Frequency: 2 issues per year Editor-in-Chief: Marko Jesenšek Founded in 2008 by a consortium of one American and four Central European universities at the initiative of a group of Slavists, the journal Slavia Centralis intends to publish works of interest to Slavic studies representing original research in Slavic linguistics and literary scholarship and particularly encourages interdisciplinary approaches. The name Slavia Centralis emphasizes the intersection of languages and cultures in the heart of Europe, where Slavic languages and literatures have evolved and flourished since the first millennium AD. Slavia Centralis encourages contributions treating the Slavic languages and literatures holistically, transcending borders and national canons, as well as exploring connections between Slavic and non-Slavic. While emphasizing innovative approaches and interdisciplinarity, the journal recognizes the fundamental value of deep philological knowledge and therefore particularly encourages contributions combining thorough and responsible use of relevant data with innovative approaches. Indexing: Digitalna knjižnica Slovenije (dLib.si); Digitalna knjižnica Univerze v Mariboru; Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH PLUS); KU ScholarWorks; Linguistic Bibliography, The Netherlands; Modern Language Association of America (MLA), Directory of Periodicals, New York; Scopus (Elsvier); Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, R. R. Bowker, NY, USA. License: CC BY-SA Annual subscription/single issue (print; outside Slovenia): 24,20 €/13,60 € Published with financial support of Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).
Oddelek za slovanske jezike in književnosti, Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v Mariboru
Copyrights This journal is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License (CC BY-SA). https://opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by-sa/ Plagiarism Policy Slavia Centralis is a non-commercial, open access, electronic research journal. As such it pledges to uphold certain ethical principles regarding confidentiality, originality and intellectual fair play. Slavia Centralis takes copyright infringement and plagiarism very seriously and all submissions may be checked with duplication detection software. Authors must: Ensure that all work submitted is original, fully referenced and that all authors are represented accurately. The submission must be exclusive and not under consideration elsewhere. Obtain all permissions from copyright owners for 3rd party material (e.g. quotations, illustrations, tables, etc.). There are no fees associated with publishing in the journal.
AKTUALIZACIJA UČNEGA E-OKOLJA SLOVENŠČINA NA DLANI
Poročilo o aktualizaciji učnega e-okolja Slovenščina na dlani.
Copyright (c) 2025 University of Maribor, University Press https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
PLETERŠNIKOV DAN 2025 IN SIMPOZIJ IMENITNOST SLOVENŠČINE STO LET PO PLETERŠNIKU (Pišece, 22. 9. 2025)
Poročilo o Pleteršnikovem dnevu (22. 9. 2025, Pišece).
Imenitnost slovenščine sto let po Pleteršniku
SLOVENSKA SLAVISTIKA NA 17. MEDNARODNEM KONGRESU SLAVISTOV V PARIZU
Poročilo o poteku mednarodnega slavističnega kongresa v Parizu.
Ocena mladinskega romana Janje Vidmar (Samo mulca, 2025).
Suzana TODOROVIĆ, 2025: SLOVENSKI ISTRSKI LINGVISTIČNI ATLAS 2: Števniki in opisni pridevniki, čas in koledar, življenje, poroka in družina, hiša in posestvo. Koper: Libris, Osrednja knjižnica Srečka Vilharja. 641 str.
VRATUŠEVA MONOGRAFIJA. Ur. Marko Jesenšek. Ljubljana: Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti, 2025. 262 str.
Reading fiction and the development of literary competence in Slovene language classes in the digital age
This article, examines how reading fiction within learning literature in Slovene language classes in the digital age is realized as a dialogic process, organized in stages, that contributes to the holistic development of literary competence. Parallels between literacy and literary competence and reading (fiction) are explored in terms of their effects, the medium (print vs. on-screen texts), and pupils’ developmental characteristics. Results from the international literacy studies PIRLS and PISA are examined, finding that literary competence is not measured in the latter. Influences of the digital environment on attention, reading motivation, and reading strategies are delved into, leading to the conclusion that the digital age requires a reconsideration of didactics of Slovene language and literature.
