Topolove, Schiavonia

They ran out, is what they call it in the village of Topolove, where I spent most of my time in the Slovenian Venice “Benečija”, when people have passed away. Mrs. Romilda Filipič’s husband ran out two years ago. But other village locals ran out as well, even those that did not pass away.

A traveller that would in the old times make his way from Čedad (Cividale del Friuli) towards the east, whether on a horse, in a carriage or by foot, would soon discover that the language being spoken here is different to that in the Friuli region. When crossing the deep gorge of the Nadiža (Natiosone) river at Muost, he would enter a land that geographers studying the Republic of Venice have called Schiavonia. The reports reaching the palace of Serenissima depicted this craggy region, its green slopes climbing towards the rocky mountains in the background, as a fairly rugged and wild edge of the civilized world. In the narrow valleys, along the rivers and creeks, as well as high up in the mountain peaks, in their villages made of stone, surrounded by vast pastures, is where the highlanders lived with their cows, goats, and sheep, speaking their own Slavic language. Even though they had long been Christians, their language, old customs, their superstitions and poverty were in stark contrast to the majority of the population in this well-known and rich republic.

Schiavonia was also a somewhat mysterious land. Whoever would find themselves held up here for a longer period of time, would discover peculiar things. For example about krivopete (women with crooked heels, who had their feet pointed backwards). Sometimes they would appear to people to teach them things, for example how to grind wheat, though they were also known to be very mischievous at times, too, like setting a house on fire or throwing a horse rider off a horse… “Schiavonia come nazione diversa e separata dal Friuli” [Schiavonia as a nation is different and separate from the Friuli province], as someone wrote in an old document. This “quirky” and “segregated” nation lived on a land that for the Doges of Venice was kind of a border frontier; they granted it a high degree of autonomy, its own local government and judiciary in exchange for a permanent cavalry of at least 200 men, used to protect the mountain passes of the Republic. “Schiavonia veneta, Slavia veneta”, and even “Slavia Italiana”, as well as its largest settlement, San Pietro degli Slavi, named after a church that carried the Latin name Ecclesia Sancti Petri Sclaborum – these were unmistakable signs that have for the longest time been pointing to the fact that “Slovenian Venice” or “Benečija”, as it is known, was an area inhabited almost exclusively by Slavs, speaking Slovenian.

A traveller, driving through or walking the depth and breadth of this land in more recent times, would not be left with this impression, however. On certain days now you would think that Venetian Slovenians were among the dying Europeans, as Karl-Markus Gauss called the disappearing European nations and ethnic minorities in his renowned book (Die sterbenden Europäer: Unterwegs zu den Sepharden von Sarajevo, Gottscheer Deutschen, Arbëreshe, Sorben und Aromunen). Gauss, naturally, is not alluding to the fact that diseases erupted among some European minorities that decimated their numbers. He nevertheless is of the opinion that old customs, cultures as well as languages are disappearing. Europe owns its wealth to smaller nations, the jacket of his book proclaims, yet some are now under threat of disappearing for good. Europe, if I may add so myself, is full of minority organizations and high-flown declarations on national minorities; these, however, are no guarantee that the minorities will not disappear.

They ran out, zmanjkali so, is what they call it in the village of Topolove, where I spent most of my time in the Slovenian Venice “Benečija”, when people have passed away. Mrs. Romilda Filipič’s husband ran out two years ago. But other village locals ran out as well, even those that did not pass away. If nearly four hundred villagers resided in Topolove in 1950, only thirty-five remain there today. They did not pass away. When they “ran out”, they went to Torino and Milan, to Switzerland, Belgium and Argentina. Only one person moved into the village, a dark-skinned young man from Africa that makes his living distributing promotional fliers to households in the valley. He has the Inter football club flag displayed out on the balcony of the abandoned house where he moved in.

He says that he would like to, once he has some money saved up, buy a few cows that would graze around the village, that even when he was still in Africa he would dream about owning a small herd of cows. A nice thought, but where would they graze? From Hlodič in the valley up to Livške Ravne in Slovenia, everything is overgrown. The shrubs are making their way towards the orchards and grape vines, right towards the outskirts of the village, as if the shrubs want to swallow them with their ruthless growth.

