Sodobnost
Encyclopedia
Sodobnost is a Slovenia
n literary
and cultural magazine
, established in 1933. It is considered the oldest of currently existing literary magazines in Slovenia
. Although Sodobnost has traditionally been a magazine focused on cultural and literary issues, it nowadays covers a wide range of current affairs. It is part of the Eurozine
editorial project.
and Ferdo Kozak
, who had left the prestigious national liberal magazine Ljubljanski zvon
in disagreement with its appeasing policies towards the dictatorship of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and the centralist and non-democratic policies of the Yugoslav National Party
. Its first two editors were the literary critic Josip Vidmar
and author Ferdo Kozak
. After 1935, the magazine became one of the strongest supporters of the creation of a Slovenian Popular Front
, that is of a broad coalition of left wing groups that would fight against the threat of Fascism
and for Slovenian autonomy within Yugoslavia
. In a period when the Communist party was outlawed in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
, the magazine enabled many prominent Communists to publish articles under pseudonyms; among them were Edvard Kardelj
, Boris Kidrič
, and Ivo Brnčič
. In the artistic and literary sense, Sodobnost became the main platform for neo-realist
and social realist authors, such as Prežihov Voranc
, Ciril Kosmač
, Miško Kranjec
, Ivan Potrč
, Ludvik Mrzel and others.
After the Axis
invasion of Yugoslavia
in April 1941, the magazine closed down. After the War, the magazine was re-established as Novi svet ("New World"), which changed its name to Naša sodbonost ("Our Contemporary Time") in 1952, thus re-establishing the tradition with the interwar journal. Between 1946 and 1955, it mostly served as a means of cultural propaganda of the new Communist regime. During this time, it was edited by Boris Ziherl, the main cultural ideologist of the Communist Party of Slovenia. In 1955, Ziherl was replaced by a more pragmatic editorial board, and in 1963 it assumed its original name, Sodobnost. The following year, the literary historian and philosopher Dušan Pirjevec
joined the editorial board, raising the overall intellectual level of the magazine. During this period, the contributors and editors of Sodobnost engaged in a long and sharp polemic with the alternative magazine Perspektive (edited by Taras Kermauner
, Janko Kos
, Dominik Smole
and Dane Zajc
), which assumed a more critical stand towards the Titoist regime. When the Perspektive were dissolved by the regime in 1964, the editors of Sodobnost published a solidarity note, and were replaced by the regime, as well.
After a period of crisis in 1964-1965, the new editorial board (headed by the poet Ciril Zlobec
) shifted the attitude of the magazine to moderate and pragmatic positions, which opened the magazine to all quality contributors who were not openly and militantly against the prevailing policies in Yugoslavia and Slovenia. Between mid 1960s and early 1980s, Sodobnost enjoyed the status of the most prestigious magazine in Slovenia; after that, it went into a gradual but continuous decline. In the late 1990s, under the new editor Evald Flisar
, it became more influential again.
and Primož Kozak
, historians Bogo Grafenauer
and Igor Grdina, author and sociologist Igor Škamperle
, sociologist and politician Lev Kreft, poets Igo Gruden
, Edvard Kocbek
, Janez Menart
, Miodrag Bulatović
, Josip Osti
, Iztok Osojnik
and Niko Grafenauer
, critic Bojan Štih
, writers Prežihov Voranc
, Igor Torkar
, Lojze Kovačič
, Dušan Šarotar
and many others.
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n literary
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
and cultural magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
, established in 1933. It is considered the oldest of currently existing literary magazines in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. Although Sodobnost has traditionally been a magazine focused on cultural and literary issues, it nowadays covers a wide range of current affairs. It is part of the Eurozine
Eurozine
Eurozine is a network of European cultural magazines based in Vienna, linking up more than 70 partner magazines and institutions from 34 European countries...
editorial project.
History
The magazine was established in 1933 by a group of left liberal intellectuals around Fran Albrecht, Josip VidmarJosip Vidmar
Josip Vidmar was a prominent Slovenian literary critic and essayist. Vidmar is remembered because of his role in the Slovenian resistance during World War II, and for his influence in the cultural policies of the Titoist regime in Slovenia from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s.He was born in...
and Ferdo Kozak
Ferdo Kozak
Ferdo Kozak was a Slovenian author, playwright, editor and politician.He was born as Ferdinand Kozak in an upper middle class family in Ljubljana, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
, who had left the prestigious national liberal magazine Ljubljanski zvon
Ljubljanski zvon
Ljubljanski zvon was a journal published in Ljubljana in Slovene between 1881 and 1941. It was considered one of the most prestigious literary and cultural magazines in Slovenia.- Early period :...
in disagreement with its appeasing policies towards the dictatorship of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and the centralist and non-democratic policies of the Yugoslav National Party
Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy
The Yugoslav National Party was a political party in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1932 and 1941...
