ABSTRACT
Franc Pirc (1785–1880) has among Slovene missionaries an authentic place because of his beleated decision to become a missionary, and because of his original approach to the environment in which he was active. He operated on the territory of two dioceses: Detroit, Michigan (1835-1852) and St. Paul, Minnesota (1852–1873). He set the foundations for the subsequent diocese St. Cloud, Minnesota. Besides his fundamental goal – to acquaint the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians with the gospel and establish among them Christian communities, Pirc was striving for the preservation of their cultural originality and rights, which were in the very period of accelerated formation of the United States and intensive colonisation even more menaced. Thus his work was not limited to only spreading Christianity; Pirc always had before his eyes all dimensions of life of Indian communities, particular was his concern for their health. As he was a writing man, he frequently sent letters to the press in Slovenia and wrote long reports for the Leopoldina’s missionary society in Vienna, which was the organiser of a systematic collecting of means for missions in North America. Franc Pirc has prepared several Indian and German texts of which the majority remained in manuscript. In various ways, he collected means needed for the operating of missionary stations, and spread information on missionary work. Pirc gained several co-workers for the continuation of his missionary and cultural work among the Indinas; his sole visit to Carniola in 1864 was destined to that goal. Of especially witnessing significance are his reports to the bishops of Ljubljana, A. A. Wolf and J. Vidmar. As a very practical and versatile man, Pirc brought to realisation a number of initiatives that have improved the everyday life of the Indians. At the same time, he was setting foundations for the church communities that European emigrants formed. Along that, Pirc was during his entire stay in America maintaining contacts with the Slovene space where he had a good reputation. After his return to Ljubljana in 1873, his compatriots named him “patriarch of Indian missions”.

Bogdan Kolar, doctor of theology, archivist and senior lecturer at the Theological Faculty in Ljubljana.

ABSTRACT
Franc Pirc (1785–1880) has among Slovene missionaries an authentic place because of his beleated decision to become a missionary, and because of his original approach to the environment in which he was active. He operated on the territory of two dioceses: Detroit, Michigan (1835-1852) and St. Paul, Minnesota (1852–1873). He set the foundations for the subsequent diocese St. Cloud, Minnesota. Besides his fundamental goal – to acquaint the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians with the gospel and establish among them Christian communities, Pirc was striving for the preservation of their cultural originality and rights, which were in the very period of accelerated formation of the United States and intensive colonisation even more menaced. Thus his work was not limited to only spreading Christianity; Pirc always had before his eyes all dimensions of life of Indian communities, particular was his concern for their health. As he was a writing man, he frequently sent letters to the press in Slovenia and wrote long reports for the Leopoldina’s missionary society in Vienna, which was the organiser of a systematic collecting of means for missions in North America. Franc Pirc has prepared several Indian and German texts of which the majority remained in manuscript. In various ways, he collected means needed for the operating of missionary stations, and spread information on missionary work. Pirc gained several co-workers for the continuation of his missionary and cultural work among the Indinas; his sole visit to Carniola in 1864 was destined to that goal. Of especially witnessing significance are his reports to the bishops of Ljubljana, A. A. Wolf and J. Vidmar. As a very practical and versatile man, Pirc brought to realisation a number of initiatives that have improved the everyday life of the Indians. At the same time, he was setting foundations for the church communities that European emigrants formed. Along that, Pirc was during his entire stay in America maintaining contacts with the Slovene space where he had a good reputation. After his return to Ljubljana in 1873, his compatriots named him “patriarch of Indian missions”.

Bogdan Kolar, doctor of theology, archivist and senior lecturer at the Theological Faculty in Ljubljana.

ABSTRACT
We understand Pirc’s time as the period before his leaving for America, that is between the years 1785 and 1835, and after his return to the homeland, from 1873 to 1880. In general, we can say Carniola was at Pirc’s departure still just as feudal as it was already capitalist on his return. Generally, we can denote that period as one of the turning points in Slovene history. Joseph II was continuing the dismantling of feudalism that his mother started; the 1848 revolution exterminated it. The Slovene peasant, whom Pirc intended so much attention, became a free citizen.

In economic aspect and in agrarian sphere in particular this was the time of final victory of potato, corn and clover, which entered into Slovene agriculture global changes. The progressing capitalism destroyed the self-sufficiency of agriculture. True, the peasant did no more experience mass famine, the last was in the years 1816/1817, but was becoming increasingly dependent on market economy. The building of the railway Vienna-Triest and its sections destroyed the centuries old sources of income from the non-agrarian activity that were for the Slovene passive agrarian of vital significance. The iron foundry in Carniola fell in ruins. All the mentioned lead the agrarian economy to a deep crisis, which the cooperative movement – along massive emigration – was successfully solving.

