"Slovene Spirit" as a Poetic Category

Abstract

The essential shift in the direction towards the musical-national idiom occurs after the French revolution, when nationalism has become the leading form of thought Following Herder the character of the national representative is ingrained in folklore, to which the assertion of the national idea awards also aesthetic value. With the French occupation of the Slovene territory there comes to an increasing assertion of alien (above all German) national consciousness, while the constantly increasing sense of history gradually strengthens also the Slovene self-assurance. The original pan-European ideas receive a specific national colouring, into the foreground comes the idea of the national to which music as well subordinates itself. What is felt as national and termed "Volksgeist" (national spirit) opens the concert podium also to musical amateurs. The conscious decision to originate a new musical idiom, in terms of nationally-awakening criteria understandably decreases the value of what is musically autonomous.