. Its first two editors were the literary critic Josip Vidmar
Josip Vidmar
Josip Vidmar was a prominent Slovenian literary critic and essayist. Vidmar is remembered because of his role in the Slovenian resistance during World War II, and for his influence in the cultural policies of the Titoist regime in Slovenia from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s.He was born in...
and author Ferdo Kozak
Ferdo Kozak
Ferdo Kozak was a Slovenian author, playwright, editor and politician.He was born as Ferdinand Kozak in an upper middle class family in Ljubljana, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
. After 1935, the magazine became one of the strongest supporters of the creation of a Slovenian Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
, that is of a broad coalition of left wing groups that would fight against the threat of Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and for Slovenian autonomy within Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. In a period when the Communist party was outlawed in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, the magazine enabled many prominent Communists to publish articles under pseudonyms; among them were Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj also known under the pseudonyms Sperans and Krištof was a Yugoslav communist political leader, economist, partisan, publicist, and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
, Boris Kidrič
Boris Kidric
Boris Kidrič was a leading Slovenian Communist who was, jointly with Edvard Kardelj, one of the chief organizers of the Partisan struggle in Slovenia from 1941 to 1945....
, and Ivo Brnčič
Ivo Brncic
Ivo Brnčić or Brnčič was a Slovenian author, essayist and literary critic of Croat origin, particularly notable for his assessment of the midwar Slovenian literature. Most of his works were published posthumously....
. In the artistic and literary sense, Sodobnost became the main platform for neo-realist
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
and social realist authors, such as Prežihov Voranc
Prežihov Voranc
Prežihov Voranc was the pen name of Lovro Kuhar, a Slovene writer and Communist political activist. Voranc's literary reputation was established during the 1930s with a series of Slovene novels and short stories in the social realist style, notable for their depictions of poverty in rural and...
, Ciril Kosmač
Ciril Kosmač
Ciril Kosmač was a Slovenian novelist and screenwriter.- Life :He was born in a Slovene family in the village of Slap ob Idrijci near Sveta Lucija , in what was then the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca . He attended high school in Tolmin and Gorizia...
, Miško Kranjec
Miško Kranjec
Miško Kranjec was a Slovene writer.Kranjec was born in the village of Velika Polana in what was then the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the son of the village tailor Mihalj Kranjec...
, Ivan Potrč
Ivan Potrc
Ivan Potrč was a Slovene writer and playwright.-Biography:Ivan Potrč was born in a poor peasant family in Štuki near Ptuj, in what was then the Duchy of Styria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
, Ludvik Mrzel and others.
After the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
in April 1941, the magazine closed down. After the War, the magazine was re-established as Novi svet ("New World"), which changed its name to Naša sodbonost ("Our Contemporary Time") in 1952, thus re-establishing the tradition with the interwar journal. Between 1946 and 1955, it mostly served as a means of cultural propaganda of the new Communist regime. During this time, it was edited by Boris Ziherl, the main cultural ideologist of the Communist Party of Slovenia. In 1955, Ziherl was replaced by a more pragmatic editorial board, and in 1963 it assumed its original name, Sodobnost. The following year, the literary historian and philosopher Dušan Pirjevec
Dušan Pirjevec
Dušan Pirjevec, known by his battle name Ahac , was a Slovenian resistance fighter, literary historian and philosopher...
joined the editorial board, raising the overall intellectual level of the magazine. During this period, the contributors and editors of Sodobnost engaged in a long and sharp polemic with the alternative magazine Perspektive (edited by Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner
Taras Kermauner was a Slovenian literary historian, critic, philosopher, essayist, playwright and translator.- Life :...
, Janko Kos
Janko Kos
Janko Kos is a Slovenian literary historian, theoretician and critic.He was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the son of the painter and sculptor Tine Kos...
, Dominik Smole
Dominik Smole
Dominik Smole was a Slovenian writer and playwright.-Biography:Smole was born in Ljubljana in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia...
and Dane Zajc
Dane Zajc
Dane Zajc was a Slovenian poet and playwright. He served as president of the Slovene Writers' Association , and was awarded the prestigious Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement...
), which assumed a more critical stand towards the Titoist regime. When the Perspektive were dissolved by the regime in 1964, the editors of Sodobnost published a solidarity note, and were replaced by the regime, as well.
After a period of crisis in 1964-1965, the new editorial board (headed by the poet Ciril Zlobec
Ciril Zlobec
Ciril Zlobec is a Slovene poet, writer, translator, journalist and former politician. He is best known for his poems and has published several volumes of poetry...