The theatricalized hell of Smole's Antigone, Hieng's The Conqueror, and Zupančič's Electra's revenge
The present contribution focuses on three dramas whose authors turned to ancient myths and historical events to address contemporary ethical dilemmas. The dramas under scrutiny are: Antigone (1960) by Dominik Smole, The Conqueror (1970) by Andrej Hieng, and Electra’s Revenge (1988) by Mirko Zupančič. All three plays are marked by a Badiouan “passion for the real”. Smole explores the conflict between the individual and the state in the spirit of a post-war critical generation, Hieng draws attention to the dangers of colonialism and fanaticism, While Zupančič revives the myth of Electra to confront the impotence of truth in an era of ideological numbness. Despite bearing different aesthetics, all three dramas unite in their need to rethinking myth and history in a completely new way.
Expression of linguistic, ethnic and national identity in early multilingual paremiography
The article discusses expression of linguistic, ethnic and national identity in early European multilingual paremiography to which Constantin von Wurzbach (1818–1893) born in Ljubljana made a significant contribution by his paremiographic approach, as he included Slovene in his early paremiographic works. This research focuses on the macro- and microstructure of Wurzbach’s collection of proverbs entitled Polnische Sprichwörter: Erläutert und mit ähnlichen andrer Nationen verglichen (1846) as well as on Slovenian paremiological material in the collection Die Sprichwörter der Polen historisch erläutert (1852). According to phraseological and lexicographic studies, this is an original and previously rarely used approach to researching proverbs from dictionary, linguistic and cultural-historical aspects. In the Slovenia scientific space, Wurzbach’s paremiographic approach has so far not witnessed an adequate discussion.
Dual in Slovene: on the 100th anniversary of the first study on Slovene dual (Tesnière 1925)
The year 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first systematic work on the Slovene dual. In 1925, the Frenchman Lucien Tesnière published the Linguistic Atlas of the Dual (Atlas linguistique pour servir à l’étude du duel en slovène) with an accompanying monograph on dual forms in Slovene, Les formes du duel en slovène. In 2008, another researcher of the Slovene dual, Tjaša Jakop, published two monographs dedicated to this typically Slovene category, namely Dvojina v Slovenskih Narečjih and The Dual in Slovene Dialects. This article discusses these and other well-known works dealing with the dual in Slovene, provides typical examples of its use, and offers final conclusions.
the 16-th century Slovene literary standard
The Dekani dialect speech: phonetic changes then and now
This article examines phonetic changes in the Dekani local speech on the basis of a manuscript report written by Tine Logar following a dialectological field research carried out in Dekani in 1955. The manuscript, which is kept at the Department of Dialectology of the Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language at ZRC SAZU (Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences), as is normally the case, provides a comprehensive summary of the main phonological and morphological developments, and specific features in the dialect under scrutiny. Phonological findings made by Tine Logar are in this paper diachronically compared with records and available dialectal data and materials collected and published for the Dekani region in the period between 1955 and 2025. The main focus of the investigation is establishing which phonological features recorded by Logar are still present in the speech of older speakers, and assessing the extent (if any) to which they occur in the speech patterns of younger generations.
Suffix distribution in occupational feminatives with the same base in selected south Slavic languages
This paper presents a comparison of randomly selected samples of occupational feminatives in four South Slavic languages: Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, and Macedonian. The starting point of the comparison was Slovenian, namely 104 randomly collected Slovenian feminatives, mostly referring to professional occupations. Equivalents of these feminatives, such with the same base, were sought for in relevant online dictionary resources also for the other three languages. The sources used were limited to online dictionary resources available for the languages in question. Although these sources differ in lexicographic concept and scope, we were also able to gain some sociolinguistic insight into the status and the level of attention given to the systematic lexicographic treatment of female-gendered equivalents in each language.
Words for expressing relationships in Slovene
The article examines words that express and thereby establish syntactic relationships. These words, namely parts of speech such as prepositions, conjunctions, and particles, play a key role in the formation of syntactic relationships, mediating the transition from meaning to expression while representing syntactic relations at the level of linguistic form. Adverbs are discussed in their connective function, that is, as elements that link prepositions, conjunctions, and particles in terms of relational and modal meaning. The article also addresses the extent to which relational meanings are syntactic in nature and the extent to which they have become lexicalized.
Simpozij ob 110. obletnici rojstva Antona Vratuše
Znanstveni simpozij 110. obletnica rojstva Antona Vratuše, ki sta ga organizirala Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti (I. razred za zgodovinske in družbene vede in II. razred za filološke in literarne vede) in Ustanova dr. Šiftarjeva fundacija, se je odvijal od 19. do 20. februarja 2025 v Ljubljani (Dvorana Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti – SAZU) in v Murski Soboti (Dvorana Pokrajinske in študijske knjižnice – PiŠK).
