The Importance of the Text: Infanticide ‒ from Life into Song and Literature

Abstract

Prispevek se osredinja na temo detomora, ki je izjemno močno zastopana tako v slovenski kot v evropski baladni tradiciji kot tudi v delih evropskih in slovenskih avtorjev med 18. in 20. stoletjem, vse od Johanna W. Goetheja do Svetlane Makarovič. Predmet analize je baladni tip Obsojena detomorilka, eden redkih baladnih tipov, ki je nastal v urbanem okolju. Avtorica domneva, da je v tem primeru t. i. arhetekst ustvaril izobraženec in ne samo nadarjeni posameznik iz nižje družbene plasti, kakor se to navadno misli za ljudsko pesem. S tekstno analizo pesmi in na podlagi folklorističnih, etnoloških, antropoloških, zgodovinskih, pravnih in literarnovednih spoznanj ponovno presoja pomembnost besedila v razmerju s kontekstom in teksturo ter odkriva podrobnosti življenjskih razmer subjekta balade. Ta je povezan s t. i. realno osebo, saj naj bi balada nastala v drugi polovici 18. stoletja v Ljubljani. Ugotavlja, da so upodobitve ženske kot detomorilke in njene poznejše usode v baladah in literarizacijah odsevale družbeno-politično resničnost časa, v katerem so nastale. Le v redkih literarnih obdelavah pa je razviden prevladujoči odnos do ženske kot nezakonske matere in detomorilke.

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The article focuses on the theme of infanticide, which is known throughout both the Slovenian and general European ballad traditions, as well as in works of literature from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries (from Goethe to Makarovič). The special Slovenian ballad (type no. 287) in Slovenian Folk Songs, titled “The Convicted (or Condemned) Infanticide,” one of the rare ballad types from an urban environment, is analyzed. The author posits that the “archetext” of this ballad was created by an educated person and not merely a talented individual from the lower social strata, as one generally thinks of folk songs. Using textual analyses and employing theoretical discourses from folklore, ethnology, anthropology, history, and other areas, the paper establishes the importance of the text in the relation to context and texture. It also reveals details of the life conditions of the ballad’s subject, who is closely connected to the historical person, which indicates that the ballad was created in the second half of the eighteenth century in Ljubljana based on real events. Depictions of women as child-killers and their fate in ballads and literary works reflected the social and political reality of the times they originate from. However, only rare literary reworkings clearly show the dominant perspective on women as unwed mothers or child-killers.