The Portrayal of Mountains in Nineteenth-Century Slovenian Poetry

Since the Age of Enlightenment, mountains have gradually changed from a predominantly geological category to an aesthetic one. The new, essentially spiritualized and aestheticized experience of the mountain landscape has found increasing appeal in both the visual arts (especially painting) and literature (especially poetry). Moreover, in the course of the long nineteenth century, mountains often became an object of nationalist appropriation. Such a development was also characteristic of Slovenian culture. This article deals with early Slovenian poetry and its relationship to mountains. It shows that Baron Sigmund Zois and the poet Valentin Vodnik already recognized the national and poetic potential of Mount Triglav with Lake Bohinj and Savica Falls. Their ideas found an echo in the Slovenian poetry of the period before 1848, but it was the great Romantic poet France Prešeren that added a historical-mythological layer to them in his Baptism on the Savica (1836). A brief overview demonstrates that Slovenian poetry from Valentin Vodnik to Simon Gregorčič manifestly contributed to making the mountains a sacred and mythical national place.