Ricerche slavistiche. Nuova serie

The Łacinka in the Belarusian Newspapers of the National Revival, the Consolidation of a Uniform Standard Script, and Biscriptality as a Reflection of a Conflicted Community

2026-03-10T14:11:28+00:00

The article explores the role of the alphabet in biscriptural societies as an expression of conflict. It opens with a contextualization of biscripturalism from a socio-cultural perspective, examining the historical development of the Belarusian language as a manifestation of communities in conflict. In this context, the symbolic values attributed to writing in relation to culture, political orientation, and religion are analyzed, drawing significantly on the theoretical frameworks proposed by Roland Marti (2005, 2010) and Holger Kuße (2008). The study highlights how the specific narratives and value systems pursued by individual actors within a community in conflict are often articulated through symbolic values. Based on a synthesis of these theoretical models, the article proceeds with an analysis of the discourse of letters to the editor of the daily newspaper Naša Niva (1912). This analysis focuses on a critical moment when the newspaper had to decide to use a single alphabet for publication due to financial constraints that made the biscriptural format unsustainable. The analysis shows how symbolic values were strategically employed by members of the conflicted community, divided between supporters of Łacinka and Cyrillica, during the decision-making process. The aim of this article is to clarify the argumentative dimension within culturally and linguistically divided communities, highlighting the interaction between the choice of writing and sociocultural identity.

Dialetto e lingua mista ucraino-russa (“Suržyk”): criteri distintivi e linee di demarcazione

2026-03-10T14:03:49+00:00

The primary aim of this article consists in drawing an approximate dividing line between traditional dialects and the Ukrainian Russian Mixed Speech (URMS), generically known as “suržyk”, and defined in Italian with the acronym LMUR (i.e., lingua mista ucraino russa). In the field of studies devoted to the URMS, except for a few recent contributions, the attempt at separating rural dialects from the mixed speech is still lacking. However, before detailing formerly advanced distinguishing criteria based on empirical data, it is necessary to reexamine some terminological issues related to the mixed speech of Ukraine. Recent conference papers, in fact, have demonstrated that despite almost two decades of debates on what should be meant under “suržyk”, some sociolinguists, especially Ukrainian, continue to use this pseudo term in a rather generic way thus leading not only to terminological confusion but also to the variability of the research object. The ensuing analysis of a number of selected dialectal features does not intend to be ‘comprehensive’ but only to show an approach on how to approximately distinguish the two varieties. At the same time, it aims to confirm the close relationship which exists between the dialectal base and the formation of the mixed language.

Slavic Names in the Municipalities of Assling, Amlach, Leisach and Lavant (Eastern Tyrol) – Slavia Tirolensis XI

2026-03-10T14:07:26+00:00

This article is the eleventh issue of the Slavia Tirolensis article series, in which the author presents the Slavic heritage within the Eastern Tyrolean toponomy. This time, the names of the municipalities of Assling, Amlach, Leisach and Lavant are analysed. For every entry, evidence from historical documents is given, as well as an etymological explanation. Additionaly, for the names still in use, the dialectal pronunciation is provided.

The Catholic Way to a Communist Revolution. The First Issues of “Voce operaia” and “Dziś i Jutro”

2026-03-10T16:11:14+00:00

The article attempts a comparative analysis of the concept of “revolution” as it appears in the first issues of the periodicals “Voce operaia” (1943-1945), published by the Italian Catholic-Communist Movement, and “Dziś i Jutro” (1945-1946), a weekly affiliated with the circle around Bolesław Piasecki, which was programmatically Catholic and pro-communist. The first issues of both journals are treated here as manifestos inaugurating their unique discourses, mediating between Catholic and communist values and conceptual apparata. The analysis demonstrates that, in the case of the Italian periodical, the concept under study emerges as a political plan or a strategy for clandestine actions, while in “Dziś i Jutro”, it is expressed as a process considered by the editorial team as actively present and legitimate within Polish social reality. For the Italian Catholic-Communist Movement, participation in the revolutionary plan stems directly from their identification with the Italian communist party’s political program, whereas, for Piasecki and his collaborators, active participation in the revolutionary process is driven by an imperative to “shape its content” and to assert Catholic agency in the social sphere. Finally, within “Voce operaia”, the concept of “revolution” is clearly tied to the MarxistLeninist conceptual and ideological apparata, whereas the first issue of “Dziś i Jutro” emphasizes the editorial board’s autonomous political thought.

