Bled Lake

During the Second World War, the Germans seized Upper Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, using the pre-war cosmopolitan resort town of Bled as the administrative centre of the occupied Upper Carniola and Carinthia, and for the wartime deployment of security and (para)military units and organizations. Whereas the German garrison at Bled was initially composed of officials, functionaries, and members of headquarters units, the authorities later also moved there some of the police and (para)military units that engaged in operations against the Slovenian partisans in the immediate vicinity. Owing to many hotels, villas, and other facilities, the lake town also developed into a health resort where the occupier’s soldiers and police officers were sent for treatment and recovery. Although the Bled garrison was occasionally a target of partisan diversionary attacks, the town remained under firm German control until the end of the Second World War.

Both texts were created during pivotal moments of Slovene history: Prešeren’s poem at a time of German political, economic, and cultural supremacy and newly emerging demands for a united Slovenia, and Bevk’s during the time of Italian fascism and the occupation of the Slovene Primorska region.
At first glance, Prešeren’s poetry of high Romanticism and Bevk’s supposedly trivial work have nothing in common apart from the topic of paganism and Christianity. However, they both convey a hidden message that could not be stated outright due to the censorship policies of the authorities at the time, to condemnation of aggressive foreign rulers, to appeals to national unity, to heightened patriotic consciousness, and to a relationship with nature that establishes the here and now as the highest value, and not the hereafter. The comparison and interpretation presented here sees in Bevk’s work a direct connection to Prešeren’s poem, its thematic continuation, temporal adaptation, and interpretation.