Boris Pahor

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Borut Pahor.

Boris Pahor

OMRI
Pahor in 1958
Pahor in 1958
Born(1913-08-26)26 August 1913[1]
Imperial Free City of Trieste, Cisleithania, Austria-Hungary (present-day Trieste, Italy)
Died30 May 2022(2022-05-30) (aged 108)
Trieste, Italy
Resting placeTrieste Cemetery [2]
OccupationWriter
Language
  • Slovene
  • Italian
  • French
[3]
Alma materUniversity of Padua
Notable worksNecropolis
SpouseRadoslava Premrl (1921–2009)

Boris Pahor,

Natzweiler-Struthof camp twenty years after his relocation to Dachau. Following Dachau, he was relocated three more times: to Mittelbau-Dora, to Harzungen, and finally to Bergen-Belsen
, which was liberated on 15 April 1945.

His success was not immediate; openly expressing his disapproval of communism in Yugoslavia, he was not acknowledged and was probably intentionally not recognized by his homeland until after Slovenia had gained its independence in 1991. His autobiographical novel Nekropola, published in 1967, was first translated into English (in 1995) as Pilgrim Among the Shadows, and secondly (in 2010) as Necropolis. The novel has also been translated into several other languages.

Pahor was a prominent public figure in the

Slovene minority in Italy (1920–47) was not supported the way it ought to have been during the period of Fascist Italianization by right-wing or left-wing Slovenian political elites.[6] Pahor was married to the author Radoslava Premrl (1921–2009) and wrote a book dedicated to her at the age of 99.[7] In addition to Slovene and Italian, he was fluent in French.[citation needed] Following the death of Marco Feingold on 19 September 2019, he became the oldest living survivor of the Holocaust.[8]

Early life under Italian Fascism

View of Trieste, "The City in the Bay" from Pahor's novels

Pahor was born on 26 August 1913 into a

First World War. Franc married Marija Ambrožič and found a job in Trieste as a civil servant in the Austro-Hungarian administration.[citation needed
]

Under the

Fascist Italianization
of the Slovene minority began.

In 1920, Italian

Narodni dom), which the young Pahor witnessed. All non-Italian languages (including Slovene and German) were forbidden as languages of instruction by the Fascist regime three years after this event. Between 1926 and 1932, all Slovene, Croatian, and German toponyms as well as first and last names began to be subjected to Italianization—during which also his future wife's name (Radoslava) was changed to Francesca. Fascism had a traumatizing effect on young Pahor, which he remembered in an interview for Delo two months before his 100th birthday:

... due to the trauma of experience of the Slovene Community Hall being burned down, which I experienced at age seven, on the spot, and following the shock that I could not go to Slovene schools anymore, I felt robbed in a way of the spiritual and psychological meaning of life.[11][Note 1]

Pahor later wrote about this childhood memory in one of his later novels, Trg Oberdan (Oberdan Square), named after the square on which the Slovene Community Hall stood, and also in essays.[citation needed]

He enrolled in an Italian-language

Fascist Italy and those from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were forcibly cut off, Pahor nevertheless managed to publish his first short stories in several magazines in Ljubljana (then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) under the pseudonym Jožko Ambrožič, after he began to study standard Slovene [clarification needed] during his stay in Capodistria and Gorizia.[citation needed
]

In 1939, he established contact with the Slovenian

militant anti-fascist organization TIGR
.

Surviving Nazism and concentration camps

View of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp after liberation

In 1940, Pahor was drafted into the Italian army and sent to fight in

Slovenian Littoral. In 1955, he described these crucial weeks of his life in the novel Mesto v zalivu (The City in the Bay), a story about a young Slovene intellectual from Trieste, wondering about what action to take confronted with the highly complex personal and political context of World War II
on the border between Italy and Slovenia.

The

Villers-sur-Marne, Île-de-France.[1]

Opposing communism

Pahor returned to Trieste at the end of 1946 when the area was under Allied military administration. In 1947, he graduated from the University of Padua with a bachelor's thesis on the poetry of Edvard Kocbek. The same year, he met Kocbek for the first time. The two men were united in their criticism of the communist regime in Yugoslavia and established a close friendship that lasted until Kocbek's death in 1981.

In 1951 and 1952, Pahor defended Kocbek's literary work against the organized attacks launched by the

totalitarian cultural policies of communist Yugoslavia
.

