❦ Marko juvan ▶ marko.juvan@zrc-sazu.si Censorship and the Literary Field: Kopitar, Čop, and Krajnska čbelica Cenzura in literarno polje: Kopitar, Čop in Krajnska čbelica SLAVICA TERGESTINA European Slavic Studies Journal ISSN 1592-0291 (print) & 2283-5482 (online) VOLUME 26 (2021/I), pp. 244–267 DOI 10.13137/2283-5482/32516 245 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands censorship, literarY criticism, aesthetic autonomY, austro- slavism, romanticism, slovenian literature, jernej kopitar, matija Čop, France preŠeren cenzura, literarna veda, estetska avtonomija, avstroslavizem, romantika, slovenska literatura, jernej kopitar, matija Čop, France preŠeren Slovenian literary history discussed Austrian censorship in Carniola during the Pre-March Era mainly through the conflict between the Romantic poet Prešeren and backward secular and church authorities. This article changes the perspective by examining the par- adox of censor as an instrument of im- perial thought control and a trained expert resembling the literary critic. In the period of Metternich’s absolutist policing, censorship was inadvertently individualized. How censors relied on their aesthetic judgement, prestige, and strategies is shown by the treat- ment of the almanac Krajnska čbelica by Kopitar and Čop in the 1830s. During the “Slovenian alphabet war,” Kopi- tar’s Herderianism collided with the Romantic cosmopolitanism of Prešeren and Čop, who advocated the impor- tance of aesthetic autonomy for the national movement. O avstrijski cenzuri na Kranjskem v predmarčni dobi je slovenska literarna zgodovina pogosto razprav- ljala prek konflikta med romantičnim pesnikom Prešernom in zaostalimi posvetnimi in cerkvenimi oblastmi. Pričujoči članek spreminja perspek- tivo in poudari paradoks cenzorja kot instrumenta imperialne kontrole uma in usposobljenega strokovnjaka, podobnega literarnemu kritiku. V ob- dobju Metternichovega (policijskega) absolutizma je cenzura nenamer- no postala individualizirana. Kako so se cenzorji oprli na svojo estetsko presojo, prestiž in strategije, dokazuje Kopitarjeva in Čopova obravnava alma- naha Krajnska čbelica. Med »slovensko abecedno vojno« 1833 se je Kopitarjevo herderjevstvo spopadlo s Prešernovim in Čopovim romantičnim kozmopoli- tizmom, ki je zagovarjal pomen estet- ske avtonomije za nacionalno gibanje. 246 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field the censor’s ParaDox Plato’s Republic introduced the idea that the art of literature is a threat to politics because it uses fiction and the expressive power of language to deceive the audience and alienate it from the community truth and ethos that are politically defined by those in power (Juvan 2018: 104–108). Ideas of the mimetic power of literature extended all the way to the nineteenth century: through affects and emotions, which were considered cognitively inferior to conceptual thinking, liter- ary fictions were believed to create deceptions of reality, motivating the audience to copy them in their behavior and thought. In the early modern period, the assumption that because of its mimetic nature literature poses a threat to the community ethos defined by the govern- ing power alternated with the assumption about the epidemic nature of ideas that politics considered dangerous (cf. Bachleitner: 33–40). The order of discourse is generally controlled in and of itself (through conventions, bans, and pre-defined statements), but the eventness of its statements produces unpredictable singularities and transgressions. Therefore, in the early modern period the religious and secular author- ities institutionalized the management of statements, with censorship taking over the function of selecting, restricting, hierarchizing, and destroying statements. Censorship is a repressive institution and an adversary of literature. However, as such it forced literature to develop innovative modes of ex- pression and communication channels, and it influenced the establish- ment of the authorial function and value ranking of literary discourse. To avoid censorship, writers invented Aesopian procedures, renewing literary language this way. In searching for ways to bypass censorship, literary communication more or less internationalized. In addition 247 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands 1 The 1810 Austrian censorship regulation distinguished between serious works for intellectuals and pop- ular literature for the common folk. Litera- ture for wider circles was subject to tighter restrictions than works for the educated elites; enlightened absolutism persecuted folk superstitions