Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lozej, Ledinek
• Rogelja, Natasa

Titel

THE SAVRINKA, SAVRIN, AND SAVRINIJA IN ETHNOGRAPHY AND LITERATURE

Ist Teil von

• Slavistična revija, 2012-07, Vol.60 (3), p.549

Ort / Verlag

Ljubljana: Slavisticno Drustvo Slovenije

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Alojz Kocjancic6 in his poems »Kubejskim Savrinkam« [To the Savrinkas of Kubed] and »Materi« [To mother], published in his collection Savrinske pesmi described Savrinkas as mothers who sacrifice themselves for their children. Sabina Mihelj established that the metaphor of a Savrinka is used in this sense as a figure of national/regional history or as its antithesis. Similarly to the way that the metaphor of the family offers a convenient developmental story for Slovenian national history, but is in fact devoid of historical significance and removed from the levers of power, the figure of the mother is equated with [Istria] (cf. the poem »Istra - mati« [Istria - mother]), and the poet is her son (Mihelj 2006: 372). The equating of Savrinkas, Istrian women, and mothers can also be seen in the name of the imposing statue in Hrastovlje, the work of sculptor and painter [Joze Pohlen], which upon its ceremonious installation in 1990 was called Istranka (Istrian woman), but was already referred to by the locals as Savrinka during the time we were doing our fieldwork. Kocjancic's emphasis of the motherly element is no coincidence, as his mother actually was involved in trading between Kubed, central Istria, and Trst. The point is that it was not just not-yet-wed girls and widows who were involved in trading in the higher-lying northeastern parts of Istria ([Borut Brumen] 2000; Ravni k 1996: 82-83), but also married women, who with the help of their female relatives balanced their intimate family lives with their profitable activities. The writer [Marjan Tomsic], in addition to the motherly and wifely images of Savrinkas, also emphasised their autonomy and active role in (public) life (Tomsic 1986). Contrary to the general beliefs and findings of various researchers who divided male and female roles along active/passive and/ or public/private lines,7 in Tomsic's writings Savrinkas are presented as self-reliant, independent, and active individuals whose role as breadwinners was never negligible (Ledinek and Rogelja 2000: 90; Mihelj 2006: 371-372). In parallel with Tomsic, in addition to Marija France, Savrinkas, and Savrinija are also mentioned by Rafael Vidali in his collection of poems Cubejske zrjavce [Coals of Kubed 1989] and Edelman Jurincic in his prose collection Istrani [Istrians 1991]. All three of these writers are considered Tomsic's students, who collectively fleshed out and constructed the figure of the Savrinka as it began to be consolidated towards the end of the twentieth century.8 It seems that the »literarized« image of Savrinkas in the 1980s and 1990s, during the time of the fall of Yugoslavia, was an apposite and sufficiently attrac- tive image for the Savrinization of Istria and the discovery of the Savrinian identity (Baskar 2002a), which more than the national division of Slovene from Croatian Istrians (Brumen 2000) or the Istrian countryside from the coastal towns (Baskar 2002a: 130) was preserved and consolidated in the twenty-first century in searching for local specialities, authenticity and fasadism (Orbaslí 2000) for the needs of tourism and tourism-related events ([Dean MacCannell] 1976, 1992). Some researchers of the Savrinization of Istria lean towards the thesis that the geographical and political reduction of Savrinkas to egg-sellers from the southeastern part of Istria is primarily the result of the effect of the writers and artists who created an attractive image of Savrinkas, which grew into a symbol that became the basis for initiating the process of the discovery of the Savrinian identity at the end of the twentieth century. Bojan Baskar, for instance, believes that the Kubed-Graèisèe- Hrastovlje redefinition of Savrinkas is not a purely literary or fictional invention (Baskar 2002a: 127), despite the fact that his explanation is based on an analysis of literary and geographic production. The ethnography attests that in addition to literary production, the actual material culture was also crucial to such reduction, as the pedlars who worked in central Istria and in a certain period actually did trade primarily in eggs (as well as other items at that time and later), encountered the specific use of the ethnic label »Savrini« (Savrinians) at that very location. In contrast with the milkmaids, bread sellers, and other (re)sellers, who did not collect their goods in central Istria but were tied solely to the coastal towns, the travelling saleswomen from Graèisèe, Kubed, and the surrounding villages had contacts with the inhabitants of central Istria, who called them Savrinkas because, as they said, they were from »Savrinija«. The long and arduous journey on foot - in the case of Marija Franca over a 125-kilometer long circular route between Istria and Trst-was a material fact on which the image of the courageous, long-suffering and heroic Savrinka was based. While Alois Spinèiæ , the author of an entry on Savrinkas in volume 9 of Avstro-Ogrske monarhije v besedi in sliki [The Austro-Hungarian Empire in words and pictures 1891: 215], and Simon Rutar, the author of the book Samosvoje mesto [Trst] in mejna grofija Istra [The independent city of Trst and the border county of Istria 1896: 175], did not emphasise mobility and trade between Istria and Trst at the end of the nineteenth century, it seems that mobility on foot and contacts with customers in central Istria were precisely the crucial elements in the formation of the image of Savrinkas in the second half of the twentieth century.