The activity of Franc Pirc should be evaluated in the spirit of the time and space. We should derive from the physiocratic economic theory, which was the spine of economic principles of Joseph II and his counsellors. Care for a more profitable and successful agriculture was an official state economic policy in which especially the Agricultural societies joined and thus in theoretic and in practice fields promoted agriculture. As lords of the castles were because of social differences less successful with the task, the more important were clergymen who were easier and more frequently, and least but not last with the authority of the Church carrying out the modernisation of the countryside. Franc Pirc is consequently just one of the large group of Slovene priests of whom besides him Josip Vrtovec and Janez Zalokar impressed in Slovene historical recollection. Characteristic for the mentioned is they were not only practical but as well writers of important agrarian-technical books. A particularity of Franc Pirc is that he attempted as a missionary to transfer Slovene economic-social experience among American Indians. In that view, he presented a significant supplement to the practice of the missionary Friderik Baraga who was on the basis of experience from the homeland creating the general civilisation development of the Indians especially in the field of language.

Stane Granda, doctor of historical sciences, research advisor of the Zgodovinski inštitut Milka Kosa of the ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana.

ABSTRACT
We understand Pirc’s time as the period before his leaving for America, that is between the years 1785 and 1835, and after his return to the homeland, from 1873 to 1880. In general, we can say Carniola was at Pirc’s departure still just as feudal as it was already capitalist on his return. Generally, we can denote that period as one of the turning points in Slovene history. Joseph II was continuing the dismantling of feudalism that his mother started; the 1848 revolution exterminated it. The Slovene peasant, whom Pirc intended so much attention, became a free citizen.

In economic aspect and in agrarian sphere in particular this was the time of final victory of potato, corn and clover, which entered into Slovene agriculture global changes. The progressing capitalism destroyed the self-sufficiency of agriculture. True, the peasant did no more experience mass famine, the last was in the years 1816/1817, but was becoming increasingly dependent on market economy. The building of the railway Vienna-Triest and its sections destroyed the centuries old sources of income from the non-agrarian activity that were for the Slovene passive agrarian of vital significance. The iron foundry in Carniola fell in ruins. All the mentioned lead the agrarian economy to a deep crisis, which the cooperative movement – along massive emigration – was successfully solving.

The activity of Franc Pirc should be evaluated in the spirit of the time and space. We should derive from the physiocratic economic theory, which was the spine of economic principles of Joseph II and his counsellors. Care for a more profitable and successful agriculture was an official state economic policy in which especially the Agricultural societies joined and thus in theoretic and in practice fields promoted agriculture. As lords of the castles were because of social differences less successful with the task, the more important were clergymen who were easier and more frequently, and least but not last with the authority of the Church carrying out the modernisation of the countryside. Franc Pirc is consequently just one of the large group of Slovene priests of whom besides him Josip Vrtovec and Janez Zalokar impressed in Slovene historical recollection. Characteristic for the mentioned is they were not only practical but as well writers of important agrarian-technical books. A particularity of Franc Pirc is that he attempted as a missionary to transfer Slovene economic-social experience among American Indians. In that view, he presented a significant supplement to the practice of the missionary Friderik Baraga who was on the basis of experience from the homeland creating the general civilisation development of the Indians especially in the field of language.

Stane Granda, doctor of historical sciences, research advisor of the Zgodovinski inštitut Milka Kosa of the ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana.

ABSTRACT
The Slovene electronic bibliographical database COBISS, otherwise quite useful and preciuos as a starting point to various researches, yet rather incomplete mainly in regard of older publications, cites approximately 20 bibliographical units on the Slovene priest, promoter of fruit growing, missionary and emigrant priest in the U.S.A. Franc Pirc (1785–1880). The author of his newest biography Franc Pirc (1785-1880), fruit grower in Carniola and missionary in America from 2003, Marjan Drnovšek, PhD, cites in the chapter on literature as many as 40 bibliographical units of which twelve directly relate to Franc Pirc. The purpose of the article is not to give a complete survey on the up to the present bibliography of Franc Pirc but a commented presentation of most significant Slovene biographical publications on him, particularly the works of Florentin Hrovat Franc Pirec oče umne sadjereje na Kranjskem in apostolski misijonar med Indijani v severni Ameriki from 1887, Dr. Franc Ks. Lukman in the Slovene biographic lexicon from 1949, Ivan Zika Franc Pirc oče umne sadjereje na Kranjskem in oče mesta St. Cloud v Ameriki from 1965, and the already mentioned book by Marjan Drnovšek. Presented are some other works as well. In his contribution the author presents and compares the evaluating of Pirc’s life and work and the key data from individual works, particularly those that are with different authors not identical, especially the place of Pirc’s birth and the date of his death.