The journal Zaliv was published in Slovene in Trieste in Italy outside of reach of communist Yugoslavian authorities. This enabled Zaliv to become an important platform for democratic discussion, in which many dissidents from

Democratic Opposition of Slovenia
in the first free elections in Slovenia after World War II.

Between 1953 and 1975, Pahor worked as an Italian literature instructor in a Slovene-language high school in Trieste. During this time, he was an active member of the international organization AIDLCM (Association internationale des langues et cultures minoritaires), which aims to promote

communitarian and anti-centralist
views.

In 1969, Pahor was one of the co-founders of the political party Slovene Left (Slovenska levica), established to represent all Slovene leftist voters in Italy who did not agree with the strategy adopted by the Slovene

Socialist Party of Italy).[14] The party eventually merged with the Slovene Union
. Pahor publicly supported the Slovene Union on several occasions, and ran on its tickets for general and local elections.

In 1975, Pahor and Alojz Rebula published a book in Trieste, entitled Edvard Kocbek: pričevalec našega časa (Edvard Kocbek: Witness to Our Time) and the 1975 Zaliv Scandal followed. Pahor, who lived in Italy and was an Italian citizen, was banned from entering Yugoslavia for several years. He was able to enter Yugoslavia only in 1981 when he was allowed to attend Kocbek's funeral. In 1989, his book Ta ocean strašnó odprt (This Ocean, So Terribly Open) published in Slovenia by the Slovene Society (Slovenska matica) publishing house, was dedicated to Pahor's memories of Kocbek and marked one of the first steps towards the final rehabilitation of Kocbek's public image in post-communist Slovenia.[1]

Later years and recognition

Recognition in Slovenia

Boris Pahor at a public event together with the historians Milica Kacin Wohinz (left) and Marta Verginella (right)

After 1990, Pahor gained widespread recognition in Slovenia. He was awarded the Prešeren Award, the highest recognition for cultural achievements in Slovenia, in 1992. In 2008, he was awarded the Gold Order of Freedom. In May 2009, Pahor became a full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. [1]

2010 Documentary film

In 2010, a documentary Trmasti spomin (The Stubborn Memory) was screened on primetime on the

Slovenian National Television Broadcast, featuring several famous public figures who speak about Pahor, including a Slovene philosopher who lives and works in Paris, two Slovene historians from Trieste, Marta Verginella and Jože Pirjevec, Italian writer Claudio Magris from Trieste, French literary critic Antoine Spire, Italian journalist Paolo Rumiz, and Slovene literary historian Miran Košuta from Trieste.[15]

Honorary Ljubljana Citizen proposal

In 2010, several civil associations proposed him as an honorary citizen of the Slovenian capital,

Slovene minority in Italy (1920-1947) was not supported the way it should be during the period of Fascist Italianization, neither by right-wing or by left-wing Slovenian political elites in Ljubljana.[6]

International recognition

Pahor in June 2015

It was predicted by a

Slovene philosopher Evgen Bavčar living in France – Pahor's friend whose mother worked in Trieste as Pahor's mother did – that as a Slovene writer, Pahor would be recognized by Italian state only after he would be recognized by France and Germany. As explained in the 2010 documentary[Note 2] and in an interview with Pahor that was published in 2013 by Bukla Magazine,[16] Italian publishers were not interested in publishing Pahor until French and German translations were published. Only after France and Germany recognized Pahor, his work began to be finally published in Italy in 2007.[citation needed
]

In 2008, an influential article entitled Il caso Pahor" ("The Pahor Case"), deploring the fact that the author had remained unknown in Italy for so long and blaming the Italian nationalist milieu of Trieste for it, was published in the Italian journal La Repubblica:

Forty years were needed for such an important author to gain recognition in his own country. ... For too long, it was in someone's interest to hide that in the "absolutely Italian" city of Trieste there was somebody able to write great things in a language different from Italian.[17]

In 2008, Pahor was interviewed for the first time by RAI (Italian National Public Television). The interview was aired as part of the Che tempo che fa, a primetime Sunday talk show on the Italian public TV's third channel.[citation needed]

In 2009, Pahor refused to accept an award by the mayor of Trieste

anti-Fascism.[19]

International awards

In 2007, Pahor received the French

Austrian government.[22] He was also awarded with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic of Italy.[1]

