contours of dark tourism destinations are to be found in three groups of geographically expressed areas: destination of the death, burial, and/or the tragedies of celebrities, destinations of great battles and falling soldiers, destinations of collective suffering and death.
Visiting such sites can play a significant part in a tourist's experiences, and in turn, that there will most probably be anxiety about the development of these sites as tourist attractions (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005; Ryan, 2007; Sharpley & Stone, 2009; Wilson, 2008). These concomitant aspects of dark tourism have indeed lead to concerns about the morality of commodifying death, disaster, and atrocity (Lennon & Foley, 2000; Seaton, 2009).
All the actions associated with the tourism trips that expose/define the places associated with death, suffering and/or everything that is reminiscent of the grim period of mankind is to be related dark tourism (Stone, 2006). According to researchers of iDTR, dark tourism is a subcategory of the historic tourism, which includes the content of the material and intangible heritage, as both strengthen our historical memory.
At the Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turística in Portorož in October 2014, at the centenary of the beginning of the First World War held the first international workshop on dark tourism in Slovenia titled Dark Tourism: Post - The First World War, Destinations of Human Tragedies and Relevant Tourism Development Opportunities.
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Different shades of black
Dark tourism has been also called place-specific tourism (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005: 4), whereby an individual's experiences are highly dependent on the particular characteristics and associations of a site. In turn, a visitor's experiences at the site of a former prison, for example, and the associated reproductions of the way prisoners lived, the food they ate and so on, may differ from a visitor's experiences at a former battlefield. As such, several researchers have classified dark tourism sites according to their defining characteristics.
Miles (2002) proposed a darker-lighter tourism paradigm in which there remains a distinction between dark and darker tourism according to the greater, or lesser extent of the macabre and the morose. In this way, the sites of the holocaust, for example, can be divided into dark and darker tourism when it comes to their authenticity and scope of interpretation. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. is associated with death, and thus categorised a dark tourism site only, whereas the site of Auschwitz - Birkenau in Poland possesses a unique location authenticity as a former concentration and extermination camp, and thus site of darker tourism.
On the basis of the dark tourism paradigm of Miles (2002), Stone (2006) proposed a spectrum of dark tourism supply which classifies sites according to their perceived features, and from these, the degree or shade of darkness (darkest to lightest) with which they can be characterised. This spectrum has seven types of dark tourism suppliers, ranging from Dark Fun Factories as the lightest, to Dark Camps of Genocide as the darkest. A specific example of the lightest suppliers would be dungeon attractions, such as Jack the Ripper establishments in London Dungeon or The Barbarism of Torture at the Ljubljana Castle, or planned ventures such as Dracula Park in Romania. In contrast, examples of the darkest sites include genocide sites in Rwanda, Cambodia, or Kosovo, as well as holocaust sites such as Auschwitz -Birkenau.
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Elements of dark tourism
In recent years, it has been argued that changing socio-economic patterns have led to a move away from mass or conventional tourism, to one of alternative or special interest tourism (Singh, 2004). From this perspective, the perceived benefits of a tourist holiday have shifted from relaxation and indulgence, toward opportunities for study, learning, and a greater experience of the world, with travelers interested more in enriching their lives with experiences as opposed to being passive consumers of entertainment and spectacle. As such, more contemporary tourists are depicted as seeking interactive, high involvement experiences where the providers of such experiential services are required to be knowledgeable, imaginative, and innovative entrepreneurs able to differentiate their tourism products through new activities, trends, and experiences (Andereck et al., 2006; Gilmore & Pine, 2002), thus gaining a competitive edge.
Among the different forms of special interest tourism, such as adventure, ecotourism, and cultural heritage tourism, the search for experiences is dependent on an individual's needs and interests. Adventure tourism generally appeals to people keen to pursue challenging and extraordinary experiences, ecotourism to those who have a strong interest in the environment, and cultural heritage tourism to people with an interest in history and nostalgia.
Likewise, dark tourism is also recognised as a special interest form of tourism appealing to those keen to visit sites or attractions associated with the dark side of human nature, and often tied to death, atrocity, or tragic events of the past (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005; Lennon & Foley, 2000). Furthermore, in recent years dark tourism has been recognised as a distinctive and emergent tourism phenomenon, given the significant numbers of visitors to related attractions and sites, as well as the emergence of many new dark tourism attractions and products. In short,
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dark tourism attractions or sites have become increasingly frequent stops on international tourism itineraries (Strange & Kempa, 2003).