Andrej Vovko, doctor of historical sciences, senior lecturer for modern and contemporary history at the Pedagogical Faculty in Maribor, research advisor of the Inštitut za biografiko in bibliografijo of the ZRC SAZU.

ABSTRACT
The Slovene electronic bibliographical database COBISS, otherwise quite useful and preciuos as a starting point to various researches, yet rather incomplete mainly in regard of older publications, cites approximately 20 bibliographical units on the Slovene priest, promoter of fruit growing, missionary and emigrant priest in the U.S.A. Franc Pirc (1785–1880). The author of his newest biography Franc Pirc (1785-1880), fruit grower in Carniola and missionary in America from 2003, Marjan Drnovšek, PhD, cites in the chapter on literature as many as 40 bibliographical units of which twelve directly relate to Franc Pirc. The purpose of the article is not to give a complete survey on the up to the present bibliography of Franc Pirc but a commented presentation of most significant Slovene biographical publications on him, particularly the works of Florentin Hrovat Franc Pirec oče umne sadjereje na Kranjskem in apostolski misijonar med Indijani v severni Ameriki from 1887, Dr. Franc Ks. Lukman in the Slovene biographic lexicon from 1949, Ivan Zika Franc Pirc oče umne sadjereje na Kranjskem in oče mesta St. Cloud v Ameriki from 1965, and the already mentioned book by Marjan Drnovšek. Presented are some other works as well. In his contribution the author presents and compares the evaluating of Pirc’s life and work and the key data from individual works, particularly those that are with different authors not identical, especially the place of Pirc’s birth and the date of his death.

Andrej Vovko, doctor of historical sciences, senior lecturer for modern and contemporary history at the Pedagogical Faculty in Maribor, research advisor of the Inštitut za biografiko in bibliografijo of the ZRC SAZU.

ABSTRACT
In this article I demonstrate that Frederick Baraga, a 19th-century Roman Catholic priest and bishop, had a unique access to the consciousness of individual Ojibwa people and to their culture through the sacrament of penance. Through individual auricular disclosures in Michigan, United States, and in Ontario, Canada, he gained insights both into the idioms of the Ojibwa language and into their spiritual dispositions.

According to Baraga, one of his most important and time-consuming missionary activities was “hearing confessions.” The confessional became a unique source of factual and affective information of the Native world; it was a bridge between the Native oral tradition and the European/North American literal approach. Rigorously true to the demands of the seal of the confessional, Baraga did not share the details or even generalities regarding what transpired in the sacrament of penance. Perhaps because of this confidentiality, Natives trusted and welcomed this forum which was like their spiritual vision/sound quest. In this sacrament, Natives revealed their inner selves and their relatedness to their community, for it was a meeting similar to their experience with elders and healers. In its admission of women and girls, confession was an egalitarian relationship similar to principles directing their own Ojibwa society. This penitential form provided a unique insight into the conscience of the Ojibwa, gave clues to their world, and fashioned an understanding of Ojibwa life which Baraga, the “Snowshoe Priest,” used both in the translation of catechisms and prayer and hymn books, and in the compilation of a grammar text and dictionary. The Ojibwa furnished Baraga with an expanded consciousness, which together with his legal skills, served him as he interceded to implore governments to honor treaty agreements, and to make land purchases on their behalf.

Michael M. Pomedli, PhD, is professor of philosophy at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He specializes in Native philosophy and spirituality.

ABSTRACT
In this article I demonstrate that Frederick Baraga, a 19th-century Roman Catholic priest and bishop, had a unique access to the consciousness of individual Ojibwa people and to their culture through the sacrament of penance. Through individual auricular disclosures in Michigan, United States, and in Ontario, Canada, he gained insights both into the idioms of the Ojibwa language and into their spiritual dispositions.

