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Balkan Immigrant Workers as Slovenian Victimized Heroes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Abstract
This article sheds light on recent discursive shifts in representations of the “Balkan” in the Slovenian press. I focus on the strategies that the media, and the left-wing press in particular, uses to construct the identities of immigrant workers in Slovenia. I use critical discourse analysis to show how the media has recently attempted to avoid Balkanism and tried to create a more inclusive, democratic rhetoric on these workers and how they become a legitimate “other” in Slovenian society only when constructed as helpless victims. I analyze the role of the victim in the Slovenian imaginary, its disillusioned hero a cogent signifier for collective national identification, and how this figure's characteristics are transposed to ex-Yugoslav immigrants to Slovenia, placing them within a rhetoric of victimization that is framed within a broader humanitarian discourse in order to interrogate what Maria Todorova has defined as Balkanism. I conclude by exploring victimization as the process of desubjectivation and point out aspects of victimization that reaffirm long-standing power relations between Europe and the Balkans.
- Type
- Rethinking “Europe” Versus “The Balkans” in Media Discourses
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2015
References
Thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for Slavic Review as well as to Ljiljana Šarić, Marko Juvan, and Nikola Janović Kolenc for their insightful suggestions that helped this article take its final form.
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2. Here I refer to the period of Slovenian secession from Yugoslavia in 1991. However, the transition period was longer, from the mid-1980s until 2004, when Slovenia entered the European Union.
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5. Milica Bakić-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,” Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 917-31; Patrick Hyder Patterson, “On the Edge of Reason: The Boundaries of Balkanism in Slovenian, Austrian, and Italian Discourse,” Slavic Review 62, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 110-41. In Slovenian media discourse, “Balkan” and “ex-Yugoslav” (i.e., Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian) have become synonymous. In this article, I use both terms interchangeably.
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15. Ibid., English summary.
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17. SCT and Vegrad are two major construction companies and the most publically discussed.
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19. The organization IWW, which works in defense of worker's rights, gives an overview of the problems in its post “Izhodišča in zahteve IWW (Nevidni delavci sveta)” (Background and demands of the IWW [Invisible workers of the world]), at http://njetwork.org/Izhodisca-in-zahteve-IWW-Nevidni (last accessed February 5,2015).
20. See Malačič “Immigration.”
21. This is not to idealize the status of non-Slovenians in Slovenia before secession from Yugoslavia. Social distance between Slovenians and other Yugoslavs existed before 1991. However, after 1992, this distance was legitimated in law and policy.
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24. Most immigrant workers work in the construction sector; they work 200 to 240 hours per month for an average salary of ?500.00. Barbara Beznec, “Migracije in lateralni prostori državljanstva,” Časopis za kritiko znanosti 37, no. 238 (2009): 23.
25. See Mozetič, “Nevidni delavci.“
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34. See Vezovnik, Diskurz; Slavoj Žižek, “Krekovstvo,” Družboslovne razprave, no. 1 (1984): 147-64; and Dušan Pirjevec, Hlapci, heroji, ljudje (Ljubljana, 1968).
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36. Beginning as a pagan soldier fighting Christianization, in the end, Črtomir becomes a passive hero, a disappointed and hopeless but beautiful soul. He becomes a victim of history and religion (the Christianization of pagans) as well as of his personal fate (his devotion to his love, Bogomila). Črtomir is the archetype of the disillusioned, victimized position that later became so frequent in Slovenian literature. See Kos, “Ep in roman.” The disillusioned hero is also strongly present in Ivan Cankar's major plays. For instance, in Hlapci (The serfs, 1910), he addresses the same national trauma: the defeat of paganism by Christianity, which is reframed as the defeat of the Slovenians by larger nations—for example, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Even in other canonical texts by Cankar, the motif of the disillusioned victim is strongly manifested in male characters (in Hlapec Jernej in njegova pravica [The bailiff Jernej and his rights, 1907], Martin Kačur [1906], and Lepa Vida [Beautiful Vida, 1912]), as well as in female (mother) characters (in Na klancu [On the hill, 1902] and Moje življenje [My life, 1920]). See Žižek, Jezik, 112. The Slovenian literary canon includes many other writers who place the disillusioned hero at victhe center of the plot (e.g., Josip Jurčič, Prežihov Voranc, losip Stritar, Ivan Tavčar, and Ivan Pregelj). See Kos, “Ep in roman.” This motif remains prevalent in the most prominent Slovenian novels of today. See Fišer, “Sprememba tipifnega ustroja junakov.”
37. Juvan, “Ostrina kriterija,” 121.
38. See Žižek, “Krekovstvo.”
39. See Vezovnik, Diskurz; Žižek, “Krekovstvo“; and Pirjevec, Hlapci. On Habsburg realism, see Claudio Magris, Il mito asburgico nella letteratura austriaca moderna (Turin, 1963).
40. On Catholic cultural values as a fundamental part of Slovene national identity, see Vezovnik, Andreja, “Krekism and the Construction of Slovenian National Identity: Newspaper Commentaries on Slovenia's European Union Integration,” in Šarić, Ljiljana, Musolff, Andreas, Manz, Stefan, and Hudabiunigg, Ingrid, eds., Contesting Europe's Eastern Rim: Cultural Identities in Public Discourse (Bristol, 2010), 125-42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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42. See Lukács, Georg, The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature (London, 1988)Google Scholar.
43. Ibid., 117.
44. See Kos, “Ep in roman,” 371-89.
45. Cankar, Ivan, The Bailiff Yerney and His Rights, trans. Yeras, Sidonie and Sewell Grant, H. C. (London, 1946), 33, 62Google Scholar.