and tried to stifle the popularity of novels (Wiesner: 214; cf. Kranjc: 528–531). to the religious reformer Primož Trubar, authors of popular erotic literature, or radical men of the Enlightenment, many banned authors printed their works abroad; educated elites purchased banned books on their travels, and enterprising booksellers smuggled foreign works on the censorship list from abroad (cf. Vidmar 2018a). Following Michel Foucault, censorship is among the factors that, by requiring authors to be personally criminally liable for their creations, shaped the early modern author function key to the emergence of the literary field (Fou- cault 1981: 52–61; 1979). As argued by Robert Darnton (Censors at Work), censors even helped writers come up with permissible formulations, and through their authority as arbiters of taste (in pre-revolutionary France) or designers of state-supported publishing programs (in com- munist East Germany) they influenced writers’ reputation and fame. From this perspective, censors played a role close to that of literary criticism. As early as 1847, Adolph Wiesner drew attention to the fact that Habsburg censors confused the repression of politically, morally, or religiously unacceptable writings with the subjectivity of literary criticism: “By definition, Austrian censorship is thus not only a policing Areopagus but also a literary one” (Wiesner: 279). Habsburg censorship was known to be more forgiving toward the reading needs of the nobility and stricter toward the reading prefer- ences of ordinary citizens (Marx: 13; Bachleitner: 22–23).1 Alongside literary criticism, it was censorship in particular that established the class difference between high literature and trivial genres, regulating the repertoire of the emerging literary field. Censorship influenced the publicly available range and hierarchy of reading material, through which it aesthetically educated readers. Over the long nineteenth cen- tury, the popular genre of novels, which were targeted by censorship, contributed to the autonomy of the literary field while narratively 248 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field 2 University profes- sors and high school teachers were assigned the task of providing assistance in censoring technical literature, textbooks, and similar material (Marx: 23). disseminating the bourgeois ideology, especially nationalism; all of this helped undermine the old regime. In Austria, from the Theresian and Josephinian Enlightenment re- forms onward, the panoptic preventive censorship of all creative pro- duction was organized into a hierarchic state apparatus with a central office and local branches at provincial governments and governorates, which was directly subordinated to the absolutist sovereign as the first among censors (Marx: 17–30). Under the restoration government headed by Klemens von Metternich (1821–1848), who liked to interfere in censorship and police matters (Marx: 31–36), the pressure of cen- sorship on all forms and channels of public communication grew even stronger in order to bring about a reactionary restoration of absolut- ism, which was threatened by bourgeois revolution, radical liberalism, and nationalist movements. The rigorous censorship apparatus was headed by the central imperial office in Vienna, which included a book revision office. This already came under the police ministry in 1801 through an imperial decree; in addition, the censorship and police activities also relied on a wide network of informants (Marx: 17–24; Bachleitner: 96). Subordinated to the Vienna office were the provincial review offices, which supervised the local production and in more complex matters turned the case over to the head office in Vienna. Only a few censors, one book reviewer, and a handful of support staff worked at the Vienna imperial censorship office, which is why individuals and institutions in Vienna and provincial capitals were also authorized to issue censorship reports (Bachleitner: 96–97; Kranjc: 524).2 The censorship apparatus had to cover public discourse in all stand- ard languages and in all provinces of the monarchy, which is why it re- quired a multitude of knowledgeable, multi-lingual, and specialized connoisseurs (Marx: 45–49). At the same time, individuals recruited 249 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands as censors and coopted into the police system remained respected personalities in the literary, artistic, and research-academic spheres. Among the scholars that cooperated with the head censorship of- fice was the orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, but the role of censors was also performed by less distinguished men of letters (at least from today’s perspective). All found themselves in a conflict situation because the government authorized them to supervise the areas they themselves engaged in (cf. Bachleitner: 97–99). According ← FIG. 1 Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich as portrayed by Thom- as Lawrence, 1815. 