Istria on the Internet - Literature - Critiques and Book Reviews

Marjan Tomšić, Šavrinke

Šavrinke (Istra), KG 1986; 2. popravljena izdaja 1991

Book

SHAVRINKAS (1986) - the novel that literary historians describe as the work of "magic realism" in which the author tells us about rural life in the country named Shavrinija. Istria was a very poor area during the Wars and after them. The popularity in Istria is mainly rural, but the soil is not very fertile. As social-etnological phenomena we can see Shavrinkas whose lives and jobs represent a link between poor peasants and trade center - the city of Trieste, where Shavrinkas and some Shavrine-men carry their produce of the field, trying to sell it in the market and as exchange they bring home things essential for life that can not be grown at the field, such as thread, petroleum, soap or small amount of money itself which is used for payment of taxes. In the meantime Istrian men work in the fields, do housework and care for children. Life motive of Shavrinkas is seen from their comprehension of the world to be fatal, magic, irrational, in which each occurance has its place and meaning.

Play
IT SOUNDS FROM EARTH, IN FIRE IT CHANGES TO A VOICE, THEN IN SMOKE IT TURNS TO A STORY - A SOUND DOCUMENT OF MAGIC TUNES OF LIFE

The play of Marjan Tomšić (adaptation by Petra Tanko) is about unusual Istrian women, Shavrinkas; about their comings and goings through strong wind to a day and night: we, the recreators of the story, have heard a tale told from the bowels of the country where those proud travellers and caretakers of lives have lived, representing real delegates of the Great Mother Earth on istrian soil.

They have met several good and bad people on their travels and heard joyful and dark secrets of their homes. Documentary sides of the stories about their survival with the travelling trade and about their adventures and meeting on their travels between home and Trieste have left many traces in the cultural tradition of the region. Based on real events, the tradition poured at first to collective memory, then to oral stories told from one generation to another and at last to magic texts of writers like Tomsic.

Production of the play in acoustic environment where the play belongs, therefore should happen in the heart of the Istrian land; in its substantiality. Therefore, we have lit the fire in Tona's fireplace and instead in the studio, we have put actors'voices under the roof of her house, in her rooms. We have recorded the play of voices and audio spaces of the Istrian past.

We have heard the play by the fireplace, we have played it in the middle of fire smoke, we have told it between the same strong wind and smoke where their ancient stories have been listened to. We have leaned our microphones on the Istrian land, on its stone and its soft soil and borrowed some of its audio features. And we have borrowed a piece of silence under its starry sky.

IGOR LIKAR

A radio play We Belong to the Stone, the Soil and the Stars, Too is an adaptation from th motives of the novel Shavrinkas. Regarding space and time frame, it is, comparing to the novel reduced and limited to an evening meeting by the fireplace of Filomena Sturmanka, where Shavrinka sleep several times when they are on their travels. There, chilled and famished Shavrinkas are treated wit a stew and hot wine, which heat their bodies and hearts too. Pleasant companionship and chat, that reach the highest point with a song and dance, reveal to us their sincere and also veiled intimate thoughts about people and their good and bad inclinations. The main idea is shown in the figure of Katina, because it opens an extension of a miracle that explains, and at the same times veils, individual's identity as well as extends over physical borders of the Earth - up to the Stars.

Authenticity of the radio play may be seen in the sound concept, that has overgrown the walls of a studk as the radio play has been recorded mostly in a museum's object "Ethnological collection of Tona¹ house" in the village St. Peter in Slovene Istria. Therefore, acoustics of the Istrian house made of ston and its fireplace and especially the sound of strong wind, eternal companion of Shavrinkas, additional! vivify illustration of their lives.

PETRA TANKO

Author

MARJAN TOMŠIČ was born in 1939 at Rače near Maribor. After his job as a pedagogue and as a journalist he became a free-lance artist and writer. For the last years he has been living and working at Koper and his themes have been motives from Istria and the lives of Istrian people. His works, defined by genres, are:

science and psycho fiction
satire
grotesque
humouresque
comedy
critical social work
erotic and love stories
magism of life
fairy tales and children's fantasy world.

As far as form is concerned, he has written short and long prose works as: Circle in Circle (1968), Beyond (1980), Olives and Salt (1983), Shavrinkas (or Šavrinke) (1986), And you simply go (1987), Super lasses (1988), Caphoria (1988), Eternal wind (1989), Cottages (1990), Swearword (1991), Corn seed (1993), Heads up, Ears down (1993), A Fire Glow (1994), A Gypsy Woman (1994), A Clown (1996), Stories about Snakes (1996), Return (1996), The Little Ones (1998), Space Dust (1999).

His opus contains also a collection of folk storries from Istria: Night is Mine, Day is Yours (1989), then radio plays (A Cube, Three, A Key, Black Angel) and scripts for critical social cartoons (Snakes, A Stone, A Door, A Cocoon and others). A lot of his time has been dedicated to editorial work; he has written many accompanying words and has cooperated at a lot of antologies. For his novels, short stories, radio plays and cartoons he has received several awards at Slovenian and International festivals, several times he has been nominated for the writer of the best Slovenian novel (Award Kresnik) and in 1992 he received Award of Preseren's fund for the collection of short stories Cottages and the novel Swearword. In 1996 he received Kocijancic's award for his Istrian opus.

Source:

Pokrajina te povabi - podobe Šavrinke - http://www.rtvslo.si/savrinke/

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