Director of the Department of South Slavonic and Balkan Studies, Faculty of Arts in Prague

I studied Slovenian language and literature, comparative literature, and philosophy at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. The subjects I chose during my studies aroused my intellectual curiosity as well as my nomadic spirit. At the time, I also read a lot and I tried to critically respond to what was happening in society and I also travelled a lot around Europe during my studies. Perhaps my desire to learn about new cultures, to be in contact and in dialogue with others remained from those times. Restlessness is most certainly a genetic trait of mine. I was enticed by the attractiveness of other cultures, which I also often saw as the experience of my generation. After completing my studies, I had to end my "bohemian" student life in Ljubljana and face the reality of life in Yugoslavia and the situation in Slovenia in the 1980's – this was a period that was anything but encouraging for young people. In those days, experts in Slavonic languages who were just starting out did not have many work opportunities and I was not happy with my job at a vocational school in Kranj, so I decided to apply for a free position as a Slovenian language teacher at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. I went to Prague excited, but this excitement soon turned into disappointment.  Sadly, at the time, the work of a university teacher was limited because, in the 1980's, the Department of Slavonic Languages in Prague did not encourage small south Slavonic languages, with the exception of Serbo-Croatian, and the atmosphere in a totalitarian society was very paranoid and depressing.  However, this period also saw the beginning of my creative activities: the forced solitude compelled me to additionally reflect and – to write. I began writing literary texts, mainly poetry. 

Living in Prague marked the beginning of my life abroad. I only returned to Slovenia for a few years and I soon applied for a Fulbright scholarship – for a position at Columbia University in New York.  Encountering American culture and working at a prestigious university was an incredibly rewarding experience, which only encouraged my creativity. 

I followed the beginnings of Slovenian statehood with great excitement and I signed the plebiscite on sovereignty in December 2000 in New York. In the 1990's, due to the imminent danger of war, I decided to live with my family in the Czech Republic. For a few years in the early 1990's, I worked as a scientist and expert in Slavonic languages at the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague and then I also worked for a few years as a teacher at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and at the University of Nottingham. After spending a few years teaching at various universities around the world, I returned to Prague in 2001 and decided that I would finally settle here. In 2002, I applied for a position at the Department of Slavonic Languages at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague and I became a lecturer of Slovenian literature. Meanwhile, I obtained a doctorate in Ljubljana and a habilitation at the Faculty of Arts in Brno a few years later. I have always found working with students very intellectually stimulating and fulfilling. Of course, living in an academic environment – at Slavonic departments in Prague that very quickly changed their orientations and programmes – was not always without issues, but I always had Slovenian literature and Slovenian culture and there were always students who wanted to know a lot. 

I still love teaching Slovenian literature and culture and I try to not only introduce Czech students to Slovenian literary works, but also to Slovenian culture and language. This has simply become my way of life and my former students are now a part of my circle of friends and acquaintances in Prague. In the past year, my position at the Department changed. I became the Director of the Department of South Slavonic and Balkan Studies at the Faculty of Arts in Prague. This position involves more responsibilities, but it also provides various opportunities: together with my co-workers, I decided to modernise old study programmes. By doing so, I also promote the Slovenian language at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, which for several years did not have a very good position in the Department.

I still love writing: poetry as well as prose. My new novel was published a few days ago. I gladly "move" between scientific work, lectures and literary writing. I do not hide the fact that, like all who live in a different culture, I have two identities, but this is a part of my destiny, one that I have chosen for myself. The sense of distance is sometimes liberating, as it encourages critical thinking. Let me conclude by quoting Cankar's words from Strangers: "Therefore, he – perhaps inadvertently and unaware – broke all bonds and he was now free, he was his own." My "emigration" was indeed my spiritual choice. In the background, however, there grows within me an existential commitment to the Slovenian language, to my sense of self and to my own truth.