The textbook myth: Slovene peasants as heroes of the glorious pastThe present article describes how 16th century peasant uprisings became an essential part of the Slovene history curricula and analyzes their role in the present-day official understanding of Slovene national history. It argues that the established textbook narrations on peasant uprisings greatly contribute to the hegemonic representation of affirmative, unilinear and teleological historical development of the Slovene nation, which ultimately implies an “unavoidable” establishment of Slovenia as a nation state in 1991. Mit podręczników szkolnych: Chłopi słoweńscy jako bohaterowie chwalebnej przeszłościArtykuł przedstawia, w jaki sposób zasadniczym elementem programów nauczania historii Słowenii stały się XVI-wieczne powstania chłopskie i analizuje ich rolę we współczesnym oficjalnym rozumieniu narodowej historii Słowenii. Autor dowodzi, że ustalone narracje podręcznikowe w znacznej mierze przyczyniają się do hegemonicznego przedstawienia afirmatywnego, unilinearnego i teleogicznego historycznego rozwoju narodu słoweńskiego, co też ostatecznie implikuje „nieuchronne” ustanowienie Słowenii jako państwa narodowego w 1991 roku. [Transl. by Jacek Serwański]
The article analyses the process involved in the formation of the idea to separate the "Slovenian" and "Croatian" national territory in the west of the Kingdom of Hungary. The concept was initially articulated as a linguistic premise in the works written by the famous linguist Jernej Kopitar, who understood the territory of the today's Prekmurje region as an area where Slovenian language was spoken. As of the middle of the 19th century, Kopitar's classification had been appropriated by the Slovenian national movement, which presupposed that the speakers of the Slovenian language in the Kingdom of Hungary were also members of the envisioned Slovenian community. In this context the Slovenian linguistic – national border was, in the middle of the 19th century, depicted on a map for the first time (Peter Kozler). In just a few decades, the idea of the national demarcation line in the today's Prekmurje, supposedly separating Slovenians from Croats at the river Mura, had strengthened considerably among the Slovenian national activists in the Cisleithanian lands. After the dissolution of Austro-Hungary and the signing of the Treaty of Trianion, this line in fact became a border between the Slovenian and the neighbouring Croatian national space.
The outbreak of the First World War deeply affected the life of József Benkő. József was the son of István, a prosperous farmer who in 1913 opened a slaughterhouse and inn in the rural town of Muraszombat, situated in the south of Vas County in the Kingdom of Hungary. József helped his father run the family business, which was focused on the livestock trade, from a very young age. But József Benkő aimed much higher than his father, a former farmer, could have imagined doing. He dreamed of opening a meat processing factory and of exporting livestock and meat products on a large scale.The war cut that dream short. In 1914, Benkő was drafted into the joint Austro-Hungarian army, yet he deftly managed to avoid the massacres on the front lines, serving in the hinterland as a bookkeeper in a military warehouse. He was demobilised in 1918 and safely returned to his hometown. However, in the region around Muraszombat, the collapse of state authority in autumn 1918 marked the beginning of uncertain political conditions and sporadic outbreaks of violence. A turbulent period ended only in August 1919 after the territory was occupied by the Yugoslav army. After five depressing years, a form of calm and normality finally returned to the region. Unsurprisingly, conditions for locals engaged in business activities had changed completely in the meantime. Before the war, István and József Benkő made a profit on the common market of the dual monarchy, selling livestock in Budapest, Graz and Vienna. However, with the Treaty of Trianon, the Benkő family became citizens of a socially unstable and economically impoverished Yugoslav polity. As they were officially registered as resident in the remote region of Prekmurje along the newly established Yugoslav -Hungarian border, József Benkő's entrepreneurial ambitions faced grim prospects once again. 2 1 The research for and writing of this article were funded by the ERC Consolidator Grant "Negotiating post-imperial transitions" (NEPOSTRANS) under contract no. 772264. Jernej Kosi would also like to acknowledge financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research project J6-1801). The authors gratefully thank Cody J. Inglis for his very important comments.
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