“Every monument erected by a nation to its greats is erected to the nation itself”: Vodnik, Prešeren, and the nationalization of the Carniolan capital’s topography

This paper center-stages the canonization of two key figures of Slovenian poetry, each of the early nineteenth century: Valentin Vodnik and France Prešeren, and the placement of their statues in the public space of Ljubljana, capital of the Habsburg province of Carniola. Late in the nineteenth century, monuments to “cultural saints” became an important symbolic battlefield for the Slovenian national movement, striving for greater cultural and political autonomy. More broadly understood, Ljubljana turns out to be a paradigmatic example of how the literal battle for the nationalization of the city was fought through the occupation of public space by statues of “great men of literature.” The struggle, then, adopts semiotic significance. The Carniolan capital would eventually become a spiritual metropolis of “Slovenedom,” densely sown with far-reaching monumental symbols.