New dark tourism products and sites have emerged around the world in recent years, with some related to recent, high profile disasters. Examples of such sites and memorials include the World Trade Centre, Ground Zero site in New York, parts of New Orleans in the United States following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the site in Paris where Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed perished in a car accident, and in the United Kingdom, the locations of serial killings in Soham. The Ground Zero site in New York is today one of the top five tourist attractions for visitors in the city.
Sites under construction include one commemorating the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 in the Khao Lak National Park, located in Thailand's Phangnga province, one for the 2008 China earthquake in the Chinese city of Chengdu, Sichuan province, and another for the Haiti earthquake of early 2010 or recently earthquake in April 2015 in Nepal. None of these were, or are, being created by destination planners for the purpose of generating tourism revenue, however, most will attract visitors curious to investigate and experience such sites of death and disaster in part because they are widely publicised by the media.
Therefore the elements of dark tourism sites are areas of natural disasters (e.g. volcanic eruption in Iceland, visit Naples and Pompei), the scene of terrorist attacks (an attack on the editorial board of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo January 2015 in Paris), the world-famous cemeteries (Paris Pere Lachaise Cemetery with Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf graves) and the mausoleums (Taj Mahal in Agra, House of Flowers at Dedinje in Belgrade), monuments to war victims and the heroic defenders of (country, nation, ideology) concentration camps (Auschwitz, Jasenovac), prisons (Alcatraz, Canon City Colorado), nuclear disasters (Chernobyl in Ukraine, Fukushima in Japan) and common cemeteries (the Killing Fields in Cambodia) and battlefields (The Isonzo Front, The Battle of Sutjeska).
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All the elements of dark stories educate, evoke memories, inform and try to appeal to people and their decisions, which can lead to disasters. Irrespective of whether the effects of disasters are the results of the nature or historical socio-political decisions, which cause a lot of disasters, all share the pain, terror and death. However the reasons for visiting such tourism sites are different.
The reasons for visiting dark tourism sites
Dark tourism may be considered a form of special interest tourism. There are a number of reasons for travelling to dark tourism sites, which most simply can include curiosity, education, survivor guilt, remembrance, nostalgia, empathy, and horror (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005; Baldwin & Sharpley, 2009; Garwood, 1996; Lennon & Foley, 2000; Miles, 2002; Smith, 1996).
However, theoretical and empirical research investigating visitor motivations for travelling to dark tourism sites remains limited. For Ashworth and Hartmann (2005), there are three core reasons for visiting destinations of tragedy and atrocity: curiosity, empathy, and horror, whereas other studies suggest additional reasons, including education, remembrance, nostalgia, and survivor's guilt (Garwood, 1996; Lennon & Foley, 2000; Marcuse, 2005; Miles, 2002; Smith, 1996). Each of these can best be discussed separately as follows:
1. Curiosity
Many tourists are interested in the unusual and the unique, whether this be a natural phenomenon (e.g. Niagara Falls, Skocjan Caves), an artistic or historical structure (e.g. the pyramids in Egypt), or spectacular events (e.g. a royal wedding). Importantly, the reasons why tourists are attracted to dark tourism sites derive, at least in part, from the same curiosity which motivates a visit to Skocjan Caves. Visiting dark
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tourism sites is an out of the ordinary experience, and thus attractive for its uniqueness and as a means of satisfying human curiosity. The curiosity tourists have for a dark tourism experience may differ from travelling, for instance, to a theme park or zoo. The intention to visit dark tourism sites is not normally for entertainment, amusement, or enjoyment. The main reason is the experience of the unusual.
2.	Empathy
One of the reasons for visiting dark tourism sites may be empathy, which is an acceptable way of expressing a fascination with horror. Ashworth and Hartmann (2005) note that empathy relies upon the capacity of heritage consumers to identify with individual victims of the atrocity. While this identification is assumed to be more with the victims in question, it could equally conceivably be with perpetrators also. In many respects, the interpretation of dark tourism sites can be difficult and sensitive, given the message of the site as forwarded by exhibition curators can at times conflict with the understandings of visitors. For instance, site curators may justify a graphic description as creating empathy with victims, or even helping prevent such events from recurring in the future. Some visitors, however, may indeed be empathising with the perpetrators themselves, and be stimulated to replicate the events (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005).