46. Kos, “Ep in roman,” 385.
47. Ibid., 386.
48. Maja Čepin Čander, “Prej sem razmišljal, kako priti v Slovenijo, danes razmišljam, kako bi pobegnil,” Dnevnik, January 31, 2009, at http://www.dnevnik.si/objektiv/vecvsebin/1042240985 (last accessed February 2,2015).
49. See Iyengar, Shanto, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (Chicago, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
50. See Langer, John, Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the “Other News” (London, 1998)Google Scholar.
51. Ibid., 35.
52. See Breda Luthar and Andreja Trdina “Nation, Gender, Class: Celebrity Culture and the Performance of Identity in the Balkans,” in this issue.
53. Langer, Tabloid Television, 30.
54. Nejc Gole, “Ko je človek vreden manj kot pes,” Delo, September 23, 2010, at http://www.delo.si/novice/slovenija/ko-je-clovek-vreden-manj-kot-pes.html (last accessed February 2,2015).
55. Fairclough, Media Discourse, 117. See also Richardson, Analysing Newspapers, 105.
56. Santa, Ana Otto “‘Like an Animal I Was Treated’: Anti-Immigrant Metaphor in US Public Discourse,” Discourse & Society 10, no. 2 (April 1999): 195 Google Scholar.
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58. Čander, “Prej sem razmišljal.”
59. Kos, “Ep in roman,” 385.
60. “Protest delavcev SCT: ‘Tu so pustili svoja najboljša leta, sedaj pa z njimi tako ravnajo,'” Dnevnik, February 9, 2011, at http://www.dnevnik.si/poslovni-dnevnik/poslovni/novice/1042423082 (last accessed February 2,2015).
61. In a broader theoretical context, immigrant workers and Jernej share the same conflicted relationship with their masters: Immigrants work for a foreign company, and Jernej likewise works for a “stranger”—a landowner. Both “heroes” initially try to fight for their rights but in the end are defeated by the system and an unfair society.
62. “Nosijo na čelu pečat, ki jim je bil vtisnjen ob rojstvu, in upajo in se mučijo do konca. Če pade človek desetkrat pod križem, vstane spet in se opoteka dalje. Jaz pa sem spoznal, da ni vredno vstajati več in da je bolje obležati na mestu…. Zrak je samega beraštva poln, beraštvo v pogledih, v besedah, v srcu, beraštvo in ponižnost, nezaupnost, beraštvo brez konca…. vdanost v hlapčevstvu, nemoč za življenje…. Raste—in hodi z upognjenim životom, oči uprte v tla, rojen hlapec ‘Obsojeni na smrt—ves trud, prijatelj, je brezuspešen in zato neumen V srcu so hlapci in obsojeni na smrt!’” Ivan Cankar, Na klancu (Ljubljana, 2012), 186,188.
63. Kos, “Ep in roman,” 384.
64. Zlatka Strgar,” Vegradovi delavci jezni tudi na Pahorja,” Dnevnik, October 6,2010, at http://www.dnevnik.si/clanek/1042393220 (last accessed February 2, 2015).
65. See Fairclough, Media Discourse, 106.
66. Čander, “Prej sem razmišljal.“
67. Jure Aleksič “Naj jedo potico!,” Mladina, March 19, 2010, at http://www.mladina.si/50007/naj-jedo-potico/ (last accessed February 2,2015).
68. “Protest delavcev SCT.”
69. “List se je bil spustil v tolmun, pod vrbe; tarn se ziblje, trepeče, ne more nikamor, val ga nosi od brega k bregu … neprestano od brega k bregu, brez cilja…. Eno samo hrepenenje mu nazadnje ostane, temu listu v tolmunu: po spanju, hrepenenje po dolgem, dolgem spanju.” Ivan Cankar, Lepa Vida (Ljubljana, 2012), 5.
70. The motif of longing is especially evident in the scene in which the character Francka runs after a farm wagon, representing for her an escape from her miserable life on the hill.
71. See Fišer, “Sprememba tipičnega ustroja junakov.”
72. Kos, “Ep in roman,” 386.
73. See, e.g., Ivan Cankar, Moje življenje (Ljubljana, 1920).
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76. Grah, “Delavci na začasnem delu pri mačehi Sloveniji.”
77. Kos, “Cankar in problem slovenskega romana,” 418.
78. Ibid., 419.
79. Ibid.
80. This typical Balkan saying, “Što ne ubije, jača,” is often used by and popular among Slovenians. See Sonja Korelc, “Ve se, kdo ukazuje in kdo uboga,” Delo, April 12, 2010.
81. Žižek, Jezik, 10.
82. Čander, “Prej sem razmišljal.”
83. Zlatka Strgar, “Ibrahim,” Dnevnik, September 23, 2010, at http://www.dnevnik.si/mnenja/komentarji/1042389940 (last accessed February 5,2015).
84. I understand contemporary media as intertexts in which various texts, as well as genres and discourses, compose a complex patchwork. I am therefore very much aware of other variables that might influence the construction of immigrant workers’ identity as “victimized” (e.g., a universal fascination with victims in media discourse and the Catholic imperative of charity). However, I still contend that canonical Slovenian literature and its Catholic framework greatly influence the contemporary cultural imaginary that Slovenians rely on when positioning the collective “we” in opposition to the “other.”
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87. Ibid., 31.
88. Ibid., 46.
89. Ibid., 29-30.
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