Ocena knjige Janje Vidmar Velika pustolovščina: razgibano življenje ustvarjanja zgodb (2024).
Ocena znanstvene monografije o Dostojevskem (K. Kroo, A. Faustov, S. Savinkov, 2022).
Jožica Čeh Steger, 2024: Razgledi po slovenski moderni: nacionalni, večkulturni in medkulturni koncepti, kratka proza in poezija
Ocena znanstvene monografije Razgledi po slovenski moderni avtorice Jožice Čeh Steger.
Ferenc Gregor, 2023: A szlovák nyelv magyar elemei
Ocena znanstvene monografije Ferenca Gregorja o madžarskih prvinah v slovaškem jeziku.
Marko Jesenšek, 2024: Imenitnost slovenskega jezika
Ocena monografije Imenitnost slovenskega jezika avtorja Marka Jesenška.
Marko Jesenšek, 2024: Poglavja o različicah slovenskega jezika
Ocena monografije Poglavja o različicah slovenskega jezika avtorja Marka Jesenška.
Znanost ni nepristranska – nemški nacionalizem na Inštitutu za geografijo Univerze v Gradcu s poudarkom na protislovenstvu
Science is not Unbiased – German Nationalism and Anti-Slovenian Attitudes in the Institute of Geography at the University of Graz. Čede and Fleck’s article translated from German (Čede, Fleck 2021) is a study on German nationalism at the Institute of Geography of the University of Graz. It focuses on anti-Slovenian topics, discussing Graz geographers who spoke about Slovenes or Slovenia under the influence of German nationalist mentality. The studied texts show that the authors were closely acquainted with German nationalist literature. Also the political and socio-cultural mentality that guided the authors’ research is now quite in the open. The study is based on hermeneutic textual interpretation.
Raba družbenih zvrsti jezika pri pouku slovenščine in širše v osnovnošolskem izobraževanju
Using Social Varieties in Slovenian Language Lessons and Broader in Elementary School Education. Spreading globalization and increasing digitization have affected the linguistic situation in Slovenia regarding languages in contact – both English on the one side and languages of immigrants on the other. Consequently, modern social conditions have blurred students’ perception about situational use of either literary or non-literary varieties of language. The Curriculum for Slovene (2018) is dichotomous, as it mainly introduces students merely to what literary and non-literary language varieties are. School is a key factor in the development of Slovenian language identity, and students must be introduced to the theory of language varieties with examples for everyday speech situations. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to raise linguistic consciousness in school practices, i.e. not solely focusing on the attitude towards the literary variety, but also towards regional language types, especially to dialect and slang, which are most often used by students in everyday speech situations.
Glasoslovje prekmurskega govora Cankove skozi čas
The Phonetics of the Cankova (Prekmurje) Dialect over Time. This paper presents and describes the local dialect of Cankova, which according to Slovenian dialectology belongs to the Ravensko-Goričko local dialect of the Prekmurje region that adheres to the Pannonian dialect group. The dialect material for this article was collected in Cankova (data-point SLA T387) according to the questionnaire for the Slovenian Linguistic Atlas (SLA) and has been compared to older dialect material from the same village, published in 1909 in Avgust Pavel’s detailed description of the phonology of the Cankova (Prekmurje) dialect. The phonetics and phonology of this local dialect are presented in the article in greater detail.
Monolingualism vs. bilingualism: Formants as a personal identification of Slovenian and Italian vowels – absolute values versus ratios
Since the speakers in this research differ in age, gender, emotions, physical condition, etc., the absolute values of the formants are different. Comparing the ratios between the formants shows that the values of the ratios between the formants are much more stable and comparable than the absolute values. The present paper analyses the relationships between formants F1, F2 and F3 on the basis of published formant measurements for Slovene and Italian and determines whether the relationships are constant regardless of the absolute values of the individual formants. The aim of the study was to compare the Italian and Slovenian formant relationships in monolingual and bilingual speakers. The results show, among other things, that descriptive statistical measures for stressed vowels in monolingual Italian-Slovenian speakers display a decrease in the mean value of F2/F1 from front to back vowels, with a minimum value for central and back vowels.