“When I was a child,” says Italo Rucli in his Venetian-Slovenian dialect, “there would be forty of us children running around five houses in the lower part of Topolove, five from our house alone. All of them have left.” Even himself. He lives in Torino, where he used to be a factory worker and also a stagehand. Now that he is retired, he often returns to the place of his youth. Italo is the last descendant of Ruklis, a dynasty of free farmers that together with the Garjup family founded the village, meaning that as far away as in the 13th century they set up the first houses here, the Garjup family in Gorenja, the Ruklis in Dolenja vas. And then they co-existed for centuries in harmony, and of course had some disagreements here and there, too. Later on the Filipiči, Ferletiči, Bukovci, and others would marry into the two families and move to the area as well. Italo’s memory reaches back to a time when his father used to own his own tavern and when they would drag up full bottles from the valley using mules, and bring back empty ones. Back to a time when the village still had a school, when in the basement of the house where I was now living, the Partisans were hiding during World War II. The five young men that were surprised by the Germans in Topolove in 1944 “ran out” in the woods behind the village. They are buried in the graveyard next to St. Michael’s Church, reigning over the village and the surrounding hills. I have tried to find out more about this event that has undoubtedly left a such a profound mark on the village, but when the conversation turns to the political aspect of the village history, the people of Topolove have little to say. “We are defiant, but not too much,” writes the local poet Aldo Clodič, “because we are afraid to lose our souls.”

In the evening, as I am reading Erwin Rommel’s war journals, I come across a story about the greatest mountain battle in world history and the breakthrough at point 1114 that demolished Italian defence at the Isonzo front. It happened up there, above my head, where an officer’s outpost on the outskirts of Topolove used to be.

Elegant strategic writing on tactics, tricks, penetrating into the Italian outskirts. “Loss of 3 soldiers, loss of a lieutenant, loss of 7 men on the enemy side.” Nowhere in the report is blood mentioned, neither are penetrated skulls nor torn off hands, sweat, dead horses, lice, or the smell of latrines. War appears to be glorified and beautified through Rommel’s victory march. No wonder he wanted a repeat. The village of Topolove makes an appearance at several points, Italian soldiers would be fleeing from Livek here, it was also mentioned when writing about Rommel’s German unit that pulled off the infamous breakthrough at Kobarid – more widely known in the historical literature under the Italian name Caporetto, and also the “miracle at Caporetto” – when a crowd of Austrian soldiers gathered, speaking every language imaginable, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, and also Slovenian.

Italo speaks “Sloviensko”, a Slovenian dialect with an inkling of the language our ancestors spoke. Generally speaking, here in Benečija I have this constant feeling that underneath the exterior of the Italian language spoken here in taverns and shops, lies a language that is deeply rooted here. There practically isn’t a person here – including those, of course, that remained here – that you would not be able to communicate with in the Slovenian language. Apart from the charming older gentleman from Milan that comes to Topolove because he married a local. One evening, as the locals were gathering in front of houses, just as they did in the old times, to have a lively chat, he asks me in Italian how I feel as a foreigner here. He would come to regret the question in an instance, as his wife, her sisters, and generally speaking all the women present there explained to him in a slightly jokingly, but a very loud and decisive manner that he was the foreigner here. The gentleman tries to object: “This is Italy, I can’t be a foreigner here.” The women, talking over each other, tell him that in the seventeen years coming here, he could have picked up a Slovenian word or two. The gentleman apologizes to me, I apologize to him. Truth be told, we were both foreigners in this spot.