250 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field to Wiesner, censors ranked the works they examined into categories by value (scholarly versus popular works, new insights, compilations, and so on) and they also decided on the suitability of their content. Hence, by playing the role of a “police tool” they could prevent books from being published due to their aesthetic preferences, even though the works did not violate any political, moral, or religious princi- ples. Regardless of their personal taste and critical capacity, they had great power as institutional actors (Wiesner: 225–226). In the process in which literary discourse gradually became autonomous and nation- ally profiled over the course of the long nineteenth century, censors influenced the value hierarchization of this discourse from the position of power, similar to literary critics in the literary field. Censors were shadows of literary critics. The panoptic structure of Austrian censorship, which was to en- sure unbiased control, was thus clearly also dependent on individuals. A censor’s judgment about which discourse-filtering category an in- dividual piece of writing should be included in was quite arbitrary, in part also because of the loose censorship norms. The interest of the state mixed with the censor’s personal interest. Even though censors embodied the transmission of imperial policy, they were also the agents of autonomous critical judgment. As actors esteemed in the public eye, they were involved in the development of literature, science, or any other area they controlled as officials on behalf of the state. Despite being part of a rigid procedure, they were able to exercise their personal power of judgment and influence. This paradoxical position was able to emerge based on the Enlightenment modernization of feudal soci- ety demanded from the absolutist sovereign by the global expansion of capitalism and industrial revolution. Censors, who indeed served as tools of the absolutist monarch, were usually learned experts that, 251 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands 3 For the background of the alphabet and censorship wars between the Slavic specialist Jernej Kopitar and his former protégé Matija Čop and the poet France Prešer- en, see Žigon (1903: 89–122); for the devel- opment of the alphabet and censorship wars, see also Žigon (1926), Kidrič (1911; 1938: cclii– cclvi, cccviii–cccxix), Slodnjak (1984), Pater- nu (146–170, 232–242), and Pogačnik (1977: 110–117). Čop’s (and Prešeren’s) side in the dispute is presented in, for example, Čop (1983: 109–184), Slodnjak (1986: 167–173, 189–195, 186–188, 189–195, 239–245, 246–265, 271–276, 277–282), and Kos (144–170). thanks to the Habsburg education system, could even rise to important positions (in science, literature, philosophy, etc.) from a lower estate (e.g., Jernej Kopitar). the carnioLan censorshiP war anD the autonoMization of the Literary fieLD The censorship conflict over the poetry almanac Krajnska čbelica (The Carniolan Bee) has been examined in detail by Prešeren studies in Slo- venia, largely according to the pattern of the battle between the brilliant Slovenian poet France Prešeren and the narrow-mindedness of the censor Jernej Kopitar.3 Allegedly, Kopitar was offended because his protégé Matija Čop broke faith with him due to Prešeren and opposed Kopitar’s cultural plan in his homeland. According to Kopitar, the di- vided Slavs, especially those subordinate to the Austrian crown, should be brought closer together through the introduction of a uniform al- phabet. In 1825, Franc Serafin Metelko devised a Slovenian alphabet following Kopitar’s principles, which Prešeren satirically ridiculed (e.g., in his 1831 poem “Nova pisarija” [A New Alphabet]) and Čop re- jected with a polemic discussion in 1833 in the midst of the “Slovenian alphabet war.” At that time, Kopitar used his position of a censor in sla- vicis to thwart Čop’s and Prešeren’s more progressive Romantic concept of Slovenian literature. Kopitar proceeded from his Austro-Slavism program, which he modeled after Herder’s ideology of rural folk, folk literature, and folk languages as the foundations on which young na- tions should gradually build