UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 7th Annual International Postgraduate Conference

Inclusion Exclusion

16-18th February 2006

12:00 – 1:30: Panel A3: Borders

Barbara Ivančič Kutin (Institute of Slovenian Ethnology): ‘Stories from the Slovene-Italian border in the Bovec area’

When collection folklore and memory stories in the Bovec area, the northwestern part of Slovenia that borders on Italy, informant telling stories often include themes connected with life at the Slovene-Italian border. This reflects the importance the border has always had in the everyday life of the local population. Stories from the field refer to crossing the border in the period from 1947, when then Bovec area was annexed to Yugoslavia to the present, when the Republic of Slovenia is a member state in the European Union.

In the first period after the area's annexation to Yugoslavia, crossing the border was largely for economic motives because many people from the area worked in the Rabelj mine, just across the border with Italy from the early 20th century until the mine was closed down (in 1991) to earn a living for themselves and their famileis. The state border between Italy and Yugoslavaia was also a division line between the capitalist system on the other side when people thought everything was obtainable, and the socialist system on this side of the border, where shortages prevailed. The stories about crossing the border for various reasons (work, selling domestic produce and products, visiting relatives, shopping, tourism, etc.), told from memory by informants from the Bovec area, reflect in several layers the attitude of the local civil population to the border as a dividing line between two countries, cultures and political systems. The political changes from 1947 to the present are also reflected in the degree how open the border was, how strict the border police and customs were and how they communicated with people crossing the border. Beside the gradual liberalisation of the border regime for people and goods, changes also occurred in the psychological perception of the border (less unpleasant feelings, in particular anxiety and fear); this development was helped, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1992, by the Slovene offical language used by the border (before that time using Serbocroatian by the employees from other Yugoslavian countries was quite common) and simplified border crossing with a identity card. The stories are individual experience of each individual storyteller, but they convey a general impression and the feelings of people who lived in the border area.