Burning Erotika and Ivan Cankar's Revolution in Slovenian Poetry

At the end of the nineteenth century, Slovenian literature was shaken by the emergence of the so-called moderna generation of neo-Romantic poets and writers, among whom the most famous names are Josip Murn, Dragotin Kette, Ivan Cankar, and Oton Zupancic. Among them, Cankar's poetry collection Erotika (Erotica) stirred up by far the most dust-especially because its publication was accompanied by an infamous reception scandal. Cankar's book debut, the genuine fruit of decadent poetics, was bought up and burned by the bishop of Ljubljana, Anton Bonaventura Jeglic, immediately after its publication in March 1899. This intervention, which the liberal press used for a frontal attack on the inquisitorial mentality of Slovenian clerics and conservatives in general, brought the ambitious young man of letters into the limelight-as a harbinger of the erotic revolution in Slovenian poetry. This article begins with an outline of the course of the famous censorship episode and then uses a close reading of Erotika-especially the most problematic cycle Dunajski veceri (Viennese Evenings)-to show why the collection had to be burned. As a brief comparison with the judicially banned poems from Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil shows, the bishop's intervention cannot really be considered censorship in the strict sense, since it was not (anymore) supported by the state apparatus of repression: Jeglic does not appear in this episode as an all-powerful inquisitor, but rather as a caricatured censor without real executive power. Only a few years later, however, Cankar was also painfully hit by official imperial censorship.

Automated summary

At the end of the nineteenth century, Slovenian literature was influenced by a group of neo-Romantic poets and writers known as the moderna generation. Ivan Cankar's poetry collection Erotika created controversy, particularly due to the scandalous reception it received and the burning of the book by the bishop. This article discusses the censorship episode and analyzes the specific poems that led to the book's condemnation.