3.	Horror
Horror is regarded as one of the key reasons for visiting dark tourism sites, and in particular, sites of atrocity. Ashworth and Hartmann (2005) note that there is a considerable amount of literature, folk stories, and more recently internet, film and television portrayals of scenes of horror which evoke emotions of fear and fascination in consumers. Relating atrocity as heritage at a site is thus as entertaining as any media depiction of a story, and for precisely the same reasons and with the same moral overtones. Such tourism products or cases as examples are: Ghost Walks around sites of execution or murder (Ghost Tour of Prague, Berlin Story Bunker), Murder Trails found in many cities like Jack the Ripper in
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London or the Boston Strangler in Boston. In Slovenia this could be serial killers Silvo Plut and Metod Trobec, who killed and cremated at least five women at his home in Dolenja vas by Polhov Gradec. He was sentenced to death and committed suicide at Dob Prison. His name took Slovenian-Croatian alter rock band (Trobčeve krušne peči), famous writer Svetlana Makarovič wrote a song about him (Balada o Trobcu) as well as the song Za Metoda goriš by Slon in Sadež.
4.	Education
In much tourism literature it has been claimed that one of the main motivations for travel is the gaining of knowledge, and the quest for authentic experiences. One of the core missions of cultural and heritage tourism in particular is to provide educational opportunities to visitors through guided tours and interpretation. Similarly, individual visits to dark tourism sites to gain knowledge, understanding, and educational opportunities, continue to have intrinsic educational value (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005). Moreover, a number of sites emphasise the visitors educational expectations in terms of their capacity to learn from past mistakes, for example, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, sites related to the First World War, such as The Kobarid Museum, sites related to the Second World War such as the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii and the Bridge over the River Kwai in Tailand.
In turn, many dark tourism attractions or sites are considered important destinations for school educational field trips, achieving education through experiential learning (Marcuse, 2005).
5.	Nostalgia
Nostalgia can be broadly described as yearning for the past (Dann and Potter, 2001; Smith, 1996), or as a wistful mood that an object, a scene, a smell or a strain of music evokes (Belk, 1990: 670). Importantly, this remains one of the primary reasons for travelling to heritage parks (Walter, 2009). In addition however, it has also been recognised as a reason for travelling to dark tourism sites, although not perhaps a key or central
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motivation. In this respect Smith (1996) examined war tourism sites and concluded that old soldiers do go back to the battlefields, to revisit and remember the days of their youth...one graying veteran summed it up well, »...those of us who have been in combat share something very special.I simply have to be here, to honour those men.« (Smith, 1996: 260).
6. Remembrance
Remembrance is a vital human activity connecting us to our past, with an important role to play in shaping our future in turn, in short, the way we remember defines the way we are in the present (Young, 1993). Remembrance helps people formulate an identity, allowing them to learn from past mistakes, and to go forward with a clear vision of the future.
In the context of dark tourism, remembrance and memory are considered key elements in the importance of sites (Lennon & Foley, 2000; Walter, 2009; Young, 1993). Indeed a number of dark tourism locations have been considered effectively warehouses for memories, with some mandating remembrance in addition to education as a core aspect of their planning. In particular, for several sites associated with the holocaust and the Second World War in Europe cities, commemoration and remembrance as key reasons for their existence. Several sites such as the Yad Vashem in Jeruzalem, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and the Holocaust Museum in Houston, were established on similar rationales. In the literature, reverence is identified as a key feature of remembrance at many dark tourism sites. For example, the USS Arizona Memorial was built as a site of remembrance to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, around one of the most powerful battleships of the time destroyed in the first minutes of the attack. For the purposes of the memorial, visitors must first view an interpretive film before being able to board skiffs to the memorial. Once there, reverence is encouraged by staff present upon the Memorial structure. Beach style clothing is not permitted upon the Memorial. The ship is clearly visible below the water and a viewing well enables visitors to drop flowers onto the vessel's starboard side (Lennon & Foley, 2000: 105).
