Scipio Slataper
| Scipio Slataper | |
|---|---|
| Born |
14 July 1888 Trieste, Austrian Littoral, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Italy) |
| Died | 3 December 1915 (aged 27) Podgora near Gorizia, County of Gorizia and Gradisca, Austria-Hungary (now in Italy) |
| Occupation | essayist, novelist, literary critic |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Genre | essays, autobiography, travel literature |
| Literary movement | Modernism |
Scipio Slataper (14 July 1888 – 3 December 1915) was an Italian writer, most famous for his lyrical essay My Karst. He is considered, alongside Italo Svevo, as the initiator of the prolific tradition of Italian literature in Trieste.
Slataper was born to a relatively wealthy middle-class family the city of Trieste, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today in Italy). His family was of Bohemian and Italian origin. After completing his high school studies in the native city, he moved to Florence in Italy, where he studied Italian philology. In Florence, he collaborated to the literary journal La Voce, edited by Giuseppe Prezzolini and Giovanni Papini. During his stay in Florence, he started writing essays and articles on the literary and cultural situation in Trieste. He maintained a close contact with his native city, collaborating both with young Italian intellectuals from the Austrian Littoral, both those who lived in Italy and those who remained in their native region. Slataper's circle included the journalist and critic Giulio Caprin, author Giani Stuparich, his wife Elody Oblath and his brother Carlo Stuparich, the emerging literary critic Silvio Benco, and poets Umberto Saba, Virgilio Giotti and Biagio Marin.
After the suicide of his lover in 1910, Slataper retired to the village of Ocizla in the Karst plateau above Trieste, where he wrote his most famous work, the lyrical essay My Karst (Italian: Il mio Carso), considered one of the masterpieces of Italian fin-de-siecle prose. The essay, in which Nietzschean influences can be seen, is an assertion of vitalism and primitive life force. The essay also contains political and philosophical reflections. Among other, Slataper was polemical against the superficial business mentality of the Italian merchants of Trieste and criticized their anti-Slavic prejudices. On the other hand, the work contains highly controversial depictions and reflection on the "suppressed brutal and barbaric nature" of the Slovene peasants from the area.
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