Zuzanna Ginczanka and the Body's Cage

2026-03-10T15:27:33+00:00

The article aims at analyzing the self-portrait of the female body in Zuzanna Ginczanka’s works. By comparing biographical and poetic text, it will be shown how the body entertains a complex web of meaningful relationships with respect to the concept of “cage”. In juvenile compositions, the cage consists of social and cultural constraints – seen as an obstacle to free self-expression – from which the first-person narrator tries to escape by means of the body. Later on, discovered the impossibility of a definitive break from cultural boundaries and gender stereotypes, attempts are made to circumvent them by manipulating social norms. Finally, to be understood as a cage is the body itself, as an object of orientalization and eroticization, a “foreign body” that is systematically mortified and masochistically portrayed as dead and shattered.

Traumatic Entanglement as the Defining Feature of Polish Postmemory Literature

2026-03-10T15:30:29+00:00

This essay examines and summarizes the fundamental characteristics of Polish autobiographical writing by the postmemory generation (i.e., the children of Holocaust survivors), drawing on the concept of postmemory developed by Marianne Hirsch. The article argues that Polish postmemory writing adopts a concept of traumatic entanglement, which represents the condition of the postmemory generation through the unassimilable nature of the Holocaust, while also recognizing other traumas of postwar Poland. According to the argument, the narrative voice of postmemory autobiographical writing is characterized by three aspects: in-choosing, in-positioning, and in-suffering. Through in-choosing, the narrative voice aligns itself with the centrality of the Shoah as the ultimate trauma, which guides the choices not only of the survivor generation, but also of their adult children. In-choosing also becomes the starting point for representing the complexity of the parents’ existence outside the traditional multigenerational model, typical of Jewish culture but destroyed during World War II. Secondly, in-positioning manifests itself in the narrator’s tendency to read the world, and in particular political situations, through the figure of the suffering parent, thus providing a unique perspective. This allows the contemporary reader to understand the individual cost of historical, social, and political changes. Finally, the narrator’s use of in-suffering highlights the events of March 1968 through the persistence of anti-Semitism and the danger inherent in the process of nationalizing the memory of World War II in Poland. Thanks to these three characteristics, postmemory autobiographical writing manages to recode narratives into personal stories of a reparative nature and endowed with transformative power, counteracting both historical amnesia and distortions of memory, and thus anti-Semitism.

A Maze in Constant Motion. Introduction to the Thematic Cluster Slavic Minority and Regional Languages

2026-03-10T11:28:33+00:00

A general preface by the editors of the thematic cluster Slavic Minority and Regional Languages, which also features an overview on Molise Slavic.

Integration Models for Romance Substantive Loans in Resian (and beyond)

2026-03-10T11:42:32+00:00

This contribution is an updated and expanded version of Steenwijk (1990), drawing on the progress made in Slovene dialectology in recent decades and a deeper understanding of the issue. The most important results are: 1) an appreciation of the contribution of colonial Venetian to the Resian lexicon (amïg; satmićërih); 2) the determination of the spread of the integration models discussed in Slovene dialects in direct contact with Friulian; 3) the identification of the phonetic substitution fur., vec. -òŋ = slv. -ón (fur., vec. rasòŋ = slv. ražón); 4) the identification of the morphological model fur. V:C(-sonora)# :: slv. V:C(+sonora)- (fur. solda:t :: slv. solda:t, Gsg solda:da); 5) a separation between the suffixes -n- and -in- and a classification of the latter according to its scope of application (kolíndrin; oćálini; bánjo, Gsg bánjina); 6) the formulation of a distribution criterion for the two suffixes -n- and -h- in Friulian loanwords on the one hand and Venetian and/or Italian loanwords on the other (lárin; bacadárih).

On Inflected Clitics in the Slovene Dialect of Resia in Friuli: Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects

2026-03-10T11:55:36+00:00

Examining clitic clusters of inflected clitics in the Slovene dialect of Resia from the historical linguistic point of view, one cannot but notice that, compared to the early post-Proto-Slavic state of affairs, the system of inflected clitics in Resian has undergone radical transformation. In fact, in the linguistic history of the Slovene dialect in question not only has the number of clitics increased, but their position in the sentence and their order in the clitic cluster has also undergone significant change that saw a secondary split into two distinct clitic clusters. As far as the system of inflected clitics in Resian is concerned, their number was augmented by the creation of new nominative forms of clitic personal pronouns as well as new auxiliary verbs and verbs that are prone to cliticisation. As far as the position of the inflected clitics in the main clause is concerned Resian no longer observes Wackernagel’s Law. The inflected clitics tend to occupy the so-called adverbal position, i.e., before or after a full lexical verb or before an auxiliary (if one occurs). This means that the clitic can appear in initial position as well. In addition to that, inflected clitics can be organised into two distinct clitic clusters, i.e., a ‘verbal’ and a pronominal one. While the rise of nominative clitic forms of personal pronouns, loss of Wackernagel’s Law, the tendency of inflected clitics to occupy the adverbal position, and subsequent split of the original clitic cluster into a ‘verbal’ and a pronominal part in Resian are most likely to be due to the linguistic influence of the neighbouring Romance linguistic varieties, primarily Friulian, the “rearrangement” of inflected clitics in the clitic cluster itself most probably reflects a well-established tendency of clitic climbing of verbal clitics to the position before pronominal clitics – a phenomenon characteristic of the wider Slovene linguistic area. In dialects of Slovene, as is well known, verbal clitics, which in the early post-Proto-Slavic period of the formation of individual Slavic languages were placed after pronominal clitics in a cluster of inflectional clitics, tend to move from their original position at the end of the cluster towards the beginning of the cluster, i.e., they tend to precede pronominal clitics. However, the original word order is preserved in negative sentences, where due to the contraction of the negative particle *ne ‘not’ and the auxiliary in the result was a creation of new accented contracted forms. While the central Slovene dialects and, consequently, Standard Slovene reflect an intermediate stage in the process of verbal clitic climbing, Resian displays a stage in which the latter have already completely moved to the position preceding the oblique case forms of pronominal clitics.

The Slovene Community in Italy between the 20th and 21st Centuries. Rethinking Its Linguistic Landscape

2026-03-10T12:01:56+00:00

The Slovene community in Italy is an indigenous cross-border minority which has been present in the provinces of Trieste, Gorizia, and Udine since the Middle Ages. Following the political and territorial divisions between Italy and Yugoslavia in the first and second post-war periods, the community was incorporated into the territory of the Italian State and separated from its ‘kin State’ (in Slovene: matična država), the current Republic of Slovenia, by a border that has only been partially overcome by European integration policies. The vicissitudes of history, associated with complex social, economic, and political dynamics, have shaped not only the linguistic varieties used by the Slovene community in Italy, but also the linguistic landscape of the territory, which is today only partially multilingual and where multilingualism, if present, is largely skewed in favor of the majority language. In this article, we will first outline the general sociolinguistic framework, starting with some key considerations on language policies at the turn of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Moving on from legislation protecting the Slovene community and language in Italy, we will then analyze the uses of its idioms in the public sphere and the role of the linguistic landscape in two key concepts: linguistic awareness and linguistic empowerment. In the central part of the article, we will summarize the main results of the research conducted so far (in two stages, in 2015 and 2021) on the linguistic landscape in bilingual and/or language-protected municipalities, which reveals a contrasting scenario, with important achievements on the one hand, but just as many challenges still to be addressed on the other. The article will then focus in particular on one of these: the limited use of the Slovene language by private businesses that work with the public (particularly in the agri-food and HoReCa sectors), with projects aimed at integrating the key principles of so-called ‘active’ language policies into everyday intra- and inter-community communication practices. Finally, we will broaden the concept of linguistic landscape by including not only the physical territory but also the virtual one in our research. While, until the end of the 20^th century, language policies focused exclusively on bilingualism and multilingualism in the physical/geographical space (or excluded from it), the new technologies that have emerged in the 21^st century make it imperative to also consider the presence (or absence) of minority languages in new digital contexts, in order to avoid the collapse of linguistic and cultural diversity in the coming decades.

“To you, Slovenia is a place abroad, to me it is not”: Sociolinguistic Practices of the Slovene Minority in Belgrade

2026-03-10T13:30:19+00:00

This article examines the linguistic practices of the Slovene minority living in Belgrade through the lens of belonging and identity, looking at the linguistic habits of three Slovene individuals residing in Belgrade. Based on data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in December 2021, I analyze how these individuals deal with the sociolinguistic and identity challenges typical of Slovene people in Serbia. The study addresses issues related to language use within their primary families during childhood, as well as their current family contexts, and explores how they adapt their language according to different social contexts. Furthermore, it examines how their linguistic behaviors have evolved in response to significant external events, particularly the violent dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a turning point that redefined cultural and linguistic identities throughout the region. The research highlights how the changing sociopolitical landscape has influenced Slovene-Serbian identity and linguistic practices, including the experience of becoming “foreigners” within a region once marked by shared Yugoslav identities. Participants’ narratives reveal how they negotiate their sense of belonging through language, adapting their language and identity in response to Serbia’s complex national dynamics. The unique position of Slovenes as a national minority in Serbia is thus explored through participants’ reflections on their linguistic adaptation and the challenges of otherness in post-Yugoslav society. This study offers insights into the broader sociolinguistic dynamics faced by national minorities in societies in transition and sheds light on the specific, often nuanced, linguistic practices of Slovenes in Serbia, a context that differs from other Slovene emigrant communities around the world.