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7. Survivor's guilt
One of the distinctive characteristics of dark tourism is the type of visitors such sites attract, which include survivors and victim's families returning to the scene of death or disaster. Once again, these types of visitors are particularly prevalent at sites associated with Second World War and the Holocaust. For many survivors of the horror of war, atrocity, and disaster it seems, returning to the scene is cathartic and remains a way of unburdening themselves of guilt given their survival. In a study Braithwaite and Lee (2006) note that some veterans of war have suffered acute stress or trauma for prolonged periods, a condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). One of the diagnoses of PTSD is guilt about their own survival when others did not, or about the behaviour required for survival. It appears that not only war veterans, but prisoners of war of the Japanese, and Holocaust victims and their families, experience this in particular. Returning to the scene of death and atrocity can achieve a therapeutic effect by resolving grief, and can build understanding of how terrible things came to have happened. This can be an unselfconsciously emotional experience (Braithwaite & Lee, 2006).
Such reasons for visiting dark tourism sites or attractions can in turn influence visitors on site experiences. Dark tourism literature frequently refers to dark tourism experiences as both educational and emotional in nature. Since many dark tourism attractions are established to convey important messages to people, visitor experiences are often related to gain of knowledge of the past event (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005; Henderson, 2000; Lennon & Foley, 2000). This type of visitor experience can of course also be found in other cultural heritage or ecotourism attractions, whilst not including many of the distinctive characteristics of dark tourism.
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Typology of dark tourism
When analyzing a grave, nuclear in the world, depending on the content we can give the following typology of dark tourism:
•	Grave tourism (visiting famous cemeteries, graves of famous individuals, or grand mausoleums of some real cult personality, e.g. Paris Pere Lachaise Cemetery with Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf graves, Taj Mahal in Agra, House of Flowers in Belgrade, Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles with graves of Marilyn Monroe, Roy Orbison, Jack Lemmon, Farrah Fawcett and other Hollywood stars.)
•	War or battlefield tourism (visiting former war places e.g. Napoleon's battle of Waterloo in Belgium, USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam, the Bridge over the River Kwai in Tailand...)
•	Holocaust tourism (visiting concentration camp memorial sites, memorial museums, former ghettos and sites where the Nazi perpetrators planned it all e.g. The House of the Wannase Conference and Fuhrerbunker in Berlin, United States Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., Yad Vashem in Jeruzalem, Auschwitz in Poland.)
•	Genocide tourism (visiting places of genocide e.g. Rwanda genocide, Toul Sleng Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields in Cambodia, the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.)
•	Prison tourism (Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, Canon City in Colorado, Otawa Jail Hostel, Devil's Island in French Guiana.)
•	Communism tourism (visiting North Korea, the big four: Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Kim)
•	Cold war and iron curtain tourism (seeking out traces and remains of the Berlin Wall)
•	Disaster area tourism (visiting places of natural disaster after e.g. hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, tsunami in Tailand, earthquake
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in Nepal, sites of volcanic destruction e.g. Pompeii, Montserrat in the Caribbean...)
•	Nuclear tourism (visiting sites of civil nuclear disaster e.g. Chernobyl in Ukraine, Fukushima in Japan, sites of nuclear testing e.g. Semipalatinsk in Kazahstan and Nevada Test Site in USA, or missile silos e.g. Titan Missile Museum in Arizona. There are also two places where atom bombs were actually used for real: Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
•	Murderers and murderous places tourism (Jack the Ripper in London, Metod Trobec in Slovenia, Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Visitors can see the sixth floor of the building from which he fired at US president John F. Kennedy, the Dakota, apartment building in New York City where John Lennon was shot.)
•	Slum tourism (visiting impoverished areas e.g. slums in India, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia.). Prior to the release of Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Mumbai was a slum tourist destination.
•	Terrorist tourism (visiting areas e.g. Ground Zero in New Yorku City, The Boston Marathon, the Bardo Museum in Tunis and tourist resort at Sousse in Tunisia... )
•	Paranormal tourism (visiting crop circles, UFO sightings, the haunted house in Amityville, paranormal activities in Stanley Hotel in Colorado.)
•	Witched tourism (visiting the city of Salem in Massachusetts .)
•	Accident tourism (visiting places e.g. Paris tunnel Pont de l'Alma, where the British Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed died in a car accident).
•	Icky medical tourism (visiting e.g. Josephinum, medical museum with anatomical wax models in Vienna, the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo and also all the »Bodies Exhibitions« like »Bodies Revealed«.)
•	Dark amusement tourism (visiting amusement parks e.g. the Dungeons exhibitions in London, Berlin, Dracula theme park, ghost tours in London, Prague, Chicago.).