their own culture. In this culture, litera- ture should rely on folklore and be available to the simple rural folk; in addition, it should not be raised above other discourses. It was based on these ideas that, after the outbreak of the alphabet war, Kopitar 252 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field sought to block the publication of the fourth volume of Krajnska čbelica as a censor, and to ridicule the main actors of the Carniolan Romantic circle and devalue their publishing activity as a critic and cultural planner hidden inside the censor. In 1830, half a century after the Enlightenment Rococo poetry al- manac Pisanice (Belletristic Writings), Krajnska čbelica rekindled the attempts at a Slovenian literature. By publishing this Slovenian-lan- guage poetry almanac, Čop and Prešeren sought to attract the bilingual Carniolan educated readers as some sort of vanguards of the nationally conscious bourgeoisie into the philological and literary phase of the national movement. Accordingly, they opposed Kopitar’s idea that the pure language of peasants is the only suitable foundation of a standard language. Addressing the urban taste of the Bildungsbürgertum, they promoted Prešeren’s serious reflective poetry in the almanac against the backdrop of less complex versifications adapted to this target audience. FIG. 2 → Matija Čop as por- trayed by Matevž Lan- gus around 1830. 253 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands 4 The reason for this is also that most of his censorship reports have clearly not been preserved in Vienna (cf. Kidrič 1911: 161; 1928: 183). Published so far have been Kopitar’s documents revealing his role as a censor in the oper- ation of Vuk Karadžić (Ivić: 178–281). 5 In 1819 and 1824, he was reprehend- ed for supporting Karadžić (cf. Ivić: 195–196, 222). They believed that Romantic, aesthetically autonomous Slovenian po- etry could offer the way for the emerging literature to internalize the universal aesthetic standards accumulated in world literature in its own language in an accelerated manner. In Čop’s and Prešeren’s version of European cultural nationalism, the ability of a vernacular language to transform into a literary language through aesthetic cultivation and reach the level of other cultivated languages is crowning proof of the quality of a peripheral or “non-historical” nation (cf. Juvan 2012: 250–276). Censorship studies conducted by scholars from Marx to Darnton and Bachleitner allow the relationship between Kopitar and Prešeren to be cast in a different light: in the censorship procedure surround- ing the publication of individual volumes of Krajnska čbelica, traces of critical judgments and divergent interests of two actors (Kopitar and Čop) involved in the autonomization and nationalization of the literary field in Carniola can be identified. Is individualization of an an- ti-Romantic censor ultimately not complementary with the Romantic individualization of a writer? Censorship remains a poorly studied area of Kopitar’s professional activity (Pogačnik 1977: 82).4 Kopitar served as an imperial censor in Vi- enna from September 7th, 1810 until his death. Initially, he was in charge of Slavic and Modern Greek literature, and later also Romanian texts. He followed the regulations (cf. Kranjc) and received remuneration for his work as a censor, but he also pursued his own goals, for which he was often admonished by his superiors.5 Even though he ironically called himself a “police agent” (Ivić: 265), his real agenda was different. By creating a network of students and colleagues, and establishing contacts with renowned European scholars, he sought to build a strong Slavic philology movement in the monarchy’s intellectual centers. 254 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field 6 Kopitar revealed his Slavic studies views and plans in works, such as Introduction to the Grammar (Kopi- tar 1808: iii–xlviii), The Mission of a Future Slav- ic Academy, the Patriotic Dreams of a Slav, and Autobiography (Kopitar 1977: 7–51, 67–86; 1857: 1–14, 34–39, 61–70). The recurrent theme is an apologia for the Slavs, who were gen- erally underestimated by German scholars (except for Schlözer, Herder, Humboldt, and Grimm—Ko- pitar’s authorities or correspondents). Through a combination of Slavic, Austrian, and Carniolan-Slo- venian patriotism, he attacked such prejudices, glorifying the demographic and cultural power of the Slavs and bemoaning the East–West Schism, which had torn the Slavs apart in terms of religion and alphabet. Because they had no nation-state, the Slavic peoples remained