Evidentiality in the Bulgarian Rhodope Dialects: The Case of the Nominal Marker -n

2026-03-10T13:34:19+00:00

Many languages use specific verbal affixes, particles, or other constructions to indicate evidentiality. In the Bulgarian Rhodope dialects, evidential semantics extend into nominal structures, including tripartite deictics involved in determination. This use reveals that evidentials focus on the opposition visible/invisible as well as on the nature of the source of the statement. The nominal marker -n has preserved and developed a wide range of grammatical and semantics functions that convey subjective nuances influenced by the narrator’s perspective and relational stance towards the reported event. Typical uses can be found in many examples from the folklore songs and oral communication when the experience comes / is gained from an indirect information or the speaker wants to emphasize a distal meaning that may concern time, space and cognitive aspects of the utterance. This work contributes to our understanding of evidentiality’s role in narrative structure and the interaction between tensed nominals and verbal tense, aspect and mood.

Tracing Language Contact. Parameter Hierarchies and Torlak Clitic Doubling

2026-03-10T13:38:01+00:00

This article examines clitic doubling (CD) in Torlak, an ancient variety of Štokavian (South Slavic) that has not undergone the accent shift typical of Neo-Štokavian (cf. Vuković – Escher – Sonnenhauser 2022), exhibiting at the same time numerous phenomena due to language contact. Building on previous theoretical and descriptive studies (in particular Runić 2014 and Milosavljević – Živojinović in press), this work proposes a new interpretation of microvariation in RC patterns in the different subvarieties of Torlak in the light of parametric hierarchies (Roberts – Holmberg 2010; Roberts 2012; 2019; Ledgeway et al. 2025). The analysis shows that dialects spoken in Vranje, Trgovište, and Preševo have an RC exclusively linked to specificity—as in Macedonian—while others, such as those spoken in Jablanica, Timok, Žitorađa, and Niš, show additional licensing conditions, indicating further internal development after linguistic contact. This approach allows for a formal comparison with the Neo-Štokavian BCMS and reinforces the hypothesis of an interpretation of clitic doubling in the Torlak continuum as a result of linguistic contact.

Evaluating Dialect Loss through Priming of Code-Switching. The Case of Pskov Dialects of Russian

2026-03-10T13:42:08+00:00

This study investigates the phenomenon of priming in code-switching between two Western Russian dialects and standard Russian. The investigation focuses on the phonetic and grammatical characteristics present in dialogues between speakers of standard Russian and Western Russian dialects, in order to highlight the relationship between priming and dialect erosion. Usage-based linguistic literature argues that grammar is shaped by so-called ‘linguistic experience’. By analyzing data from corpora of two western dialects, it is shown that priming can be an indicator of the preservation of dialectal features. Two sets of data are generated from the reference corpora: first, the overall distribution of the features examined; second, the distribution of the same features limited to priming contexts. The data show that, among speakers of Western Russian dialects, younger subjects with a complete secondary education are more influenced by the priming effect, while older subjects with an incomplete secondary education tend to preserve dialectal variants even in priming contexts. The results suggest that the analysis of priming in code-switching can be used to assess the degree of preservation or decline of dialects at different stages and in different social groups of dialect speakers.

Tvořeni literaturou. Společné dějiny česky a německy psané literatury českých zemí (1760-1920). Akropolis – Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, Praha 2024, 662 pp.

2026-03-10T15:33:40+00:00

Monika Woźniak, Flussi e riflussi: Quo vadis di Henryk Sienkiewicz nel circuito letterario e culturale italiano. (Laboratorio est/ovest. Leo – studi e letture, 35). Lithos, Roma 2024, 194 pp.

2026-03-10T15:46:35+00:00

Ireneusz Staroń, Fuga i rap. O poezji Krzysztofa Koehlera z lat 1986-1998. Instytut Literatury, Kraków 2023, 331 pp.

2026-03-10T17:02:21+00:00

Viktor Šklovskij, Teoria della prosa. Con una prefazione dell’autore e un saggio di Jan Mukařovský. Postfazione di Cesare G. de Michelis. Traduzione di Cesare G. de Michelis e Renzo Oliva. Quodlibet, Macerata 2025, 363 pp.

2026-03-10T17:05:02+00:00

Antun Gustav Matoš, Camao e altri racconti, traduzione e cura di Rosanna Morabito. (Passage, 271). Besa Muci, Nardò (LE) 2024, 176 pp.

2026-03-10T17:07:18+00:00