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Dark tourism in Slovenia
Dark heritage is also the basis for the development of dark tourism in Slovenia. Military cemeteries and ossuaries, monuments and museums, the theater battles execution and solemn memorial events at the anniversaries are an integral part of the European cultural landscape and society. In the following analysis based on available sources and field work a typology of dark tourism in Slovenia is presented. In Slovenia dark tourist destinations include:
•	Cemeteries (Žale Cemetery in Ljubljana, Cemetery Pobrežje in Maribor, Roman Necropolis in Šempeter in Savinja Valley, Doberdob).
•	Prisons and penitentiaries (Penitentiary at the Ljubljana Castle, Celica Jail Hostel).
•	Museums (The Hospital Franja, Park of Military History in Pivka, Kobarid Museum, Idrija War Museum, War Museum in Logatec).
•	Concentration camps (Ljubelj, Mauthausen).
•	Memorial sites and monuments (Cerje Monument, Monument for the Battle of Dražgoše, Monument to Pohorje Partisan Battalion in Osankarica, Teharje Memorial Park, The Memorial Church of the Holy Spirit in Javorca, Russian Chapel at Vršič)
•	Fortification systems (Vallo Alpino, Rupnik's Line, Fortress Kluže).
•	Guided tours of military facilities (Rupnik's Line, The Hospital Franja).
•	Remembrance paths - (The Walk of Peace, from Alps to the Adriatic, Circular Path of Military History in municipality of Pivka).
•	Shows (The show about First World War at Fortress Kluže performed by Dreizehn Dreizehn Society - 1313. It is a different way of discovering the everyday life of the soldiers on the Isonzo front. Visitors can see tooth extraction, reading the long-awaited love letter, fear, nursing wounded. Every soldier at the front experienced all that, irrespective of their nationality).
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•	Performing battles (Rupnik's Line battle in municipality of Žiri, »Liberation of Primorska 1945« battle in the Park of Military History in municipality of Pivka, both performed by Triglav Cultural and Historical Society).
•	Hiking along the trails of war memories (Memorial march »Along the Trail of the Cankar Battalion« in Dražgoše, Along the Barbwire of the Occupied City in Ljubljana).
•	Post-war killings (Kren Cave mass grave, Kočevski Rog mass grave, The Barbara Pit).
The analysis shows that dark tourism in Slovenia is mainly associated with topics related to the First World War and the Second World War period, comprising conventional museum presentations, visiting places »in situ«, performances and thematic trails in conjunction with the two world wars.
Along the trails of Slovenian »witches«
As already mentioned dark tourism in Slovenia is mainly linked to the horrors of war. Slovenia offers a lot of different opportunities for the development of dark tourism on the basis of dark cultural heritage. One of the topics is heritage of witchcraft. Various examples of heritage of witchcraft in Slovenia will be presented. All of them could be effectively incorporated into a comprehensive (innovative) tourism product.
The first witch process in our country is supposed to be the trial against the noblewoman Veronica of Desenice in 1427, but the charges against her still lacked legally formulated indictment of witchcraft. Only from 1546 on we can speak of true witch processes, when at least six women were brought to court in Maribor on charges of witchcraft. During the following 200 years the region between the Mura and the Drava was the scene of brutal prosecutions; especially the courts of Ljutomer,
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Maribor, Hrastovec, and Gornja Radgona were notorious for their austerity. The court records show that on the Slovenian territory approximately 500 individuals were accused of witchcraft. Most of the accused finished their lives on the stake. The number of witch trials peaked in the second half of the 17th century, somewhat sooner in the Styria region (Štajerska) than in the Carniola region (Kranjska). From the Carniola region a number of trial records have been conserved, most from the nineties of the 17th century, when several processes were held in Ljubljana as well. The victims of the worse of the documented persecutions were tried at the regional court under the dominion of Poljane (Predgrad) by the river Kolpa, and its extensiveness was dreadful... In Slovenia 68% of charged for witchcraft were female, and 12% male, while for the remaining percentage the sex is not given. Most of the victims were subjects, only a few were freemen, and even fewer noblemen. The last witch processes were held in 1745 at the courts of Metlika and Gornja Radgona (Košir & Tratnik Volasko, 1995).
Witches in folk tradition
People who believed in witches have always wanted to protect themselves against their harmful effects. Many habits and customs from pre-Christian times are already lost, others are still alive. There was a lot of superstition in Slovenia back in the past.
According to Ovsec (1991) people believed that the witches harm by eggs or bones buried in a field, in the vineyard below the barn or house of the person who wish to injure them. If they want to protect themselves from the harm of buried objects they had to be excavated and thrown away. People believed that blessed egg shells sprinkled around the house chase away snakes, lizards, toads, snails and witches.