fragment- ed and pushed into a subordinate position together with their “di- alects.” Kopitar aimed to connect the Slavic peoples via a uniform alphabet (which would revive the key significance of Cyril and Methodius) and elevate them to the level of respected nations through Slavic philology, grammat- ically cultivating the vernaculars, educating people, modeling → He conceived of it as a parent institution that would coordinate the development of the Austrian Slavs’ national revivals at the theoret- ical, normative, and implementational level under his supervision and along the lines of Herderian cultural nationalism.6 In performing work as a censor, he followed his ideas of organizing the Slavic studies and literary life of those Austrian nations whose literature he was ordered to review. In the role of a censor, he persistently supported Vuk Karadžić’s efforts, but on the other hand he condemned the journal Letopis Matice Srpske (Annals of the Serbian Society) for sympathizing with Russia and glorifying Orthodoxy (Kernc). Publication of Kopi- tar’s reports would most likely “reveal the censor’s ideological, aes- thetic, cultural, political, and especially tactical moves through which he largely achieved what he wanted” (Pogačnik 1977: 83). Through his geopolitical interpretation of Karadžić’s philological and literary activ- ity, Kopitar sought to disable Karadžić’s (Serbian) opponents: he high- lighted the fact that, by cultivating Serbian as spoken by the common folk, Karadžić reduced the role of linguistically artificial Slavo-Serbian literature, thereby moving the Serbs away from Russian influence and bringing them closer to linguistically similar Catholic South Slavs subordinate to the Habsburg crown (cf. Ivić: 183–185, 198–201, 204, 223, 266, 268, 278–281). Kopitar had a reputation as a monstrum scientiarum (Pogačnik 1978: 172)—that is, an authoritative and polemic, yet unselfish, polyglot lin- guist that strove to culturally unite the national revivals of the Austrian Slavs following the example of the Greek city-states and their com- mon alphabet, and remove them from Russian influence (cf. Pogačnik 1977: 87–88; 1978: 61–63, 90; Vidmar 2018b: 387, 389–390). He sought to consolidate Vienna, where he worked as the curator of the imperial library, in the role of the capital of Slavic studies and Austro-Slavism. 255 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands → on rich folk litera- ture, and promoting Slavic cultures among renowned Euro- pean scholars. ← FIG. 3 Kopitar’s witty letter to Žiga Zois from 1810 describing his first assignment as a censor of Slavic books—the banning of a Czech religious work that “doesn’t deserve print” (“typum non meretur”). In devising his cultural plan, Kopitar—a former protégé of Sigmund Zois—had in mind the role of his native Carniola throughout. Through his Carantanian–Panonnian theory of the origin of Old Church Slavic, he sought to demonstrate the centrality of the Slovenian language in the broader Slavic environment. There are two Enlightenment or pre-Romantic ideologemes that distinguish Kopitar from the Romantic concept promoted in Carnio- la by Čop and Prešeren: that peasants were the uncorrupted bearers of a nation and its standard language, and that the South Slavs were 256 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field 7 Kopitar translated around two thou- sand poems from Karadžić’s collection, provided extensive commentary on them (Kopitar 1944–45: 3–127), sent his phil- ological translations to Jacob Grimm and Goethe, and later provided advice for the 1835 German translations by Therese Albertine Luise von Jacob (pen name Talvj; cf. Pogačnik 1977: 31–32). In one of his official letters, Kopitar referred to Karadžić as “the Illyrian Homer, Ossian, etc.” (Kopitar 1944–45: 127; cf. Ivić, 223–224). 8 Kopitar advocated Schiller’s naive poetry. Thus, for example, in 1819 he was thrilled by Václav Han- ka’s collection of Old Czech poetry (later identified as a forgery), in which he identified naturalness, authentic naivety, lyric grace, and epic grandness comparable to Homer and Ossian (Kopitar 1944–45: 143–147). 