Death

Pahor died at his home in Contovello/Kontovel, Trieste, Italy on 30 May 2022.[23][24][25] He was 108 years old. He was buried in the local Trieste cemetery a week later in June 2022.[26]

Theatre adaptation

In 2010, a theatre adaptation of Pahor's novel Necropolis, directed by the Trieste Slovene director Boris Kobal, was staged in Trieste's Teatro Verdi, sponsored by the mayors of Trieste and Ljubljana, respectively Roberto Dipiazza and Zoran Janković.[27][28]

The event was considered a "historical step" in the normalization of relations between Italians and Slovenes in Trieste,[27][29] and was attended by numerous Slovenian and Italian dignitaries.[30] After the performance, Pahor declared that he could finally feel himself to be a first-rate citizen of Trieste.[31]

Literary achievements and influence

Starting in the 1960s, Pahor's work started to become quite well known in Yugoslavia, but it did not gain wide recognition due to opposition from the

Slovenian communist regime, which saw Pahor as a potential subversive figure. Nevertheless, he became one of the major moral referents for the new postwar generation of Slovene writers, including Drago Jančar
, who has frequently pointed out his indebtedness to Pahor, especially in the essay The Man Who Said No, published in 1993 as one of the first comprehensive assessments of Pahor's literary and moral role in the postwar era in Slovenia.

Pahor's major works include Vila ob jezeru (A Villa by the Lake), Mesto v zalivu (The City in the Bay), Nekropola (Pilgrim among the Shadows), a trilogy about Trieste and the Slovene minority in Italy (1920–1947) Spopad s pomladjo (A Difficult Spring), Zatemnitev (Obscuration), V labirintu (In the Labyrinth), and Zibelka sveta (The Cradle of the World).

Five of his books have been translated into German.[1][32]


Political positions

Pahor was known for his lifelong defence of

Christian Socialism to more liberal positions. In the late 1980s, he was sceptical of the idea of independent Slovenia,[citation needed] but later supported Jože Pučnik's vision of an independent Slovenian welfare state.[33]

In 2007, he publicly supported the candidacy of the Liberal politician Mitja Gaspari for president of Slovenia. In 2009, he ran on the list of the South Tyrolean People's Party as a representative of the Slovene Union for the European Parliament.[34][35] In 2011, before the Slovenian early elections, he publicly supported the Slovenian People's Party.[33]

Controversies

In December 2010, Pahor criticized the election of Peter Bossman as the mayor of Piran on the basis of his ethnicity.[36] He stated that it is a "bad sign if one elects a foreigner for mayor."[36] The statement echoed in the Slovenian and Italian media,[37] and Pahor was accused of racism by some.[38] He rejected these accusations, saying he had nothing against Bossman being black; he clarified his statement by saying that he would rather see a mayor from one of the indigenous ethnic groups from the region, either a Slovene or Istrian Italian.[38]

In March 2012, the Italian

foibe.[39][40] The book review reproached Pahor for making personal observations about the period of Yugoslav occupation of Trieste (between May and June 1945), implying that he witnessed the events, although he did not reside in the city at the time.[41]

In August 2013, Pahor criticized Giorgio Napolitano and Janez Janša for not explicitly mentioning Italian Fascism alongside German Nazism and Slovenian/Yugoslav communism.[42]

Selected works (translated and published internationally)

