Via Negativa / Svojat:
Fugue for the Nation (Fuga za narod)

Running time: 120 minutes

2026 marks 35 years of Slovenian statehood, during which our nation has been shaping its own destiny, as well as the 150th anniversary of the birth of Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar, who understood that the people and the nation make odd bedfellows. Fugue for the Nation offers a historical perspective on the relationship between the nation-state and the rights of man and of the citizen, as defined by the European Enlightenment. Conceptually, it draws on Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an imagined community, which began to take shape with the development of printing technology, national cultures and modern politics.

Fugue for the Nation understands contemporary national politics as an ideological vehicle for legitimising state power. At its centre is the figure of Kurent, Cankar’s folk musician – portrayed by Andrej Fon, frontman of the avant-rock band Svojat – whose contemporary musical incarnation embodies frustration and resistance to modern-day statism, a system that exploits national identity as a tool of systemic regulation, repression and control. Opposing him is Sperans (Gregor Zorc), the voice of an ideology rooted in the perception of a nation under threat, which remains a constant fixture in Slovenian politics. On the eve of the Second World War, a young Slovenian communist writes:
“The national question is the central issue in Slovenian politics. Yet the Slovenian national movement has never assumed the grand forms that we are accustomed to seeing among other nations. We have remained at the most basic levels of struggle. One of the greatest weaknesses of our national movement, which has hampered its development, has been its extraordinary ideological shallowness.” (Sperans: The Development of the Slovenian National Question, 1939)

After 35 years of statehood, the Slovenian national question remains mired in the ideological shoals of the nationalism of Cankar’s time. Today, as then, “the vast gulf between the people and the nation has become glaringly apparent. Perhaps both the people and the nation felt this vast gulf – perhaps both saw that boundlessly wide, bottomless chasm which has separated them since time immemorial and which is filled to the brim with the putrid water of foul platitudes.” (Ivan Cankar: The Slovenian Nation and Slovenian Culture, 1907)

Like the infernal fugue of the 21st century, the ideology of the nation is becoming increasingly canonical, gathering momentum and growing in intensity. The acceleration of digital communications has further accelerated the travesty of romantic nationalist ideas. This posthistorical machine mercilessly grinds the individual into a formless nationalist mass. Fugue for the Nation is a rebellion against collective historical amnesia, reminding today’s viewers that their reason is a legacy of the past, that their ideologically indoctrinated bodies still have a voice of their own, and that the nation is an imagined political community.