Page 131 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 131
robar-dor in‘s mir ror: r ams and mammoths in the context of yugoslav history
more specific image of a peasant woman with a son that enters a hostile ur-
ban world. This formulation of the Slovenian mother cult was deciphered
in the writings of some Slovenian philosophers and sociologists, who im-
ported French structuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis to Slovenia in
the 1970s. For example, the most prominent representative of this group of
scholars, Slavoj Žižek, analysed Ivan Cankar‘s (1876–1918) portraits in au-
tobiographically based narratives about his mother. In Žižek’s view, this
“greatest” Slovenian writer was the first to outline systematically Slovenian
phantasmatics: “I take it that Cankar’s ‘mother complex’ is not just his own
personal psychological quandary, a result of his ‘unwell oversensitive psy-
che’ or the like. Moreover, in it is articulated a linkage that could serve as
an indicator of the structure of the ‘socialization processes among Sloveni-
ans” (Žižek, 1982: p. 243).
Robar-Dorin‘s construction of the frustrated Marko Skače character,
described below, probably would not be possible without this preceding re-
flection by Žižek. This passage is taken from one of the rare fragments of
Žižek’s work that has not been translated into English. The book cited here
represents Žižek’s contribution to a study on Slovenian identity (financed
by government resources), to which he contributed his study on “the role
of unconscious phantasms in the processes of forming Slovenian identity”
(Žižek, 1982: p. 9). Apart from his contributions to some weeklies – most
notably, the opposition magazine Mladina – at the end of 1980s and his
work on the phenomenon of the rock group Laibach, Žižek has not paid
much attention to Slovenians in his subsequent philosophical work. In his
book from 1982 (published only in Slovenian), Žižek also developed his in-
terpretation of Althusser‘s notion of “the ideological apparatus of the state,
as that key form of institutionalized practice that ensures ideological re-
production” (Žižek, 1982: p. 139). Žižek’s introduction of Althusser into the
Slovenian academic and public sphere had a strong impact in Slovenia and
contributed to a decisive shift in public debate as well as to forming the dis-
course on the civil society movement in the very decade discussed here.
The term ideology, also applied below in the analysis of Robar-Dorin’s film,
should be understood in this sense. Of course, Žižek was not the only one
in his peer group that developed the notion of ideology, which can be ap-
plied to an interpretation of Robar-Dorin’s film as a theoretical magnifying
glass for seeing the microstructures of a society. Braco Rotar, who focused
on paintings and architecture, for instance, contributed his “definition” of
ideology, which is in accord with Žižek’s position: “The analysis of ideolog-
129
more specific image of a peasant woman with a son that enters a hostile ur-
ban world. This formulation of the Slovenian mother cult was deciphered
in the writings of some Slovenian philosophers and sociologists, who im-
ported French structuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis to Slovenia in
the 1970s. For example, the most prominent representative of this group of
scholars, Slavoj Žižek, analysed Ivan Cankar‘s (1876–1918) portraits in au-
tobiographically based narratives about his mother. In Žižek’s view, this
“greatest” Slovenian writer was the first to outline systematically Slovenian
phantasmatics: “I take it that Cankar’s ‘mother complex’ is not just his own
personal psychological quandary, a result of his ‘unwell oversensitive psy-
che’ or the like. Moreover, in it is articulated a linkage that could serve as
an indicator of the structure of the ‘socialization processes among Sloveni-
ans” (Žižek, 1982: p. 243).
Robar-Dorin‘s construction of the frustrated Marko Skače character,
described below, probably would not be possible without this preceding re-
flection by Žižek. This passage is taken from one of the rare fragments of
Žižek’s work that has not been translated into English. The book cited here
represents Žižek’s contribution to a study on Slovenian identity (financed
by government resources), to which he contributed his study on “the role
of unconscious phantasms in the processes of forming Slovenian identity”
(Žižek, 1982: p. 9). Apart from his contributions to some weeklies – most
notably, the opposition magazine Mladina – at the end of 1980s and his
work on the phenomenon of the rock group Laibach, Žižek has not paid
much attention to Slovenians in his subsequent philosophical work. In his
book from 1982 (published only in Slovenian), Žižek also developed his in-
terpretation of Althusser‘s notion of “the ideological apparatus of the state,
as that key form of institutionalized practice that ensures ideological re-
production” (Žižek, 1982: p. 139). Žižek’s introduction of Althusser into the
Slovenian academic and public sphere had a strong impact in Slovenia and
contributed to a decisive shift in public debate as well as to forming the dis-
course on the civil society movement in the very decade discussed here.
The term ideology, also applied below in the analysis of Robar-Dorin’s film,
should be understood in this sense. Of course, Žižek was not the only one
in his peer group that developed the notion of ideology, which can be ap-
plied to an interpretation of Robar-Dorin’s film as a theoretical magnifying
glass for seeing the microstructures of a society. Braco Rotar, who focused
on paintings and architecture, for instance, contributed his “definition” of
ideology, which is in accord with Žižek’s position: “The analysis of ideolog-
129
