Controversies about Cuore (Heart) by De Amicis at the Turn of the 19th Century (an example of a cultural struggle)

Abstract

The author of the following article analyses the controversies which took place in the end of the 1880s and in the beginning of 1890s, especially in 1892 and 1893 after the Slovenian translation of the work of youth literature Cuore (Heart) by the Italian writer Edmondo De Amicis. The book (whose translation was distinctively adapted to the Austrian sociopolitical circumstances) was fought over by the established theologian and editor of the Rimski katolik publication Anton Mahnič, who was very critical of this work, and the advocates of the book, whose most intense representative was a young teacher from Trieste, Marica Nadlišek, mother of Vladimir Bartol. The debate did not simply concern the contents of the book, but had also to do with artistic freedom and women's issues. After all, it also contained elements of an ideological conflict between two typical representatives of the Slovenian cultural struggle: a liberal (female) teacher and a Catholic priest.