»Kaj si pa ti kot politik naredil za ta uspeh?!«: Raba strokovnega jezika diplomacije med poslankami in poslanci državnega zbora v letih od 1990 do 2018
“How did you as a Politician Contribute to this Success?”: The Use of the Language of Diplomacy among Members of the National Assembly between 1990 and 2018. The aim of this article is to establish how the members of the National Assembly use specialised terminology in the field of diplomacy. Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses show that in their speeches MPs (1) often use technical terms from the field of diplomacy incorrectly or semi-colloquially; (2) when talking about the field of diplomacy, they often resort to journalistic language rather than the language of the profession; and (3) they use political language based on colloquialisms.
Reprezentacije spola, seksualnosti, etničnosti in družbenega razreda v sodobnih popularnih slovenskih kriminalkah
Representations of Gender, Sexuality, Ethnicity and Social Class in Contemporary Popular Slovenian Crime Novels. The article presents a systematic deconstructive and thematic analysis of the representations of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and social class in thirty-five contemporary popular novels by Sergej Verč, Tone Frelih, Avgust Demšar, Tadej Golob, Irena Svetek and Mojca Širok. Drawing on existing studies that deal with the conservatism of the genre and the culture studies’ distinction between the conservative poetics of detective fiction and its (potentially subversive) politics of representations, the author formulates a three-part classification of regimes of representations. The analysis shows that the Slovenian crime novels under consideration, despite some critical implications, fit into conservative and liberal regimes of representation. The dominant representations are beyond the critical regime of representations because the other representational regimes mystify class antagonisms, which rarely find themselves at the centre of crime-motivated relationships between victims, murderers and detectives.
The Essayistic Work of Helena Koder. The article presents the essayistic work of the renowned Slovenian essayist Helena Koder, who won the Rožanc Award for her book Krošnja z neznanimi sadeži (Tree Crown Bearing Unknown Fruit, 2024). Compared to other contemporary essayists Helena Koder’s texts are considered to be reflective essays with poetic elements, as she deals with central themes like art, culture and language. Her essays are both discursive and interpretive, while also containing side stories and dreams. The structure of her essays is carefully thought out, as each essay contains a photograph linked to its content, followed by an appendix at the end functioning as a supplement to the essay.
Preobrazba ljubezni v zreli in pozni ustvarjalnosti Franca Ksaverja Meška: med hrepenenjem, odpovedjo in predanostjo
The Transformation of Love in the Mature and Late Works of Franc Ksaver Meško: between Longing, Renunciation, and Devotion. The present paper offers a thematological and semiotic analysis of the transformation of love in the poetic, narrative, and drama works of Franc Ksaver Meško (1874–1964), presenting love as the emotional, ethical, and spiritual core of his poetics. Meško’s priestly vocation, which had led him to consciously renounce romantic love, profoundly shapes his literary imagination – from youthful idealization to renunciation, contemplation, and mystical devotion. Prominent motifs include romantic, maternal, patriotic, and saintly love, while his depictions of fallen women are imbued with empathy, inner conflict, and a didactic function. Meško’s writing draws on biblical patterns, Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness, Cankar’s social sensitivity, and Andersen’s symbolism. This paper illuminates his portrayal of love as a symbolic language oscillating between longing and renunciation, emotional authenticity and transcendent silence, revealing the tension between the bodily and the spiritual, between silence and speech, and between suffering and sanctity.
Mrožkov Tango in problemi njegove recepcije na Slovenskem
The Problematic Reception of Tango by Slawomir Mrožek in Slovenia. The article focuses on the play Tango by t he Polish playwright Sławomir Mrozek and its fate on the Slovenian stage. Although it was staged in Belgrade and Ljubljana as early as in 1965, the same year in which it was first performed in Poland, it was later relegated to the theatrical margins. It re-entered the repertory of the Ljubljanska Drama theatre as late as in 2023. This paper analyses individual productions and critical reactions, and concludes that Josip Vidmar had a significant influence on the fate of its reception.
Vladimir Bartol and Film. The article deals with Vladimir Bartol’s attitude towards film. Film is present in Bartol’s artistic prose primarily as a means of stereotypically characterising female figures. His unpublished diary entries, however, show a different picture. Here, he compares his works of fiction with various movies, mentioning plans for the filming of his works and revealing his view on the question of why his novel Alamut did not see the planned feature-length film adaptation.