9 The description of the censorship war relies on the sources listed in Footnote 3. lagging behind in development. According to Kopitar, the Slavs made up for lagging behind “historical nations” with their childlike authen- ticity following the example of Homeric Greece. The cultivation (Bil- dung) process therefore had to begin among peasants and rely on their cultural tradition (Pogačnik 1977: 86–91; 1978: 89–90). Imbued with this ideology, Kopitar played the roles of a translator, reviewer, mediator, and promotor of Serbian folk poetry; he presented this in Wiener Jahr- bücher der Literatur (Vienna Annals of Literature) and caused Jacob Grimm and Goethe take interest in it.7 Goethe even used Serbian epic folk poetry as one of the bases for developing his idea of world litera- ture (Juvan 2012: 96–97, 113). Just like Goethe, Kopitar, who originated from Zois’s Enlightenment circle, also favored folk poetry, Greek and Roman classics, Classicism, and Ossianism, and he opposed German Romanticism (cf. Pogačnik 1977: 65–67, 102, 151–152). He interpreted the ideal of Classical Greece via pre-Romantic concepts of a natural folk genius. He disliked Prešeren’s Romanticism, which understood the model of Classical Antiquity differently. It perceived it as the basis for developing modern, self-reflective classics (following Schiller’s ty- pology of sentimental kind), historically open toward the intertextual backgrounds of ancient and modern world literature.8 In 1833, a public conflict developed between Kopitar’s and Čop’s cir- cles, escalating into the “alphabet war” and a background “censorship war” over the publication of the fourth volume of Krajnska čbelica (cf. Paternu: 232ff.).9 As an imperial censor in slavicis, Kopitar caused no problems with the first and second volumes of this almanac, even though it is clear from his correspondence that he regarded Prešeren, the main contributor, a poor, self-centered poet, and other contri- butions as not on par with (Serbian) folk poetry. Because he want- ed to draw Čop into his own Slavic plans and Čop, in turn, tried 257 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands to persuade him to treat attempts at Carniolan secular poetry favorably, Kopitar was initially indulgent toward Krajnska čbelica. He did not even deign to comment on Prešeren’s satire “Nova pisarija,” even though it ridiculed Matevž Ravnikar’s utilitarian-purist literary endeavors, Metelko’s reformed alphabet, and Kopitar’s own cultural program (Prešeren referred to it with the burlesque metaphor rovtarske Atene ‘hillbilly Athens’). However, in 1832 Kopitar used his Viennese authority to influence Čop, whom the Ljubljana Governorate charged with censoring the third volume of Krajnska čbelica. Čop counted on possible reactions from Kopitar and his supporters, and he pursued the interests of his own literary group in the interplay of forces within the emerging literary field while at the same time creating an impression of loyal objectivity in line with his duty as a censor. Even before submitting his affirmative censorship report on the third volume of the almanac, he thus convinced the disgruntled France Prešeren to withdraw his literary satires, including “Apel in čevljar” (Apelles and the Cobbler) which attacked Kopitar’s sense of aesthetics (Žigon 1926: 253–254). Čop used a similar tactic in 1833 as a censor of the fourth volume of Krajnska čbelica. He submitted a report with the verdict imprimatur omissis deletis to the Ljubljana Governorate, allowing the almanac to be printed under the condition that Prešeren’s lascivious adaptations of folk love poems be deleted, as well as his ballad “Ponočnjak” (The Carouser), which played ambiguously with Catholic sexual moralism. However, the Lju- bljana book reviewer Jurij Pavšek filed an official complaint, criticizing Čop for being unreliable and demanding the almanac be re-censored due to Prešeren’s inappropriate poems and the anti-church barbs in the translation of Gottfried August Bürger’s humorous ballad. The volume was thus sent to the head police-censorship office in Vienna and from 258 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field there to Kopitar, who got hold of Krajnska čbelica right at the outbreak of the alphabet war. In the newspaper supplement Illyrisches Blatt (Illyrian News), Čop published and commented on the translation of a review of Krajns- ka čbelica published in 1832 by the Romantic poet František Ladislav Čelakovský in Prague. Čop employed a well-known tactic to champion Krajnska čbelica and its main contributor, France Prešeren: he support- ed the still-emerging Slovenian literary initiative using the argument presented by an internationally renowned man of letters. In the Prague journal Časopis Českého museum (Journal of the Czech Museum), Čelak- ovský praised Prešeren and ironicized the Slovenian grammarians and FIG. 4 → The fourth vol- ume of Krajnska čbelica, 1833. 