Quite widespread is the legend of Pentecost dew, which is supposed to give cows more milk, facial beauty, eye health. Witches, wrapped only in
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sheets, accumulate dew in the middle of the night of Pentecost Sunday and then squeeze it in the bottle at home. They also sprinkle their fields that were more fertile. This is supposed to result in worse crop in the fields of other people.
The evening before the day of St. John the Baptist (24.6.), the witches had special power. Because of that they were persecuted by the ringing of blessed church bells. They also burned bonfires to protect the field against them. Many people believed that a witch was born in a red shirt. This shirt was dried and stored by the mother, if she wanted her daughter to become a witch. Otherwise she burned it (Ovsec, 1991).
Witches flew on birch brooms, so the belief was that birch broom on the threshold of a house was warding off the witches and denying them to enter. Good protection against witches was also garlic with which they anointed children in the house. The best defense was prevention. This means people avoided witches and behaved very kindly to them. Good prevention was also the use of blessed water.
The most reliable indicator of witchcraft was a test in the water, while an alleged witch with tied hands and feet was thrown into a river. If she survived and saved herself, she was recognized as a witch and thrown into the fire. If she drowned or started to drown she was declared innocent and freed from evil. On the Slovenian territory was search for witch signs on private parts more common for identifying the witch.
In Slovenia, according to Mencej (2006), the most widely used tool for identifying a witch was the so-called Lucija's chair, which was being built the day of St. Lucy (13 December) until Christmas. Instructions for making such a chair are different. Sometimes it is necessary to use nine kinds of woods, sometimes twelve. It was made only before sunrise, preferably in silence. Person who sat on the chair at midnight mass in the church was able to identify all the witches.
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Witches Cave on Slivnica
According to local folklore, there have been frequent sightings of smoke arising from a cave at the top of the mountain accompanied with strange sounds. A karst cave below the summit of Slivnica, known as Witches Cave was described by Janez Vajkard Valvasor in »The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola« (1689) as a hole where storms were made.
Valvasor wrote: »Witches are vermin, easy to find everywhere. On the other side of the lake rises the mountain Slivnica, where the storms are made. Witches, moths and other nasty creatures have their dances and meetings at the top. We see them as tiny flying lights. Generally the landscape around the lake Cerknica is well inhabited with witches. That is why many of them are burned. In these places they are going to stake more than anywhere in the country. So they are carefully hiding. These vermin completely failed to dispel. Under an enormous pile of ash many sparks still remain« (Valvasor, 2009). According to Valvasor there is also a lot of witches around Snežnik, Lož and Planina because »these places are vast wilderness that is full of vermin. This vermin is hanging out with toads, poisonous worms in caves or dark thicket« (Valvasor, 2009).
In a book called The Lake Cerknica (1899) Jožef Žirovnik wrote about Slivnica and Witches Cave: »Although the external appearance of Slivnica is friendly, it is apparently full of malice and wickedness. At the time of a nearby storm is wrapped in a thick fog. Starting from the deep cave, which is on the highest peak, come - according to the old folk beliefs -hail, storm and lightning. Even 220 years ago priests from Cerknica went to the top to bless the cave. Great procession was moved there every year on Pentecost Monday. The priest prayed and sprinkled the cave with holy water. People placed a maypole with a cross on the top. Some of them were even throwing gifts inside that supposedly comfort the evil power. Once they wanted to block the cave with a large rock and close the way for hail and storm that would not be able to get out. For this purpose they moved the rock plate and rolled it toward the cave, allowing it to escape and
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headed for jumping into the valley, where almost teared down priests house in Martinjak. The cause of all these disasters were supposedly witches who lived in this cave. When preparing a storm church bell was always ringing and thereby warding off hail and witches« (Zirovnik, 1899).
The congregation of witches was called the »Sabbath«. By admitting his or her attendance to the Sabbath, the accused signed his or her death sentence. Usually these meetings were held on witch mountain tops (the most known in our country are Slivnica, Donacka or Rogaska gora, Klek, Grintavec to a lesser extent), or on crossroads. Witches supposedly anointed themselves with special lotions and flew to these meetings - as themselves, or in the form of an animal - on brooms, on fire-tongs, on animal back, and even inside a barrel. They supposedly assembled in late night hours, convened with the Devil, and made contracts with him. At those occasions witches had sexual intercourse with the Devil, and practiced witchcraft with intent to cause damage. The victims of the processes had also described these meetings as feasts, characterized by heavy drinking and dancing. Most favourable dates for the Sabbath were the eve of Candlemas, the eve of May 1, the eve of November 1, and summer and winter solstices.