  • 1955 Vila ob jezeru (in French: La Villa sur le lac, in Italian: La villa sul lago, in German: Villa am See, in Serbian: Vila na jezeru), a novel
  • 1955 Mesto v zalivu (in French: Quand Ulysse revient à Trieste, in German: Die Stadt in der Bucht), a novel
  • 1956 Nomadi brez oaze (in German: Nomaden ohne Oase), a novel
  • 1959 Kres v pristanu, also Grmada v pristanu (in Italian: Il rogo nel porto), short stories (including "Rože za gobavca")
  • 1964 Parnik trobi nji (in French: L'Appel du navire, in Italian: Qui é proibito parlare, in German: Geheime Sprachgeschenke), a novel
  • 1967 Nekropola (in Esperanto: Pilgrimanto inter ombroj (1993), in English: Pilgrim Among the Shadows (1995)/Nekropolis (2010), in French: Pèlerin parmi les ombres (1996), in German: Nekropolis (2001, 2003), in Catalan: Necròpolis (2004), in Finnish: Nekropoli (2006), in Italian: Necropoli (2008), in Serbian: Necropola (2009)[Note 3], in Spanish: Necrópolis (2010), in Dutch: Nekropolis (2011), in Croatian[Note 4]: Nekropola (2012), in Portuguese: Necrópole (2013), in Swedish: Nekropol (2013)
  • 1975 Zatemnitev (in French: Jours Obscurs, in German: Die Verdunkelung), a novel
  • 1978 Spopad s pomladjo (in French: Printemps difficile, in Italian: Una primavera difficile, in German: Kampf mit dem Frühling), a reprint of the novel 1958 Onkraj pekla so ljudje
  • 1984 V labirintu (in French: Dans le labyrinthe, in German: Im Labyrinth), a novel
  • 1999 Zibelka sveta (in French: La Porte dorée, in Italian Il petalo giallo, in German Die Wiege der Welt), a novel
  • 2003 Zgodba o reki, kripti in dvorljivem golobu (in French: Le Jardin des plantes), a novel
  • Letteratura slovena del Litorale: vademecum / Kosovel a Trieste e altri scritti" (2004) – short biographies, essays (in Italian)
  • 2006 Trg Oberdan (in German: Piazza Oberdan), a novel
  • 2006 Arrêt sur le Ponte Vecchio, in French only, a collection of his selected stories
  • 2004 Blumen für einen Aussätzigen, in German only, a collection of his selected stories
  • 2009 Tre volte no. Memorie di un uomo libero (in Slovenian: Trikrat ne: spomini svobodnega človeka), co-author Mila Orlić

Further reading

  • Tatjana Rojc (2013). Tako sem živel, Cankarjeva založba[Note 5]
  • Drago Jančar, "Das eigene Gesicht: über Boris Pahor und die slowenische Frage Europas", in Literatur und Kritik, no. 417/418 (2007).
  • Drago Jančar, "Različen po svojih obrazih", Delo, vol. 49, no. 86 (14 April 2007) (in Slovenian)
  • Drago Jančar, "Uporni človek" (1993) (in Slovenian)
  • Marija Pirjevec & Vera Ban Tuta (ed.), Pahorjev zbornik (Trieste: Narodna in študijska knjižnica, 1993) (in Slovenian)
  • Boris Šuligoj, "Italijanom povedal, kakšno je "vreme" v Trstu" in Delo, vol. 50, no. 41 (20 February 2008) (in Slovenian)
  • Wilhelm Baum: "Triestiner Wirklichkeiten. Über den Triestiner Schriftsteller Boris Pahor", Bücherschau 183, 2009, pp. 12–16. (in German)

See also

  • The Holocaust in art and literature
  • Slovenian literature

Notes

  1. ^ (In Slovene:"... ob travmi, ki je nastala ob požigu Narodnega doma, ki sem ga doživel sedemleten neposredno na kraju samem, in potem šoku zaradi odvzema šolanja v slovenskem jeziku sem bil nekako duhovno-psihološko oropan smisla svojega obstoja.")
  2. ^ The 2010 documentary Trmasti spomin (The Stubborn Memory) from 32m35s onwards
  3. ^ See Cobiss record stating Serbian as language of translation.
  4. ^ See book review stating Croatian as language of translation.
  5. ^ "Tako sem živel – Pri Cankarjevi založbi izšla zanimiva biografija Borisa Pahorja, Primorski dnevnik, 23 August 2013

