In this paper, using an approach created by researchers in the field of imagology, I analyse the image of Switzerland in Kovačič’s novel and compare it with the image of France as seen by the first-person narrator of Le testament français through his grandmother’s stories and his own studies of French culture and history. In the second part of the discussion I expand on this theme with research of the characters of male and female migrants who in encountering a foreign environment experience either themselves or others as foreigners. In the last part of the paper I analyse how Otherness is presented as an attitude towards the world in both novels.
KEY WORDS: foreigners, topicology, Lojze Kovačič, Andreï Makine

In this paper, using an approach created by researchers in the field of imagology, I analyse the image of Switzerland in Kovačič’s novel and compare it with the image of France as seen by the first-person narrator of Le testament français through his grandmother’s stories and his own studies of French culture and history. In the second part of the discussion I expand on this theme with research of the characters of male and female migrants who in encountering a foreign environment experience either themselves or others as foreigners. In the last part of the paper I analyse how Otherness is presented as an attitude towards the world in both novels.
KEY WORDS: foreigners, topicology, Lojze Kovačič, Andreï Makine

The paper deals with the attitude of socialist Slovenia towards political emigrants using archival materials from the Republic Secretariat for Internal Affairs in Ljubljana. The basic materials are microfilms of the annual reports of the Slovenian State Security Service, which were sent to the Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs in Belgrade. The majority of the archival materials have been sent to the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia and are available to the public. Using a historical approach and time and content sampling methods, the author analyses the individual reports and places them into a wider historical context. His intent is to bring attention to the absurd amount of surveillance of people and postal parcels conducted during the socialist period. It is difficult to compare the Slovenian and/or Yugoslavian operations in the area of state security with those of e.g. the Stasi in East Germany and other state security forces in eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we do find examples of similar operations, particularly during the period of greater influence of the Soviet Union immediately after the Second World War. A significant part of the paper discusses the attitude of the State Security Service towards Slovenian political emigrants around the world.
KEY WORDS: socialist Slovenia, political emigration, Republic Secretariat for Internal Affairs, state security, postal surveillance

The paper deals with the attitude of socialist Slovenia towards political emigrants using archival materials from the Republic Secretariat for Internal Affairs in Ljubljana. The basic materials are microfilms of the annual reports of the Slovenian State Security Service, which were sent to the Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs in Belgrade. The majority of the archival materials have been sent to the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia and are available to the public. Using a historical approach and time and content sampling methods, the author analyses the individual reports and places them into a wider historical context. His intent is to bring attention to the absurd amount of surveillance of people and postal parcels conducted during the socialist period. It is difficult to compare the Slovenian and/or Yugoslavian operations in the area of state security with those of e.g. the Stasi in East Germany and other state security forces in eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we do find examples of similar operations, particularly during the period of greater influence of the Soviet Union immediately after the Second World War. A significant part of the paper discusses the attitude of the State Security Service towards Slovenian political emigrants around the world.
KEY WORDS: socialist Slovenia, political emigration, Republic Secretariat for Internal Affairs, state security, postal surveillance

The article explores the issue of ambivalent identities in transnational migrations between Argentina and Slovenia. Recent migrations between the two states are historically and causally related to political emigration after the Second World War from Slovenia to Argentina and the formation of a diasporic community that asserted complex symbolic links to its homeland. Due to this connection, contemporary migrants can claim and (re)activate their Slovene origin, ‘original’ culture, belonging, citizenship and social identities.
KEYWORDS: transnational migration, ambivalent identities, Argentina, Slovenia, identity politics

The article explores the issue of ambivalent identities in transnational migrations between Argentina and Slovenia. Recent migrations between the two states are historically and causally related to political emigration after the Second World War from Slovenia to Argentina and the formation of a diasporic community that asserted complex symbolic links to its homeland. Due to this connection, contemporary migrants can claim and (re)activate their Slovene origin, ‘original’ culture, belonging, citizenship and social identities.
KEYWORDS: transnational migration, ambivalent identities, Argentina, Slovenia, identity politics

The paper presents, firstly, how the ideological mechanism of inward reproductive spatial distribution works in the European space, whose structural consequences are always two opposite cases of identification: “we Europeans” and “we Other Europeans”; and secondly, to illustrate this distribution through the paradoxical case of the acceptance of the Others’ food culture and the rejection of their “national Otherness”.
KEY WORDS: food, culinary, culture, enjoyment, national identity, ideology, the Balkans, EU, Slovenia

The paper presents, firstly, how the ideological mechanism of inward reproductive spatial distribution works in the European space, whose structural consequences are always two opposite cases of identification: “we Europeans” and “we Other Europeans”; and secondly, to illustrate this distribution through the paradoxical case of the acceptance of the Others’ food culture and the rejection of their “national Otherness”.
KEY WORDS: food, culinary, culture, enjoyment, national identity, ideology, the Balkans, EU, Slovenia

A significant minority of immigrants from the other former Yugoslavian republics lives in Slovenia. In research based on qualitative methodology, authors look for possible changes that happened to the immigrants' culinary practices in Slovenia, whereby they are primarily interested in the interpretative schemes that the immigrants employ when reflecting upon these changes. The results show a large amount of pragmatism in relation to the culinary choices, fatalism with respect to the limitations they are encountering in their newly adopted environment, an almost complete absence of nationalist discourses, and an impressive amount of tolerance towards any kind of possible culinary differences.
KEY WORDS: food, ethnicity, nationalism, immigrants, Slovenia

A significant minority of immigrants from the other former Yugoslavian republics lives in Slovenia. In research based on qualitative methodology, authors look for possible changes that happened to the immigrants' culinary practices in Slovenia, whereby they are primarily interested in the interpretative schemes that the immigrants employ when reflecting upon these changes. The results show a large amount of pragmatism in relation to the culinary choices, fatalism with respect to the limitations they are encountering in their newly adopted environment, an almost complete absence of nationalist discourses, and an impressive amount of tolerance towards any kind of possible culinary differences.
KEY WORDS: food, ethnicity, nationalism, immigrants, Slovenia