Stories of Slovene »witches«
The period from the 16th century well into the last quarter of the 18th century was marked by terrible and cruel violence against the human body. In early modern criminal matters, the process of interrogation and sentencing took place behind closed doors and was strictly separate from the public announcement of the sentence and the punishment. While it became customary for acknowledgement of the crime to be the ultimate evidence, judicial authorities used extremely violent methods of torture to achieve an admittance of guilt. Physical violence against the body was supposed to encourage the acknowledgement of the crime. With the aid of
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barbarous tortures, using »harsh interrogation« with various torture devices, the judiciary forced confession, as conviction followed only after the acknowledgement of the crime. Minor crimes and misdemeanours were punished with humiliation punishments. Offenders were publicly exposed, bound to a block or in the stocks, placed in shaming masks, chained to a pillory, locked in a fool's cage, submerged in a river, or forever marked and shamed by having their body parts cut off or being mutilated or branded. Women accused of witchcraft were usually burned at the stake, like in four stories of Slovene »witches« described below.
1.	The tragic love story of Veronika of Desenice and Frederick II., Count of Celje
The first process under the accusation of witchcraft in Slovenia took place in 1427 in Celje against Veronika of Desenice. She was the second wife of Frederick II., Count of Celje. Little is known of her early life. It is believed the name Deseniska derives from the village of Desinic in Croatia, where Frederick also had extensive estates. Veronika was minor nobility and Frederick's father Hermann II. greatly opposed to the marriage. The chronicles of the Counts of Celje suggest he had his son arrested and, while holding him prisoner, initiated a trial against Veronika accusing her of witchcraft. She was acquitted by the court, but despite this incarcerated in Ojstrica Castle near Tabor and murdered (supposedly on the orders of Hermann II.) by being drowned. She was buried in Braslovce and a few years later Frederick arranged for her remains to be reburied at the Carthusian monastery at Jurkloster. In her memory also made an endowment to the monastery at Bistra. Her grave was discovered in 2005.
2.	The story of Anica at Ljubljana Castle: The Barbarism of Torture -an exhibition of torture devices from the 16th to the 18th century The exhibition offers a more detailed understanding of the course
of criminal procedures of the time, from jail and interrogation to the execution of the sentence, with the aid of costumed characters - the Ljubljana executioner Hans and his victim Anica, who has been accused of
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witchcraft in a story that is based on an actual witchcraft trial that unfolded in Ljubljana at the end of the 17 th century.
Taking the example of the Penitentiary at the Ljubljana Castle, which opened exactly 200 years ago, visitors will learn how, under the influence of Enlightenment ideas, physical punishment was replaced by detention and the focus shifted from public punishment aimed at serving as an example and a warning to the masses, to rehabilitation of the individual delinquent. Ljubljana of that time was no exception to the rule, with the preserved documents bearing witness to the interrogations that took place behind the walls of the Tranca building in Ljubljana, and to the execution of humiliating punishments in front of the Town Hall, where there once stood a pillary (pranger), a fool's cage and a bench, and at Friskovec, where capital punishment was carried out by executioners dealing the fatal blows.
The exhibition of early modern torture devices, tools and requisites, which were used both to achieve a confession of guilt by means of torture and to administer punishment for minor and serious offences, is intended to shed light on the time of the proliferation of torture practices and cruel punishments, while also serving as a reminder that even today these practices are nowhere near being merely a residue of the distant past. Is today's supposedly civilised society any different at all?
3. The tragic love story of Agatha and Friderich Herberstain, count of
Hrastovec Castle
In the 16th century, a young count from Hrastovec, Friedrich Herberstein, fell in love with beautiful Agatha from the Stralek manor. Friedrich's mother opposed to their marriage, therefore the young couple got secretly married in the chapel of Stipler (today, the annex church of St. Mary in Radoha). So, Friedrich's mother accused Agatha of witchcraft. While Friedrich was at war, his mother tortured Agatha and made her throw a new-born baby into the burning stove. Then, she reported the fact to the judge who condemned Agatha to death. Her step-mother demanded that Agatha be beheaded. When Friedrich returned from the war, he could
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not find his beloved wife. In his grief, he planted a black cross, a symbol of unhappy love, in the ground where the tragedy happened. Today the black cross can be found in Lormanje in Lenart municipality. The story is described in the book »The Black Cross«, by Ožbalt Ilaunig.
