SLOVENIAN AND AUSTRIAN NATIONAL QUESTION IN THE TIME OF MODERNISM. NATIONAL CONTAMINATION OF CULTURE OR CULTURAL CONTAMINATION OF THE NATION?

Viennese Modern Age (Wiener Moderne) (1890-1910) is one of the artistic highlights of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as the whole of Central Europe. Modern fermentation was not only present in Vienna but was also expanded to the crown lands, where the modernism received its local varieties. A number of Slovenian artists living in Vienna found themselves under the influence of Wiener Moderne. Although Paris was the city that influenced the Slovenian Modern Age, there are certain specific and recurring themes that bind Slovenian and Austrian modernism at the end of 19th century. One of the most important questions is: what is the homeland and how are nation and culture connected? The article provides some of the key issues in the intrusion of national art, as well as ethnic dilemmas of Austrian and Slovenian artists. Did Austrian culture contaminate Slovenian or the other way round? Or did they fertilize each other and wouldn't be able to exist without the cross-contamination? Furthermore, the article should also take into account that the appearance of modern art itself is the contamination of the old with the new (and vice versa), which is reflected in the style, as well as generational battle of old vs. young. Several letters, autobiographies and literary works of the leading representatives of the Wiener Moderne were analysed: Hermann Bahr, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Leopold Andrian, Arthur Schnitzler, Ivan Cankar, Oton Zupancic, Max Fabiani, Alojz Gradnik, and many other.