Forms of the Slovenian Discourse of Power on Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Habsburg Monarchy

Abstract

The present article explores the formation of discourses on the Habsburg periphery during the occupation and subsequent annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research question focuses on how the Slovenian-speaking inhabitants of this periphery perceived and described the people and the situation they encountered on the new “Bosnian periphery” when in contact with this new “colony”. The article focuses primarily on the individuals involved and their concrete experiences shaped mainly through their military or professional contacts with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Based on various sources originating from their memories and other descriptions and using a cultural-historical approach understood primarily as a specific perspective on the various subjects of research, the author of the present article attempts to establish what sort of a discourse of power developed between 1878 and 1918. The contribution shows that Slovenian culture was not only a silent object of the German hegemonic discourse or a mere collaborator of the Viennese centre. Instead, it was an active and self-initiating speaking subject, very much embedded in the contemporaneous European trends related to the discourse of power.