According to Baraga, one of his most important and time-consuming missionary activities was “hearing confessions.” The confessional became a unique source of factual and affective information of the Native world; it was a bridge between the Native oral tradition and the European/North American literal approach. Rigorously true to the demands of the seal of the confessional, Baraga did not share the details or even generalities regarding what transpired in the sacrament of penance. Perhaps because of this confidentiality, Natives trusted and welcomed this forum which was like their spiritual vision/sound quest. In this sacrament, Natives revealed their inner selves and their relatedness to their community, for it was a meeting similar to their experience with elders and healers. In its admission of women and girls, confession was an egalitarian relationship similar to principles directing their own Ojibwa society. This penitential form provided a unique insight into the conscience of the Ojibwa, gave clues to their world, and fashioned an understanding of Ojibwa life which Baraga, the “Snowshoe Priest,” used both in the translation of catechisms and prayer and hymn books, and in the compilation of a grammar text and dictionary. The Ojibwa furnished Baraga with an expanded consciousness, which together with his legal skills, served him as he interceded to implore governments to honor treaty agreements, and to make land purchases on their behalf.

Michael M. Pomedli, PhD, is professor of philosophy at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He specializes in Native philosophy and spirituality.

ABSTRACT
The text has two not too ambitious aims.

With the help of an analysis of concrete migration situations and contexts expressed in life narratives of two international migrants - returnees from (the river Nadiža) Venetian Slovenia (the western brink of Slovene ethnic territory in the north-east of Italy) the text attempts to answer or better say enlighten the question to how much is the physical moving (returning) as well a social movement (returning). It seems that the text does not dissect and analyse too detailed the life stories; it rather leaves that to the interpretations of the readers.

Beside searching for answers to the mentioned question the text is (as well or above all) an authentic and a “unique” “document” of the after war history of (re)migration processes, capitalist development, social excluding etc. as well of the Venetian Slovenia as of the “capitalist” Europe. Migrancy as a sum of migrant’s subjectivities formed through their experiences of numerous and contrastive places has, as says the geographer Lawson (2000, 186), analytical power. The narratives of migrants on oppositional experiences of migration and other co-dependent phenomena and processes in the course of migration have a theoretical power that exceeds the uniqueness of individual narratives or stories. The ambivalence of the narrative places on the surface the contradictoriness of migration, capitalist development, inequality and exclusion etc. of which only those from the margins can speak.

The text also mentions the method as the method is linked up tightly with the objectives of the text. Namely, we must understand migration as an act in time; we must not look for causes for it only among those that present themselves as directly significant or deciding for its establishing (for example as a result of deciding between advantages and disadvantages of defined places). Those causes as well are in some way connected with the migrant’s past and future. The causes for migration should be understood as part of the entire migrant’s life – migrants’ biography. That is why the text presents a large part of migrants’ biographies, which do not mention “directly” the very act of returning to the “source” place. We cannot perceive properly the act of returning if we have not the insight into the motive(s) of the initial departure, of the “social image” of the individual in the “host” society, the “source” society, and of many a thing concealed. Thus, for example to the question why they have returned, Mario replied that because his daughter was to enter primary school. He and his wife wanted her to visit school in Italy. However, Mario’s narrative about Switzerland tells us he did not feel too good in the host country; he was troubled by the exclusionism and superiority of the Swiss, which he describes extensively. Just as well, he tells us in the part of his narrative, which refers to Switzerland that he never intended to stay permanently in that country.

However, more than searching for causes for migration/return the stress is in the text on the social context of the return. What does that mean? It is about social circumstances in different environments, which defined the act of migration/return. At this point, a fair sight into the migrant’s biography is extra profitable. Luigi’s return, which was “unexpected” and which seems even imposed from the side of the “important others” is at least for Luigi even today somewhat “contradictory”. Namely, he returned to a country, which he avoided deliberately for several years, and which he resented many a thing. Thus, more between lines, Luigi emphasises that he did not become particularly accustomed to the “original” environment: after eighteen years of living in Italy, he still has more acquaintances in Belgium; he is inconvenient with “Italian mentality” and with many things in general, connected with this state, which he does not describe with pretty words. After his return, he visited Belgium several times and still does so. In addition, he never actually returned: his son is in Belgium, his sole descendant, and from Belgium, he is receiving his pension. Mario’s return meant on the other hand a final parting, a rigid cut with Switzerland. Although Mario did not return without “consequences” of the emigrant environment, he never took Switzerland for his own. Spontaneously, with no external initiative, he spoke for hours and hours about the injustice, he experienced in that “excessively rich” country.

Any quick (and superficial) glance at the text reveals that the two narratives are different: Mario accentuates the confrontation mainly with the state and the “host” society (Switzerland) while Luigi points out the “conflict” with the original country (Italy). In addition, the return too has a different social connotation. In Mario’s case it seems it has for long been expected while in Luigi’s case the return seems to have been imposed from the side of “important others”.