259 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands 10 For more on Kopi- tar’s views on Prague as a competitor to Vienna, see Po- gačnik (1977: 36). Metelko, the alphabet reformer backed by Kopitar. At the same time, he patronizingly expressed the desire for Prague to become the center of Slavic reciprocity (cf. Juvan 2014). By praising Prešeren, ridicul- ing the Metelko alphabet, and disparaging Slovenian grammarians, Čelakovský undermined Kopitar’s renown as the Viennese patriarch of Slavic studies.10 Infuriated with Čelakovský and Čop’s polemics against the Me- telko alphabet, in April 1833 Kopitar wrote a short censorship report on Krajnska čbelica (cited in Kidrič 1928: 186) for Josef von Sedlnitzky, the head of the imperial police-censorship office at that time (Marx: 37–44). He began the report by expressing doubt in Čop’s opinion that the almanac was intended for educated bilingual or multilingual strata. With fake moralism, which would befit a provincial clerk rather than a Viennese cosmopolitan, he criticized the allegedly sensual poems and declared two of Prešeren’s romances “repulsive.” Just like the overly tense reviewer Jurij Pavšek, he believed a new translation of Bürg- er’s innocent “Der Kaiser und der Abt” (The Emperor and the Abbot) might upset the Carniolan clergy. Some other sections, such as parts of Prešeren’s “Glosa” (Gloss), might also come across as invectives in Carniola, which was up to the local censor to decide. Kopitar’s final judgment was that Krajnska čbelica had to be thoroughly corrected based on his comments and resubmitted to the local censor. Kopitar’s annotations in the revision copy of Krajnska čbelica re- flect condescending linguistic-stylistic, aesthetic, and moral judg- ments, which were not the censor’s prerogative (cf. Grafenauer: 32–70). In terms of their intention, these statements, along with the censorship report, constituted a destructive literary and linguistic criticism frag- mented into allusive glosses. By using them, Kopitar displayed him- self as an authority superior to the provincial almanac contributors, 260 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field 11 For example, Kopitar criticized the allegedly barbaric Sloveniza- tion of names from Classical Antiquity, the incorrect use of inflec- tions and other gram- matical mistakes, inaccurate citation of sources, paradoxes in the poems, hints at indecencies, and copying the popular author of trivial literature Heinrich Clauren, ironized Prešeren’s signature Dr. Preshern as a sign of vanity, claiming that even the Roman poet Ovid did not flaunt his doctoral title, and so on (Grafenauer: 32, 34, 35, 40, 41, 44). See also Slodnjak (1984: 129–130). provided them with patronizing advice, and ironically directed them onto the right path. Most of Kopitar’s Latin remarks included linguis- tic and stylistic edits, through which he showed off his Classical and philological erudition, and the dominance of cosmopolitan taste over the impoverished refinement of Prešeren and other Krajnska čbelica contributors.11 Among other things, Kopitar’s annotations ironized Prešeren, denied his talent as a poet, and reproached him with being immoral and poorly educated, bragging about his doctoral title, and overestimating himself. By attacking his rivals in the role of a censor, the Viennese scholar of European renown sought to enhance his di- minishing influence in Carniola, undermining the function of France Prešeren as a prominent literary actor. Prešeren’s symbolic capital be- gan to accumulate in the 1830s, especially thanks to Čelakovský’s praise, which gave him renown in the Slavic world. However, the Slavs were Kopitar’s area of interest, and he did not envisage Prešeren as a name that should become famous across Europe. In addition, in his review, Čelakovský not only elevated Prešeren to the level of the Slavic Parnas- sus, but also ridiculed Carniolan linguists in front of the Slavs as a whole and compromised Kopitar’s profile as a renowned Slavic specialist. After the Metelko alphabet was banned through an imperial decree, which meant that Kopitar’s side in the alphabet war had been defeated, the editor of Krajnska čbelica, Miha Kastelic, resubmitted the rejected volume of the almanac to the Ljubljana review office in January 1834. The accompanying letter, which Čop and Prešeren allegedly helped write, rejects all of Kopitar’s comments, undermining his authority be- fore the crown (cf. Kidrič 1938: cccxiv–cccxvi): it draws attention to the fact that Kopitar had overstepped his authority as a censor and taken on the role of a literary critic—and a biased one due to his involve- ment in the alphabet war, to boot. When the letter reached Sedlnitzky 261 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands