Nase Novine, May 05, 1982

              surprize that overcame some Slovene readers of The
Bohunks, or at least the readers of the Slovene American
reports about its content
In spite of these possible influences, Adamic's The
Bohunks has in itself a great significanse. For, in a way, it
performed in Slovene American literature the function that in
Slovenia Levstik's Popotovanie iz Litije do Cateza (Journey
from Litija to Catez) had in 1858: it not only contained the
literary programme for the Slovene Romantic-Realist- s, but
provided the impetus for the writing of the first Slovene novel
(Jurcic's Deseti brat, 1866). For Slovene American writers,
(even for those who wrote in English), Adamic's The Bohunks
opened up vistas on new themes and human conflicts, and at
the same time proveded a new, more deepened way of
viewing the Bohunk who came to the New World with
personal dignity and here became "dung". In 1928 also, Frank
Zaitz incorportated the whole of Adamic's portrait of the
Bohunks, along with a division of its different themes, into
his historical survey AmeriSki Slovenci vderaj, danes in jutri
in the AmeriSki druzinski koledar. Later, the second
best-know- n Slovene American author Frank Mlakar expanded
many of Adamic's ideas in the English article "The Young
Slovene and His People" in 1937 in Enakopravnost. And, in
1950, when Mlakar prepared his novel, He, the Father for
Harper's publishers, its original title was "The Bohunk". Then
there are also Molek's novels from the thirties: all of his
longer works, Dva svetova (Two Worlds) of 1932, Veliko
mravljiSde (The Great Anthill) of 1934, and Sesuti stolp (The
Collapsed Tower) of 1935, for instance, are replete with
examples which corroborate and illustrate Adamic's conclu-sions
in The Bohunks. And after all these years, when we
reread The Bohunks today, and all those articles that stormed
against its contents, we become increasingly convinced that
Adamic's text represents a Slovene American classic in
English, in spite of the fact that it is compositionally far from
perfect and glows artistically only in parts. Throughout his
text, like a golden thread, weaves a profound thought which
might have directly influenced these words on the immigrant
later expressed by the humanist Edvard Kardelj in the
magazine Dejanje in 1938: "The harsh law of the struggle for
existence tears him from familiar and harmonious miliue and
places him into a new one, where he can find his way more or
less outwardly but inwardly not at all".
Are Adamic's Bohunks today only a memory? Is its content
mere material for the history of Slovenes in America? A very
interesting question, risky perhaps, and thus a little painful.
Of couse, today many things have changed. St. Clair Avenue
in Cleveland is no longer predominantly Slovene. The
Catholic parishes are no longer everywhere "strongholds of
medievalism". Our countrymen are coming to this continent
in cosmopolitan, elegant attire and with expensive luggage of
the most recent dictates of fashion. They arrive to the New
World by plane and return the same way to the old country for
a visit, and many do this every year. There are more and more
of us who are refusing to be "dung". The word Bohunk is not
very audible anymore; in fact, the only ethnic epithet which
still appears in print and is followed by applause is WASP —
progress. But then — something like egocentricism has
remained with us, some leading national shepherds are trying
to restore anew the dying old ghettos, especially in those
narrow pastures of the mind. In the air we can still detect a
feeling of cultural transiency among our people, and many
of them are still lost like those poor souls Adamic portrayed.
Moreover, Adamic's three groups have remained, completely
in tact, although the first group is more ineffective than ever,
split into all colours of the rainbow, and the third-th- e
"mob"-ha- s multiplied tremendously in its latest computer
version and has grown to such proportions (-a- nd has at the
same time knowingly or unknowingly also glued itself to the
second group) that even none of the participants in the
polemics surrounding Adamic in the year 1928 could have
imagined anything like it in his dreams... Too bleak?
Perhaps. But we must not forget that Adamic was also forced
to fight this inclination only fifty years ago.
JUTARNJE RIJECl NAD MOJOM POSTELJOM
U mom si domu tek iuta slika vode
Ono more i ona obala kojih viSe nema
U mom si domu duboka tiSina boli koju sluSam
I nije mi lako da ti kalem, da te povrijedim
Onako je dobro, katu, kako ti srce odreduje
Ved je kasno doba, vrijeme na brijegu zri
SluSad slavuja ispija jutarnju modru vodu
Idem njegovim tragom, nebesa iznad gore
Vru vudje odi, a ti ne vidiS niSta nit' slutiS
Niie tvoje da gorama hodiS za mnom, nepovratno
PiSem ti: sve je to kasno, sve je neSto drugo
Jutarnje rijedi nad mojom posteljom
Nad mojim glasom koji o tebi slova sride
Imenicu ditku, s okusom jutra na usnama
Imenicu vode, zrelu kriSku vatre i mesa
Tako e to kad hodeS da si ptica
Kad letiS, letiS pogubno u slere nedokudne
U tuda slova, a svojih se s gadenjem kloniS
U mom si domu bila i ostala daleka i tuina
Sve je dobro Sto se dobrim kale, a znano da ti je
MIL05 KORDIC
W,&u2L. J&L' J&£ ..КЖКшжет®
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M. VASILJEVlC — LILO 12- -