) shifted the attitude of the magazine to moderate and pragmatic positions, which opened the magazine to all quality contributors who were not openly and militantly against the prevailing policies in Yugoslavia and Slovenia. Between mid 1960s and early 1980s, Sodobnost enjoyed the status of the most prestigious magazine in Slovenia; after that, it went into a gradual but continuous decline. In the late 1990s, under the new editor Evald Flisar
Evald Flisar
Evald Flisar is a Slovene writer, poet, playwright, editor and translator. He was president of the Slovene Writers' Association for three consecutive terms between 1995 and 2002 and is editor-in-chief of the literary and cultural magazine Sodobnost.- Biography :Flisar was born in 1945 in Gerlinci...
, it became more influential again.
Notable contributors
Many notable authors, critics and journalists have contributed to Sodobnost. Those include, besides the already mentioned, essayists Jože JavoršekJože Javoršek
Jože Javoršek was the pen name of Jože Brejc , a Slovenian playwright, writer, poet, translator and essayist. He is regarded as one of the greatest masters of style and language among Slovene authors...
and Primož Kozak
Primož Kozak
Primož Kozak was a Slovenian playwright and essayist. He was, together with Dominik Smole, Dane Zajc and Taras Kermauner, the most visible representative of the so-called Critical generation, a group of Slovenian authors and intellectuals that reflected on the paradoxes of the Communist regime,...
, historians Bogo Grafenauer
Bogo Grafenauer
Bogo Grafenauer was a Slovenian historian, who mostly wrote about medieval history in the Slovene Lands. Together with Milko Kos, Fran Zwitter, and Vasilij Melik, he was one of the founders of the so-called Ljubljana school of historiography.- Early life :He was born in Ljubljana in a well...
and Igor Grdina, author and sociologist Igor Škamperle
Igor Škamperle
Igor Škamperle is a Slovenian sociologist, cultural theorist, novelist, essayist, mountaineer and translator.He was born in a Slovene-speaking family in Trieste, Italy. He studied comparative literature and cultural sociology at the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1990...
, sociologist and politician Lev Kreft, poets Igo Gruden
Igo Gruden
Igo Gruden was a Slovene poet and translator.He was born as Ignacij Gruden in the small fishermen village of Nabrežina near Trieste, then part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca as first of ten children of Franc Gruden and Justina Košuta...
, Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...
, Janez Menart
Janez Menart
Janez Menart has been one of the most influential and most widely sold Slovenian poets, translators and screenwriters from the first post-war generation...
, Miodrag Bulatović
Miodrag Bulatovic
Miodrag Bulatović was a Montenegrin Serb novelist and playwright...
, Josip Osti
Josip Osti
Josip Osti is a Bosnian poet, prose writer and essayist, literary critic, anthologist and translator.Osti was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Sarajevo...
, Iztok Osojnik
Iztok Osojnik
Iztok Osojnik is a Slovenian poet and essayist.He was born in Ljubljana. He studied comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana under the supervision of the famous literary historian and philosopher Dušan Pirjevec...
and Niko Grafenauer
Niko Grafenauer
Niko Grafenauer is a Slovenian poet, essayist, literary historian, editor and translator. He is particularly known as author of popular children literature, and for his active participation in the Slovenian public life, especially in conservative and liberal conservative platforms.He was born in...
, critic Bojan Štih
Bojan Štih
Bojan Štih , was a Slovene literary critic, stage director, and essayist. He was one of the most influential figures in modern Slovene theatre after 1945....
, writers Prežihov Voranc
Prežihov Voranc
Prežihov Voranc was the pen name of Lovro Kuhar, a Slovene writer and Communist political activist. Voranc's literary reputation was established during the 1930s with a series of Slovene novels and short stories in the social realist style, notable for their depictions of poverty in rural and...
, Igor Torkar
Igor Torkar
Igor Torkar was the pen name of Boris Fakin was a Slovenian writer, playwright and poet, most famous for his literary descriptions of Communist repression in Yugoslavia after World War II.- Life :...
, Lojze Kovačič
Lojze Kovačič
Lojze Kovačič was a Slovene writer. His novel The Newcomers is often considered one of the most important Slovene novels of the 20th century and has been translated into German, French, Spanish and Dutch....
, Dušan Šarotar
Dušan Šarotar
Dušan Šarotar is a Slovenian writer, essayist, literary critic and editor.Šarotar was born in the town of Murska Sobota in northeastern Slovenia. He studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. He has published several essays and columns in renowned Slovenian journals, such as...
and many others.