The Way of Neo-intimism, and the Role of the Poet in the Post-independence Slovenia

Abstract

Slovenian writers had taken an active part in the effort to gain independence of the new state of Slovenia. Although some of the authors also took part in the political sphere, in the years following 1991 the symbolic capital of writers and of the cultural sphere drastically diminished. In poetry the process was accompanied by the rise of the so-called neo-intimism which programmatically opposed especially the political engagement of writers. Such opposition is most visible in the poetry of Uroš Zupan. The reaction of neo-intimist poets to the politicization of the literary sphere is comparable to the prevalence of
the so-called Slovenian intimist poetry in the 1950s which also focused on the individual’s feelings and private experience. Both groups actively opposed the orthodox position of the then socially engaged literature and/or writers. Yet, during the period of neo-intimism writers showed almost no opposition to their own marginalization, and by consenting to the systemic quantification of their work, they accepted the (neo)liberal imperative of growth.