4. The last one on the stake: Marina Šušarek in Ribnica
The Process of Ribnica was a typical witch process, with the usual accusations - from flying on the Sabbath and making contract with the Devil, which was eagerly advocated by the judge, to accusations of causing damage by witchcraft, partly reported by the people from the village. It is also characteristic that it was a group process in which the accused were forced to inform against their colleagues, which resulted in new victims. The process was held for at least two years, from 1700 to 1701, but it might have started earlier, and lasted longer than that. The Process of Ribnica resulted in at least seven victims: Marina Šušarek or Češarek (burned on the stake), Marina Košir (died in jail), Jera Šober (imprisoned, almost certainly burned on the stake), Ana Zbačnik (burned on the stake), Neža Rus (burned on the stake), Lucija Kerznič (died in jail), and Končarica (imprisoned, almost certainly burned on the stake) (Košir, 2001).
Marina Šušarek was forty-two years old, mother of six children, married to the shoemaker. She was accused of witchcraft and put on the witchcraft chair to confess her guilt. After three hours of torture she admitted to be a witch. She had to admit that she was making hail, attended the Sabbath and concluded a pact with the devil. She was sentenced to death. They cut off her head with a sword. Her body was thrown on the stake and completely burned in dust and ashes (Košir, 2001). Records of her trial are kept in the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia.
342 RSC, Number 7, Issue 3, September 2015 Conclusion
Dark tourism is a growing phenomenon internationally that has gathered significant attention on the part of the academic literature in the past decade. Including forms of cultural and historical commemoration, but also visits to sites of horror and violence, dark tourism is becoming an important source of income for some destinations. Number of visitors of places of disasters, tragedies and scenes of murder, witchcraft and cursed places is rising sharply. Such places visitors attended previously in history, but this were not called dark tourism.
Irresistibly attractive places of accidents were identified in the tourism industry as a promising market niche. Human inquisitiveness has become a source of income of the organizers of tourist trips, also locals are satisfied who earn some money because of their past disaster.
Dark tourism is the most serious type of tourism and has highly educational role, while provoking endless discussions on how the difficult past could and should be presented to the visitors. The main motive for visiting all those dark memorials is to understand the causes and consequences of various events in order what to do that would never happen again, so find out what happened and understand why this has occurred. Strong motivation for visiting is also to commemorate the victims of a particular historically important area.
Also in Slovenia we have many dark stories (not only dedicated to war) and themes that can be developed into (innovative) tourist products, as shown in the case of witches and witchcraft, which was prepared by the atmosphere of fear, envy and resentment. Usually an unfortunate happening, like hail, or illness, supposedly provoked by witches, or accusations among neighbours, initiated the charges of witchcraft. On most occasions people were not able to explain the reasons for disasters, thus witchcraft was a handy explanation. If prayers wouldn't help, nor amulets, nor church bells, only the stake remained.
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The witch processes are classified among the dark phenomena in the history of mankind. These processes were nothing else but legal murders, the accused were burned for the actions which they could not have possibly done. In spite of numerous researches a satisfactory and final explanation for these wide-spread events has not been found. A reasonable explanation would be indeed quite hard to conceive. The idea of »evil«, which the world is trying to eradicate by »fire«, is an old one, constantly reoccurring, and not limited to the past. The timeless conspiracy theory can be easily recognized in it, and whoever dares oppose is in danger of being quite quickly classified as one of the alleged conspirators. Thus the witch processes point out the possible connections with the contemporary history, and open the questions regarding the impulses within ourselves.
Dark tourism is in fact often linked to processes of selected memorialization of past violent events, and to a related production of specific geographies of memory. The question is to what extent it is in fact acceptable to market a tragic event, who should deal with destination images created by the media, to what extent tourist and visitor expectations created by the media can in fact be met, and how managers and curators of dark tourism sites can effectively communicate the message of the site to tourists and visitors.
Debates should also be focused on the modalities of the visits, on the technologies of display implemented to remember and visualize the past, on the ethical issues related to leisure activities in sensitive locations. At the end we can just say: Memento mori!
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