As I order a glass of a dry Tokaj wine in the village of Škrutovo (Scrutto), adding “secco” just in case, I get recognized straight away: “You are from Slovenia, are you not? We say, ‘an suh tokaj’ here.” “An suh tokaj”, “ušafam”, “senjam”, “adno”, “tuole”, “sonce sieje”, “rože uonjajo”[1] become the dialect words in the coming weeks that get the locals to open up to a bit. Having a bit of an ear for languages and the ability to adapt, the dialect does not present much of an issue. Perhaps a linguist can set the record straight, but it felt like in the Nadiža valleys there are three equal language levels to be found here, and the weekly newspaper Novi Matajur is printed in all three of them. These levels are separate and people mostly switch back and forth between the Slovenian dialect and Italian without transferring too many words from either of the two languages. Official Slovenian language is not completely foreign to them, but it is certainly not spoken by the locals, but rather by foreigners, linguistic neighbors for the other side of the high mountains, Kanin, Matajur, and Kolovrat. Followed right away by the bridge in Muost (Most), where there is an invisible line between the regions of Furlanija (Friuli) and Benečija (Veneto), where one can buy apples and apple juice and get talking to local apple growers in Slovenian.

And as the ancient sounding language, everything else in Benečija seems to have an air of ancientness around it as well. You get the feeling that the human chain, making its way throughout the centuries, is somehow still quite well preserved. I would say an “ancient world”, but it seems to me that the country and its people should be labeled with Slovenian words exclusively; words like starožitnost, starosvetnost (meaning the ancient cultural, material, societal traditions or customs – folklore) come to mind. The first one surely being of Czech origin, I have no doubt that it was brought over by linguists in a time when only the real authentic Slavic words sounded splendid, to revive the ancientness, the origins, and the hagiographic works written by our ancient ancestors. In Benečija, under the surface of modern life, an age-old Slavic world is still present. Under the layer of Italian, which – truth be told – only became prevalent in the last fifty years, the old dialect is still present everywhere, spoken by practically all the residents of the Nadiže (Natisone) and Ter (Torre) valleys, in the region of Rezije the dialect is called rezijansko. Only in the old Schiavonia can it happen that while you are in Sriedno – and viewing the nicely set up signs with place names, with which the local government of the province of Udine (Videm) gives the Slovenian origins of local toponyms their due consideration – you are approached by a man named Bepo, clarifying that this stands for Slovenian name Jože, and so already ten minutes into the conversation you find that spirit of sosednje lives on.

Sosednje in the time of the Venice Republic were local village assemblies that elected their representatives into veliko sosednjo or arengo, a type of a parliament for the Slovenian Venetto region (Benečija) that had jurisdiction over all important local matters. The Republic of Venice gave autonomy to the highlander in exchange for border protection against the Habsburgs. Nowhere else is it possible to so easily envisage that today’s inhabitants are direct descendants of Venetian Slovenians that considered sosednje to be the most important power. Those that did not immigrate are the descendants of first settlers. As far back as anyone can remember, there have been descendants of their ancestors who preferred Italy over Austria. In 1866 they chose Italy in a plebiscite. They were certain that Italy would give them back their self-governance, the kind they had had under the Venice Doges (la Serenissima Repubblica, “the Most Serene Republic”) and lost under Austria. A few years prior, the Slovenian patriot Podreka put into words the well-known anthem “Predraga Italija” (Dearest Italy). “Predraga Italija/ preljubi moj dom/ do zadnje moje ure/ jest ljubu te bom” (Dearest Italy, my dearest home, will love you until my final hour). Italy and Slovenian folk traditions were not mutually exclusive concepts. At the beginning of the 20th century, people would read books published by Mohorjeva družba in Ljubljana and as late as in the 1920s would borrow books from Ljubljana libraries by post.

These were grandchildren of men that after World War I believed that their sense of allegiance to Benečija and their Slovenian language was something completely compatible with the Italian state. The disappointment was bitter. No one foresaw what was soon to come – fascism. Today this is where sons of men live that had their every last illusion of acceptance shattered at a time when each Slovenian word uttered in public was forbidden, even in churches. The Church as an institution unfortunately went along with this. Not only agreed, but even put out a public decree: all praying was to be done in Italian. It was not until decades later that it would apologize for the suffering of many ordinary people, among them the well-known chaplain Martin Čedermac that became the main protagonist in a novel by Slovenian author, France Bevk. The people here simply could not understand in what opposition their language (Slovenian) could be to the state and nationalist ideologies. Never mind religious services.

