Socializem in socialna empatija v Cankarjevem romanu Na klancu

In his second novel Na klancu (1902), Ivan Cankar expressed social empathy – the ability to understand people more deeply, especially their differences and inequalities – with the help of socialist views and beliefs. The novel is the first symbolist novel in Slovenia in which an original poetics, i.e. a mixture of realism, naturalism and symbolism, expressed social, political and philosophical ideas with “powerful means of beaty”.« Although the main characters, Francka, Tone and Lojze, rarely express socialist ideas, other characters such as the clerk, shoemaker and arrogant citizens of Vrhnika, and especially the symbols, must be taken into account for the entire (socialist) message value of the novel. The novel’s excellent structure leads us to two choices for the humiliated and disgraced: the first is an individual solution to injustices through, charity and the second is a systemic change from an unjust society to a fairer one. The first, with the Marian cult of the mother Francka and her childish hope for the charity of the rich, is carried parabolically throughout the novel to confirm the deterministic thesis that charity alone is not enough for a dignified life of the poor. Since such an individual solution is only the result of luck – as illustrated by the symbols of the slope as a universal place of capitalist exploitation of people and running after a wagon – the novel offers another solution, which is a symbolist socialist vision of the (worker’s) future: a systemic solution, i.e. the collective change of capitalism, as indicated by the symbol of the redemptive red spark, ignited in white light. Rather than precisely defining the boundaries between different types of Cankar’s socialism, I think it is important to draw attention to the eclecticism of the artist’s socialism, i.e. the intertwining of different types of socialism with social democracy, other movements and their own ideas. This is pointed out by the very fragmentary nature of Cankar’s mental system and the well-known fact that the author was an extremely complex personality, for whom any schematic simplification is inadmissible.  Ivan Cankar je socialno empatijo – zmožnost za globlje razumevanje ljudi, predvsem njihovih razlik in (ne)enakovrednosti – v svojem drugem romanu Na klancu (1902) izrazil s pomočjo socialističnih stališč in prepričanj. Na klancu je prvi simbolistični roman na Slovenskem, v katerem je izvirna poetika, tj. mešanica realizma, naturalizma in simbolizma, izrazila socialne, politične in filozofske ideje s »silnimi sredstvi lepote«. Čeprav glavni liki, to so Francka, Tone in Lojze, le redko razmišljajo socialistično, je treba za celotno sporočilno vrednost romana upoštevati tudi ostale like, na primer pisarja in čevljarja ter nadute vrhniške meščane, predvsem pa simbole. Izvrstna struktura romana nas napelje na dve možnosti izbire za ponižane in razžaljene: prva je individualna rešitev socialnih krivic z dobrodelnostjo, druga pa sistemska sprememba krivične družbe v pravičnejšo. Prva je z marijanskim kultom matere Francke in njenim otroškim upanjem v dobrodelnost bogatih skozi celoten roman izpeljana parabolično, da se potrdi deterministična teza, kako zgolj dobrodelnost za dostojno življenje reveža ni dovolj. Ker je tovrstna individualna rešitev le rezultat sreče – ponazarjata jo simbola klanca kot univerzalnega prostora kapitalističnega izkoriščanja ljudi in tek za vozom –, je v romanu ponujena še druga možnost, ki je simbolistična socialistična vizija (delavske) prihodnosti: sistemska rešitev, torej kolektivna sprememba kapitalizma, nakazana s simbolom odrešilne rdeče iskre, razplamtene v belo svetlobo. Bolj kot natančno določanje meja med različnimi vrstami Cankarjevega socializma se mi zdi v obravnavanem romanu pomembno opozoriti na eklektičnost umetnikovega socializma, torej na prepletenost različnih vrst socializma s socialno demokracijo, drugimi gibanji in lastnimi idejami. Na to opozarjata že sama fragmentarnost Cankarjevega miselnega sistema in znano dejstvo, da je bil avtor izredno kompleksna osebnost, pri kateri je vsakršno shematično poenostavljanje nedopustno