Josip Tavčar na stečišču kultur

In the 1950s, Josip Tavčar won wide acclaim from theatre goers attending the Slovenian National Theatre in Trieste for his first drama, which was a reflection of the sentiment of the citizens of Trieste at the time. Tavčar gained recognition over night, and in his subsequent plays extended the topics of external appearance and consumerism to the degradation of ethical rules and lust for power. Thematically, he was inspired by world events and spoke of the Slovenian bourgeoisie, who lived in accordance with the historical legacy of their environment. Within the context of theatre, part of literary criticism viewed Tavčar’s ability to establish his own subjectivity and his endeavours for the promotion of his own discourse as an extraordinary achievement. When, in Trieste in the 1970s, the presupposition of the suffering foreigner whose life goal is to preserve Slovenian identity became predominant, the original Trieste discourse lost significance. Tavčar persisted and continued to analyse the contemporary reality of Trieste outside the established models. Forty plays, a number of essays and many critical reviews, lecture cycles and translations bear witness to this.