in Vienna, together with the report from the local censor Andrej Goll- mayer, the imperial police and censorship office granted an imprimatur to the almanac, advising Kopitar to follow the established procedures in the future. After being defeated in the alphabet war, Kopitar thus also lost the censorship battle. The alphabet and censorship wars were local, but they had a wider context. Under Čop’s leadership, Kopitar’s compatriots did not follow his revival plan for the Slavic nations within the monarchy, which realistically backed the Slovenian-speaking rural class as the foun- dation for the gradual development of a nascent nation. Instead, Čop and Prešeren looked to the German concept of Romantic cosmopoli- tanism (advocated by the Schlegel brothers), for which, however, the audience and the social basis for accelerated literary development first had to be created in Carniola. Čop’s and Prešeren’s idealistic intent was to cultivate their native language and literature via world literature, and to utilize bilingual urban intellectuals as the basis for the emerging national community. Their idea was that by creating an autonomous literary field Slovenian literature would stop lagging behind on the periphery and catch up with more developed European environments in poetry. Kopitar’s realistic cultural concept reincarnated in the lit- erary program and practice of Fran Levstik may have initially proved more successful (Pogačnik 1977: 118–129), but it was Čop’s and Prešer- en’s idealistic concept that ultimately became canonized and defined the Slovenian national ideology (cf. 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Ljubljana: Slovenska matica. 89–154. 265 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands žiGon, avGust, 1926: Krajnska Zhbeliza v cenzuri. Dom in svet 39, 1–4. 154–159, 215–221, 251–254, 281–286. žiGon, avGust, 1930: Prispevek o dobi (K Zhbelizi IV.: 1833). Dom in svet 43, 9–10. 304–308. 266 MARKO JUVAN ▶ Censorship and the Literary Field Povzetek Slovenski literarni zgodovinarji so razpravljali o delovanju avstrij- ske državne cenzure na Kranjskem v predmarčni dobi prek sheme konflikta med genialnim narodnim pesnikom Francetom Prešernom in moralistično provincialnimi predstavniki posvetne in cerkvene oblasti. Namesto da bi tej pripovedi dodajal nadaljnje variacije, si pri- čujoči članek vzame za izhodišče paradoks habsburškega cenzorja. Ta je po eni strani orodje imperialnega nadzora mišljenja, a obenem izobražen, usposobljen strokovnjak, ki nastopa kot senca modernega literarnega kritika. Cenzura je javni diskurz ne le filtrirala, temveč tudi strokovno in/ali estetsko vrednotila in z vsiljevanjem svojih hie- rarhij literarnih del, tem, stilov ali zvrsti poskušala estetsko vzgajati občinstvo, pisateljem pa oblikovati avtorsko funkcijo. V obdobju Metternichovega absolutizma, sicer zloglasnega zara- di policijske represije, je institucija cenzorja doživela neko nehote- no, a pomembno spremembo: postala je individualizirana, opirala se je na cenzorjevo subjektivno estetsko presojo ter na njegov simbolni kapital in trenutna razmerja moči na literarnem polju. Primer tega je cenzura pesniškega almanaha Krajnska čbelica, ki sta jo opravila Matija Čop in Jernej Kopitar v tridesetih letih 19. stoletja. Na Kopi- tarjevo cenzuro sta vplivala njegov razsvetljensko-predromantič- ni literarni okus in izjemna filološka erudicija, še bolj pa njegova avstro-slovanska in herderjevska strategija narodnega preporoda Slovanov, ki je estetski in individualistični visoki literaturi namenila le podrejeno vlogo. Tako je Kopitarjevo kulturno načrtovanje sredi t. i. slovenske abecedne vojne prišlo navzkriž s Prešernovim in Čo- povim romantičnim univerzalizmom, ki je povzdignil pomen poe- zije za zgodnje nacionalno gibanje. Kopitarjeva cenzura predstavlja 267 SLAVICA TERGESTINA 26 (2021/I) ▶ Habsburg Censorship and Literature in the Slovenian Lands individualizacijo antiromantične cenzure kot protiutež romantični individualizaciji pisatelja. Marko Juvan Marko Juvan is a senior researcher at the ZRC SAZU Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies and a professor of literary theory at the Uni- versity of Ljubljana. His recent publications on genre theory, intertextuality, literary geography, Slovenian Romanticism, and world literature include History and Poetics of Intertextuality (2008), Literary Studies in Re- construction (2011), Prešernovska struktura in svetovni literarni system (The Prešeren Structure and the World Literary System, 2012), Hibridni žanri (Hybrid Genres, 2017), and Worlding a Peripheral Literature (2019).