And in the old times it was simply a matter of course that Slovenian was being spoken around here. An Italian soldier after arriving to Špeter in the Nadiža (Natisone) valley on 5 September 1915 wrote in his journal that he had arrived “to the first out of seven municipalities where the Slovenian dialect was being spoken (dialetto sloveno)”. It was a language he did not understand. Same way as the Italian spoken by the soldier was not understood by the 7-year-old boy from Robič, called Stanko. His last name, Robanchich (Robančič), was completely Slavic, the Italian soldier noted. On the other side of the mountains in Kobarid, two days later, he would write: “I enter a few stores and I still see mysterious faces, same as with my first visit. No. These Slovenians are not fond of us yet. They tolerate us with indifference and disguised hostility. They think we are here just transiently and don’t wish to be on bad terms in case the masters of yesterday should happen to return tomorrow.”

The soldier that would in 1923, a few years later, publish his journal as a book under the title “Il mio diario di Guerra” (My war journal), was Benito Mussolini.

The people of these valleys had always been travellers, travelling the world as salesmen called krošnjarji, selling everyday items like grooming products, leather belts, shoelaces, etc. and carrying them on their backs, as well as knife (blade) grinders, but they would also always come back. That is until they were swept up by a strong immigrant whirlwind in the 1950s that would come to change the entire landscape here, much more than the states and the systems that outlived them ever would. Nowadays they only come back for Rožinca, a picturesque celebration of Mary’s Ascension Day, when they gather around churches, bless August flowers inside them, bake pastry called gubanca, reminisce, pray in Italian, and sing in Slovenian: “Češčena si Marija…” (Hail Mary), „Bo zadnja ura bila…” (When the final hour strikes). The words that will be uttered at the final hour will be Slovenian. I was invited to Rožinca, as about hundred or so former Topolove locals and their families gathered from all over the world. I had to leave, however, before the delicious treats prepared by local women were put on the table – at a gathering of locals on their native soil, locals that go back five generations, sharing a lot of history, a traveller does not feel completely comfortable. Come to find out next day that I was resented a bit. A lady from the neighboring village of Seuce had explained to me what tremendous honour receiving the invitation had been. She, living in the next village, had never been invited by the locals of Topolove.

Things appeared to have remained the same, yet everything was different at the same time as well: the people, their customs, their language, and the landscape. “It used to be so pretty around here!” a local farmer near Gornji Tarbij says, pointing at the forests that were vast pastures just a few decades ago. It was lovely, a lot of cows and the shepherds that used to tend to the cows would see krivopete as they tended to them. There are no shepherds left, no cows, no krivopete.

The locals, especially in Topolove and other surrounding villages, are now reporting a different type of sightings, of other peculiar people, of artists that gather each year at Topolove station, some of them wandering around aimlessly long afterward.

I came across Postaja Topolove (Topolove Station) purely by chance a few years ago, when I first wandered into these hills. It was called “the last stop” back then, as its creators from all over the world also drew inspiration from the state border above the village, the border that had Benečija completely locked into a corner. Back then this was still a border between two worlds. An unpleasant border: the upper state border would be guarded by grim Yugoslav border police, the villages themselves were patrolled by suspicious-looking Italian state officials. In their bureaucratic minds, speaking Slovenian meant being a Yugoslavia sympathizer. Members of the underground Italian right-wing organization Gladio were also active in these parts. To them, those that spoke Slovenian were all communists, because during the war they had helped partisans, which was true, while after the war they were said to be fond of Yugoslav political shifts and all the “power to the people” battle cries, which wasn’t.

The border had fallen, was done away with officially as well, yet will remain in place in the minds of people on both sides for the border for a long time to come. What has also survived is an interesting and creative project capable of integrating contemporary creativity into an ancient rural environment and even drawing inspiration from it.

