Molly Likovich
The Hidden History of the Gottscheer and Myself
When Yugoslavia melted away between the cracks of postwar Carinola
the Gottscheer Republic became a ghost
The language was plucked from their tongues / the folktales
dissolved / the schools filled up with Slovenian
When The Farmer Party was destroyed the Nazis saw their chance
The Gottscheer people supposedly affiliated with them / maybe
hoping to take back their island / take back their tongue / this sounds
like pro-Slovenian colonizer propaganda to me
They sent them to Austrian camps
Some fled to America
Some stayed until the forest swallowed them up
Bet you didn’t even know
No one knows what happened in Slovenia before it was truly
Slovenia / No one knows Slovenia now
Growing up my Aunt loved to remind us that part of The Sound
of Music was filmed in the Slovenia hills / none of us
have ever seen
these hills / none of us can speak Slovenian /
My Grandma snapped at my Irish-German-Scottish mother when she asked
M-Why didn’t you teach Matt and Andrea Slovenian?
G-Who would they even talk to!
My Grandma sings ‘aya tu tu neenee’ while ‘Roll Out The Barrels’ blares
through their old living room speakers / this is all
I know of 50% of me / This is the only heritage I’ve collected / I’m more Slovenian than most
American-born kids are anything / and I don’t know how to say ‘I love
you’ in that Mother tongue
Who would we speak to / Each other
When my German club needed to perform a Germanic dance
at Oktoberfest I choreographed the steps to ‘Roll Out The Barrels’ /
said look at me / look how Gottscheer I am / what does it matter
what part of Slovenia my ancestors came from / I won’t ever
know
I got good at getting erased
I learned how to turn my bones into ghosts
I’ve never heard of Slovenia they always say / that’s okay I say / I haven’t either
