Page 526 [526]
Residents of Lemberg as Other
for Lembergs. And the older generations have ceased to transmit these humorous
tales. Stories about Lemberg are now known only in the surrounding rural area and
towns, but for how much longer?
Butalci
As I indicated at the beginning of the article, the stories concerning the citizens
of Butale are now some of the most widely known humorous tales regarding stu¬
pidity. As there is no visual material related to stories about Lemberg, I chose to
present visual material bound to literary stories about Butalci. The collection of
humorous tales by Fran Milcinski entitled Butalci was published in 1949, seventeen
years after the author passed away (Mil¢inski 1949). Before his death, the author
published tales featuring the Butalci in various newspapers.
Butale is a fictitious town, and Butalci, the inhabitants of this place. In Butalci
thirty-five adventures of Butalci were published. The tales achieved such popularity
that they entered narrative oral tradition. Nowadays, the humorous stories about
Butalci are more widely known than stories about inhabitants of Lemberg or Rib¬
nica. Even the Dictionary of Slovenian Literary Language includes the word butalec
among its lexicographic units, describing it as denoting a very stupid person (Butalec
2000). We could translate the Slovenian word butalec as the English word “dimwit.”
Currently, the word butalec is used as an offensive word that denotes that the in¬
sulted person is dense, stupid, or thick-headed. The word butalec is now a synonym
for “fool” just like the residents of Lemberg, Ribnica, Marburg, or Verzej were in
the past.
The Butalci are similar to the Lembergs, as they are resented as inhabitants of
a market town, with a judge, mayor, and policemen. Some researchers wanted to
“identify [a] potential historic core of humorous stories and at least hypothetically
indicate where Butale might lie” (Golec 1997: 14), but the existence of a real place
and real people and their stories, from which Fran Mil£inski could draw his inspi¬
ration, is unlikely. More likely is that Mil£inski based his tales upon the humorous
tales of Ribnica and Lemberg or other tales from the Slovenian narrative tradition
or that he found inspiration in internationally known tales such as the Greek Abdera
or the German Schilda and others.
Mil¢inski was a lawyer by profession and served many years as a judge. He col¬
lected the material for his writing from his memories, his work in court, and from
family and social life (Koblar 2012). His literary works often ridicule the Slovenian
market towns and provincial environment. They ridicule erroneous upbringing and
bureaucracy as well as the political and cultural circumstances of his time (Koblar
2012; Soëtarkié 1994). His work Butalci boasts a distinctive satire and its tales are
said to be “a parody of the Slovenian nation, all of the positive and negative traits
we possess, especially in a time when public criticism was unacceptable” (Verovnik
2012).
523