Mobilisation of memory

Abstract

The paper analyses Slovenian picturebooks intended for children up to ten years of age, representing the partisan movement. The analysis focuses on the construction of cultural memory and identity. Early partisan picturebooks drew on folklore texts by employing anonymous protagonists, the motifs of struggle against overwhelming enemies, as well as symbolic interactions with and assimilation into animals and vegetation. Their struggle symbolically positions the partisans in a liminal space between separation from a fascist-oppressed society and reintegration into a new, more just social order. Two intersecting discourses can be identified: commitment to anti-fascist resistance and pacifism. Children are sometimes depicted as child soldiers legitimising the partisan cause, but more often as witnesses of wartime suffering. In the 1960s, the theme of forgetting emerged, reflecting both the erosion of recognition of war victims and a constructive forgetting that facilitates reintegration into peacetime society.