The life narratives of Mario and Luigi tell us that migrations, journeys are not merely “cold” (unconcerned) movements through space, that they are not only physical motions that lead to sensitising of boundaries, transformation of culture, society, community and spirituality. They are as well acts of imagination where the home and the aim of the journey are constantly being newly conceived and thus forever changed. Is thus returning (howsoever) possible?

Jernej Mlekuž, geographer, ethnologist and cultural anthropologist, Inštitut za slovensko izseljenstvo ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana.

ABSTRACT
The text has two not too ambitious aims.

With the help of an analysis of concrete migration situations and contexts expressed in life narratives of two international migrants - returnees from (the river Nadiža) Venetian Slovenia (the western brink of Slovene ethnic territory in the north-east of Italy) the text attempts to answer or better say enlighten the question to how much is the physical moving (returning) as well a social movement (returning). It seems that the text does not dissect and analyse too detailed the life stories; it rather leaves that to the interpretations of the readers.

Beside searching for answers to the mentioned question the text is (as well or above all) an authentic and a “unique” “document” of the after war history of (re)migration processes, capitalist development, social excluding etc. as well of the Venetian Slovenia as of the “capitalist” Europe. Migrancy as a sum of migrant’s subjectivities formed through their experiences of numerous and contrastive places has, as says the geographer Lawson (2000, 186), analytical power. The narratives of migrants on oppositional experiences of migration and other co-dependent phenomena and processes in the course of migration have a theoretical power that exceeds the uniqueness of individual narratives or stories. The ambivalence of the narrative places on the surface the contradictoriness of migration, capitalist development, inequality and exclusion etc. of which only those from the margins can speak.

The text also mentions the method as the method is linked up tightly with the objectives of the text. Namely, we must understand migration as an act in time; we must not look for causes for it only among those that present themselves as directly significant or deciding for its establishing (for example as a result of deciding between advantages and disadvantages of defined places). Those causes as well are in some way connected with the migrant’s past and future. The causes for migration should be understood as part of the entire migrant’s life – migrants’ biography. That is why the text presents a large part of migrants’ biographies, which do not mention “directly” the very act of returning to the “source” place. We cannot perceive properly the act of returning if we have not the insight into the motive(s) of the initial departure, of the “social image” of the individual in the “host” society, the “source” society, and of many a thing concealed. Thus, for example to the question why they have returned, Mario replied that because his daughter was to enter primary school. He and his wife wanted her to visit school in Italy. However, Mario’s narrative about Switzerland tells us he did not feel too good in the host country; he was troubled by the exclusionism and superiority of the Swiss, which he describes extensively. Just as well, he tells us in the part of his narrative, which refers to Switzerland that he never intended to stay permanently in that country.

However, more than searching for causes for migration/return the stress is in the text on the social context of the return. What does that mean? It is about social circumstances in different environments, which defined the act of migration/return. At this point, a fair sight into the migrant’s biography is extra profitable. Luigi’s return, which was “unexpected” and which seems even imposed from the side of the “important others” is at least for Luigi even today somewhat “contradictory”. Namely, he returned to a country, which he avoided deliberately for several years, and which he resented many a thing. Thus, more between lines, Luigi emphasises that he did not become particularly accustomed to the “original” environment: after eighteen years of living in Italy, he still has more acquaintances in Belgium; he is inconvenient with “Italian mentality” and with many things in general, connected with this state, which he does not describe with pretty words. After his return, he visited Belgium several times and still does so. In addition, he never actually returned: his son is in Belgium, his sole descendant, and from Belgium, he is receiving his pension. Mario’s return meant on the other hand a final parting, a rigid cut with Switzerland. Although Mario did not return without “consequences” of the emigrant environment, he never took Switzerland for his own. Spontaneously, with no external initiative, he spoke for hours and hours about the injustice, he experienced in that “excessively rich” country.

Any quick (and superficial) glance at the text reveals that the two narratives are different: Mario accentuates the confrontation mainly with the state and the “host” society (Switzerland) while Luigi points out the “conflict” with the original country (Italy). In addition, the return too has a different social connotation. In Mario’s case it seems it has for long been expected while in Luigi’s case the return seems to have been imposed from the side of “important others”.

The life narratives of Mario and Luigi tell us that migrations, journeys are not merely “cold” (unconcerned) movements through space, that they are not only physical motions that lead to sensitising of boundaries, transformation of culture, society, community and spirituality. They are as well acts of imagination where the home and the aim of the journey are constantly being newly conceived and thus forever changed. Is thus returning (howsoever) possible?

Jernej Mlekuž, geographer, ethnologist and cultural anthropologist, Inštitut za slovensko izseljenstvo ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana.