Tomšič’s Literary Opus between the Šavrinian Women (Šavrinke) and the Alexandrinians (Šandrinke)

Abstract

According to its formal and spiritual characteristics, the Slovene literary history has classified the prose of Marjan Tomšič as the Slovene variety of magical realism or at least put it in its vicinity. However, it needs to be noted that in his works about the Alexandrians (aleksandrinke) the writer diverged from this denotation. In his collection of novellas The Southern Wind (Južni veter) and in the novel The Bitter Sea (Grenko morje), the key social, national, and moral impetuses go beyond the pagan and Christian mythologies, the emphasised interest in the mysterious, and the closeness to the enchanted, bringing those works into the sphere of new forms of realism where there is no more space for a product ive synthesis of magical and realistic elements.