Page 47 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 13(1) (2025)

along the trade routes from the Italian harbours Beyond historical and linguistic evidence,
through the Karst region into the interior, with the plague also left a significant mark on Slove-
major outbreaks occurring in Ljubljana, Cel- nian literature. The depiction of plague symp-
je, Ptuj and the coastal towns between the four- toms in Slovenian literary works – including
teenth and seventeenth centuries. Together, the Fran Ksaver Meško’s Črna smrt (1911), Januš
authors documented the development of public Golec’s ‘Zlato in kuga pod križem’ (1934) and
health measures, from early mediaeval isolation Ivan Pregelj’s Plebanus Joannes (1920) – shows
practises to the establishment of formal quaran- striking similarities. The core symptoms de-
tine stations (lazareti) in the seventeenth centu- scribed throughout include fever, unconscious-
ry. The introduction of the cordon sanitaire along ness, nausea, chills and pain, which testifies to
the military frontier was particularly signifi- the uniformity of the plague depictions in these
cant. Social reactions included the emergence of works. In Črna smrt (Black Death) and ‘Zlato
plague saints (especially Saint Roch), the found- in kuga pod križem’ (Gold and the Plague un- 47
ing of votive churches and the development of der the Cross), the presence of dark spots on
specialised medical practises. The economic im- the bodies of the victims explicitly indicates bu-
pact was severe: some towns lost up to a third of bonic plague. Plebanus Joannes offers a distinc-
their population during major outbreaks, lead- tive depiction that emphasises additional symp-
ing to significant changes in urban development toms: the characteristic smell of the patient, the
and social structures. swollen skin, the presence of pus and the altered
The profound impact of the plague is also physical appearance. In contrast, ‘Zlato in kuga
reflected in the Slovenian language. The Slove- pod križem’ offers a remarkably condensed de- Sensory Representations of Plague
nian language already mentions the word kuga scription of the plague. While the literary depic-
(plague) in the Slovenian-Latin German diction- tions vary according to period and style, the ba-
ary by Hieronymus Megister from 1603 (Stabej sic similarity of the symptoms described remains
2023). The term kuga is also mentioned by the in all these works, indicating a common under-
priest Janez Svetokriški in works published at standing of the manifestation of the disease that
the end of the seventeenth and beginning of has persisted throughout Slovenian cultural his-
the eighteenth century, in the context that the tory (Godec Čizmarevič 2022, 74).
plague is raging in the Italian region (v laški Dr Vladimir Travner, a lawyer and local
deželi), that the plague is coming, that the cat- historian, states in his book on the plague in Slo-
tle plague is killing the animals or that someone venia (Kuga na Slovenskem, 1934), in which he
smells of plague (Snoj 2014). Lexicographers and lists the causes and consequences of this disease
translators Matija Kastelec and Gregor Vorenc based on historical sources, that plague epidem-
list various terms for the plague in their Slove- ics hit the Slovenian population hard several
nian-Latin dictionary (1680–1710): contagium, times in the past. According to Travner, in Slo-
contagio, contagies, pestilens and pestis, which is venia, we can count more than 150 plague years,
a harmful and deadly disease that kills everyone from 792, when we have the first more precise
(Stabej 2014). The Slovenian Linguistic Atlas 1 information about the plague, to 1732, when it
(Horvat 2011) documents that the lexeme kuga occurred for the last time (Travner 1934, 141).
(plague) is used throughout Slovenia for ‘serious Zmazek (2022) states that the plague broke out
infectious disease of the lymph nodes, lungs or several times: in the years 1348–1350, 1480 and
blood’. While this is the standard literary term, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
there are some regional variants, such as pest or ries (mainly in the years 1644–1650 and 1678–
pešt, which occur on the Slovenian coast, in the 1683). Until the middle of the sixteenth century,
Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and in the plague came to Slovenian territory main-
Austrian Carinthia (Horvat 2011). ly from the east (from Turkey and Hungary,