Robar-Dorin's mirror: Rams and Mammoths in the context of Yugoslav history

Abstract

This paper examines the historical and social context of Filip Robar-Dorin's film Ovni in mamuti (Rams and Mammoths, 1985), which revealed ethnic tensions in Slovenia at a critical time before the demise of communism and the looming break-up of multiethnic Yugoslavia. Robar-Dorin's film subversively reveals the ideology of national identity, and therefore does not represent a mirror for Slovenians to see themselves as they would prefer to. Instead, it is a film in which they are compelled not to miss the gaze of the other. The redefined Slovenian national identity as a notion of democracy before the process of significant social and political changes had begun. However, the success of both Robar-Dorin's film and the political alternative was mitigated significantly in later political events.

Keywords:

• film
• literature
• ethnicity
• Slovenia
• socialism
• identity
• nationalism
• Robar-Dorin
• Rams and Mammoths

Notes

1. For an interesting presentation and analysis of Makavejev and his cinema of montage see, for instance, Levi (2007, 18–35).

2. Ivo Andrić was the Bosnian Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1961. He also wrote a number of interesting essays, containing many reflections on the Balkans and its ethnic diversity.

3. The annually published Wine Guide listed ‘550 of the top Slovenian wines’ for 2011. See: http://vinskivodic.si/English.html (accessed 9 December 2010).

4. This refers more or less metaphorically to the ‘Blood and Soil’ ideology based on ethnicity, which is defined through descent (Blood) and homeland (Soil). As described in many encyclopaedias and other such resources, the phrase itself appeared first in the late nineteenth century in Germany. It praised the people's connection to the land and stressed the virtues of rural living. As is well known, the concept of blood and soil preceded Nazi ideology.