In this paper we analyse Noč na verne duše (Night of All Saints, 1904), the first play by the Slovene modernist Oton Župančič, in the context of European Modernism, in particular the influence of the symbolic plays of Maurice Maeterlinck. This one-act play has typical symbolist characteristics: polysemy, symbols taken from the folk imagination and mythology, and brief concentrated events in which the protagonists come close to the irrational space of death. In the Slovene tradition Župančič refers to the tales of Trdina, connecting folk fantasy themes and a Christian eschatological perspective, and in spite of the symbolic nature of events there are also social themes which remind us of Finžgar's village plays.
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