IMAGE OF THE CHILD IN SLOVENIAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Abstract

Period of childhood is supposed to be protected period. Adults are supposed to act for the benefit of the child, but reality shows us this is often not the case. Even the etymology of the word ‘child’ in Slovene (France Bezlaj, Marko Snoj) is showing the disparity in understanding of the word ‘child’ and of the real understanding of the child. On the basis of the etymological analyses of the word ‘child’ in the Bezlaj’s dictionary and in Snoj’s dictionary, we can say that the word appears the most often under the meaning of worker, farmhand, page, servant, slave, serf, and less as a boy, nipper, youngster, man, little boy. The absence of the mentioning of feminine child is self-explanatory.

Keywords: child, Slovenian children’s literature, sunny childhood, cloudy childhood, idealization, romanticism, image of the child.