ABSTRACT
This essay offers a brief and general survey of expressionism in Slovenia, both the short-lived currents (1918–1924) and expressionism proper (1922–1923), focusing predominantly on the visual arts. It is structured as a general introduction (with a few twists) and subsequent inquiry into the reception of expressionism in Slovenia, which at the time of expressionism’s local emergence after the First World War was already a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1945, but known until 1929 as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes). This will mainly underline the distinctive aspects of the local use of the term and explore the issue of whether expressionism, which is now deemed in Slovenia to be nothing more than “mere modernism,” can actually be counted as an avant-garde movement, together with or parallel to Slovenian constructivism.
