Dialogi
Eurozine
Dialogi
2012-06-13
Summary of Dialogi 1-2/2012
In the editorial Boris Vezjak describes the adulatory relationship of the Slovenian and especially Maribor media towards the director Tomaz Pandur, and the complete lack of professional theatre reviews of his stage interpretation of Tolstoy's War and Peace, performed in Maribor as part of the program for the European Capital of Culture. "The adulatory relationship towards Pandur is interesting not only because of him personally. As a relationship towards the Artist with a capital A it embodies everything that the ECC is about: the silly but calculating idea that we will be great with the help of grandeur. It is about the blindness of this grandeur and the grandeur of this blindness. Both will end up costing us dearly, and the cost would be even higher were it not for the grace of God in creating a recession."
The theme of the issue is devoted to the preservation of cultural heritage in the Maribor region and archeological research. Guest editor Matej Dasko interviews archeologist Mira Strmcnik - Gulic from the Maribor Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, who can be credited with a number of discoveries of the oldest settlements in this part of Slovenia. Archeologists Biba Terzan, Matija Cresnar and Branko Music from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana contribute an extensive article about archeological research on Postela, a settlement on the slopes of Pohorje (at an elevation from 395 to 543 meters above sea level) which developed between the 9th and 8th centuries B.C. In the last few years new archeological investigations in Postela and its environs have stimulated interest in this important archeological site. But Postela is not just a hillfort from the early Iron Age and probably one of the most important centers between the Alps and Pannonia, which was also settled many times later on in crucial periods of historical development of the region, it is also ea mysterious place which was preserved as an "old city" in the consciousness of people from the immediate vicinity as well as more distant environment. With its massive embankments and abundant burial mounds, Postela excites the imagination, and its former inhabitants are deeply entrenched in folk memory. The importance of Postela and its associated burial grounds in many respects undoubtedly transcends the local and regional levels and yet today its significance is known only to a handful of people who on their own initiative work to increase awareness of the importance of this cultural heritage. Unfortunately it is being destroyed by modern-day treasure-hunters and motorcyclists. "Once a monument is damaged or destroyed, it is impossible to bring it back from the dead," says Mira Strmcnik-Gulic.
In Reading we publish short stories by Stanka Hrastelj, Suzana Tratnik and Anja Mugerli, and poems by Denis Skofic.
Cultural diagnosis contains a number of reviews of exhibitions, books, and films. Tanja Tolar writes about the exhibition of Russian avant-garde architecture entitled Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 19151935 in the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Natasa Kovsca summarizes the life and artistic path of the Chinese conceptual artist, architect, photographer, sculptor and political activist Ai Weiwei on the occasion of the exhibitions in the Kunsthaus Graz and the Jeu de paume in Paris. After the Chinese police beat him up, erased his blog and destroyed his newly constructed studio, the artist took to communicating with his supporters and the public using Twitter. Gaja Kos reviews the novel The Help by American writer Kathryn Stockett, which was published in Slovene translation last year, and Marko Golja the poetry collection Salt Crystals (Kristali soli) by Milan Selj, which was published in the Lambda collection of homosexual literature. These are followed by reviews of two works in the humanities: Katja Cicigoj reviews the book Modern Art and Aesthetics (Sodobna umetnost in estetika) by Mojca Puncer, and Igor Zunkovic reviews the work Slovenian Drama and the Triestian Text (Slovenska dramatika in trzaski tekst), in which literary historian Bogomila Kravos surveys dramatic texts written and performed by members of the Slovenian minority in Italy. Robi Sabec reports on the book Brides of Christ (Kristusove neveste), in which sociologist Sonja Bezjak describes women's religious orders in Slovenia in the past century. Matic Majcen reviews the book by Tone Frelih about film director Vojko Duletic, who was best known during the time of socialist Yugoslavia for his screen versions of Slovenian literary classics. Marko Golja writes about the new Slovenian film State of Shock, a clever comedy about the transition of Slovenia from socialism to capitalism as experienced by the main character, a metalworker who fell into a coma during the time of Yugoslavia and woke up ten years later in neoliberal Slovenia. Ana Sturm reviews the documentary How to Cook History (Ako sa varia dejiny), by Slovakian director Peter Kerekes, in which army cooks report on the past from their perspective. Matic Majcen describes the Serbian feature documentary film Cinema Komunisto as a superficial and uncritical work intended to arouse "Yugonostalgia". Majcen in the next article contributes "a different view" of Fincher's film The Social Network. "Perfection without sound and color" is the title of Leonora Flis's review of the film The Artist. Petra Gajzler reviews von Trier's Melancholia, and Tisa Vrecko the film Attenberg by Greek director and representative of the "Greek weird wave" Athina Rachel Tsangari.