Its creative masterminds are the painter Moreno Miorelli and architect Donatella Ruttar, both from the neighboring village of Lesje. Painters, musicians, filmmakers, and singers come to visit this unique art colony each year in July, spending time together, tearing down the walls and borders built between themselves and the world, and even or above all those in their minds. The conceptual art created here leaves behind traces of creative imagination. The village of Topolove has a fictional post office, an airport, a library, research institutes, all fictitious and yet real at the same time, as only possible in art. Above the village, between the church and the graveyard, where Partisans are laid to rest among the locals as well, Partisans that “vanished” in 1944, lies a type of a sarcophagus, a cement coffin, with a memo on it stating it may be opened in 2125. It includes the sealed “secrets” of Topolove locals: letters, photographs, their opinions, official documents. When the 5th generation “runs out”, the future generations will be able to see what remains of their Topolove ancestors in the sarcophagus.

As Moreno and Donatella explain during a dinner at Pri pošti in Hlodič, the organizers did not always have an easy task as they were introducing contemporary conceptual art into a patriarchal environment. The proponents of the “local culture” would for example oppose Australians being driven in: “Why should our people care about Australia!” This could have been the case anywhere, however. All things considered, even in the neighboring town of Čedad (Cividale del Friuli) the locals are not too fond of the contemporary Central European Mittelfest and its theater performances. They prefer the August holiday of Sveti Donat, when they all dress up in medieval costumes. Nevertheless, the Postaja Topolove project continues to run, and is in fact becoming a great model on how to bring together the folk, the local and the cosmopolitan, the archaic and modern dimension, a model for breaking walls and borders and for building bridges way high up. For a brief period each summer, the village of Topolove comes alive with artists. Yet shortly afterwards, things return back to normal – to more or less being empty and quiet.

As I say goodbye, I also visit the “Novi Matajur” editorial room in Čedad. There are issues of “Primorski dnevnik” on the table with big headlines announcing the opening of a new bilingual primary and middle school in Špeter. New, better times have arrived in a united Europe. They say this is a historical event that will gradually help give these parts back their Slovenian identity. Miha Obit, a poet and one of the editors, is a fairly reserved and quiet person. Maybe he is simply not showing great excitement due to his poetic character, perhaps he is a sceptic at heart.

I stop my car on my way from Čedad to the village of Topolove along the Nadiža river to go through his collection of poems called “Leta na oknu” (Years on a windowsill), which I received as a gift from him. A poem called “Čišnje” (češnje – cherries) catches my eye. Čišnje is a village in the Rečanska dolina (the River Valley) that has been completely overgrown by bramble shrubs, hazelnut trees, forests: “The village had nothing to give me/ only its demise:/ caved in walls and/ bulging beams… What was it that we wanted?/ To rebuild/ Up we go, stone by stone –/ With extreme efforts/ As was done centuries ago – this village?”

The next evening in Ljubljana I was looking at the dark slope of Mount Krim. For a moment there I was in Topolove again, in the village where I had spent almost a month in. In a nest made of stones, clinging to the high slope far towards the west, below the Kolovrat hill. On a lonely evening, when only a nice glass of dry Tokaj wine kept me company under the stars, this village more so than of a nest reminded me of a stone ship, with the almost autumn wind blowing through it. A ship that was lifted high up by a green wave, launched from the valley deep down below. The houses of the Drej, Žnidar, Blažikov, and Malnar families, piled up on top of one another, on the slope of a large green wave bursting out onto the surface. Right on top, on the front of a stone ship called Topolove, stands the church of St. Michael, here below, in Lower Topolove, is where the fodder is, together with the church tower and its bell, rising up under rocky peaks. Topolove is a ship that rode a green wave and got stranded on its ridge. She stayed still there, time stood still along with her, and her travellers went on and got scattered around all parts of the world. I feel how time has stopped here, it has suddenly gone dark, no way to see left or right, let alone the even higher green waves. One wave has the lights on, there are some people manoeuvring their way through the turbulent landscape on, people who have not “run out”, up in Trušnje, the few remaining inhabitants of ancient Schiavonia remain.

As Miha Obit writes: “Ni bil večer, ki / Je podarjal mir./ Bil je oster vonj/ Odsotnega življenja.” It was not the evening / that brought peace./ It was the strong smell/ of absent life.

Translated from the Slovenian by Ruth Polegek Lüth

[1] In the Venetian-Slovenian dialect: one dry Tokaj, I meet (I get), I dream, a single one, here, the sun is shining, the flowers smell nice.