The Open / Closed Character of the Slovene Western Border: The Case of Three Writers
The Open / Closed Character of the Slovene Western Border: The Case of Three Writers

Summary/Abstract: In 1975, the Slovene writers from Italy Boris Pahor (1913) and Alojz Rebula (1924) published the book Edvard Kocbek, pričevalec našega časa (Edvard Kocbek, a Witness of Our Times). In that book, the writer and former minister of the Yugoslav government Edvard Kocbek (1904–1981), publicly denounced for the very first time the mass murder of the “domobranci” (Slovene Home Guards) at Kočevski rog, committed by the Yugoslav Communist Party. The reaction to this denouncement of the Communist Party and of its leaders was not solely political in nature; it was intended for Kocbek as much as for the two authors of the book. This article attempts to shed some light on the fate of the three authors, based on their diaries from that period. Equally, it aims to explore the closed or open character of the border between Yugoslavia and Italy, which varied greatly following the moods of the Party.

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