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Boris Pahor, Biography of the member". SAZU. SAZU. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  2. Rai News
    .
  3. ^ a b "Boris Pahor v vrsti vitezov legije časti". RTV Slovenija. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  4. ^ Profile of Boris Pahor
  5. ^ Boris Pahor was nominated for the Nobel prize Archived 17 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, ff.uni-lj.si (Slovenian)
  6. ^ a b "Boris Pahor: I do not want to become an honorary citizen of Ljubljana ("Ne želim postati častni meščan Ljubljane"" (in Slovenian). Delo.si. 19 April 2010.
  7. ^ Boris Pahor turns 99 Archived 23 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine, slovenia.si; accessed 18 September 2015.
  8. ^ Yentob, Alan (24 November 2019). "Boris Pahor: the man who clung to life in Natzweiler, the city of the dead". The Times. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  9. ISBN 978-961-231-871-0
  10. ^ Cresciani, Gianfranco (2004) Clash of civilisations Archived 6 May 2020 at the Wayback Machine, Italian Historical Society Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 4
  11. ^ [1], Delo, 6 July 2013 (in Slovenian).
  12. ^ Tina Bernik: Ne vidi lepše prihodnosti za Slovenijo. Z24.si July 14, 2013.
  13. ^ Boris Pahor v Tivoliju o Edvardu Kocbeku, delo.si, 26 August 2013 (in Slovenian).
  14. ^ Profile, slovenskaskupnost.org; accessed 18 September 2015 (in Slovenian).
  15. ^ "Boris Pahor – trmasti spomin" (in Slovenian). Rtvslo.si. 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  16. ^ Interview with Pahor, Bukla Magazine, nos. 91–92, ISSUU.com; accessed 18 September 2015.
  17. ^ "Il caso Pahor (The Pahor Case)" (in Italian). La Repubblica. 30 January 2008. Archived from the original on 1 September 2011. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  18. ^ a b "Trieste e la parola fascismo Pahor in lite con il sindaco". Archiviostorico.corriere.it. 24 December 2009. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  19. ^ a b "Pahor, un altro premio divide Trieste" (in Italian). Archiviostorico.corriere.it. 24 December 2009. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  20. ^ "Primorski spodbudil Corriere della Sera – trst" (in Italian). Primorski.eu. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  21. ^ "Boris Pahor ne bo "zaslužni občan" Trsta – trst" (in Slovenian). Primorski.eu. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  22. ^ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (PDF) (in German). p. 1919. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  23. ^ "Umrl je pisatelj in akademik Boris Pahor". RTV SLO (in Slovenian). 30 May 2022. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  24. ^ "Umrl tržaški pisatelj Boris Pahor". 24ur.com (in Slovenian). 30 May 2022. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  25. ^ Rumiz, Paolo (30 May 2022). "È morto Boris Pahor, scrittore del secolo". La Reppublica (in Italian). Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  26. Rai News
    .
  27. ^ a b "Zgodovinska uprizoritev Pahorjeve Nekropole v prepolnem gledališču Verdi" (in Slovenian). Primorske.si. 14 December 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  28. ^ "Necropoli, cade un'altra frontiera del Novecento" (in Italian). Ricerca.gelocal.it. 5 December 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  29. ^ "Necropoli, cade un'altra frontiera del Novecento" (in Italian). Ricerca.gelocal.it. 5 December 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  30. ^ Profile, vlada.si; accessed 18 September 2015 (in Slovenian).
  31. ^ "Pahor napolnil Verdija s slovensko besedo" (in Slovenian). Delo.si. 16 January 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  32. ^ "Najvišja avstrijska čast za Borisa Pahorja" [Highest Austrian Honour for Boris Pahor] (in Slovenian). MMC RTV Slovenia. 26 April 2010.
  33. ^ a b c YouTube; accessed 18 September 2015.
  34. ^ "www.dobrojutro.net". www.dobrojutro.net. 27 January 2012. Retrieved 18 September 2015.[permanent dead link]
  35. ^ "News aus Südtirol" (in German). Suedtirolnews.it. Archived from the original on 2 March 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  36. ^ a b "Pisatelj Boris Pahor o plebiscitu samostojni Sloveniji slovenski levici in Titu" (in Slovenian). Primorske.si. 15 January 2011. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  37. ^ ""Scelto il sindaco nero Un brutto segnale" Pahor diventa un caso" (in Italian). Archiviostorico.corriere.it. 24 December 2009. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  38. ^ a b "Boris Pahor: Sklepanje o mojem rasizmu je samovoljna trditev: Prvi interaktivni multimedijski portal, MMC RTV Slovenija" (in Slovenian). Rtvslo.si. 16 November 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  39. RTV Slovenia
    . 7 March 2012. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  40. ^ "Italijanski časopis Pahorju očita, da laže in potvarja zgodovino" (in Slovenian). Il Giornale. 12 March 2012. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  41. ^ Il Giornale reproaches Pahor, ilgiornale.it; accessed 18 September 2015.(in Italian)
  42. ^ Pahor o Janši in Napolitanu, Primorski Dnevnik, 28 August 2013 (in Slovenian).

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