The following text tackles the issue of Slovenian servants in Gorizia between the 19th and 20th
Centuries, when the relationships among individual ethnic communities, especially between Italians
and Slovenians, had become particularly tense. In the struggle of Slovenians for the right to
their own culture and language, as well as their ever growing efforts for recognition in economic
terms, housemaids had become the protagonists of nationalistic spurs that had been forming in
the area. Thus, if on the one hand they were being taken away from the dullness of anonymity in
this situation – which became evident when census was being taken, as they were being encouraged
to declare Slovenian as their language of use in order to increase the size of the Slovenian
community – on the other, they were subject to the supervision of the city elite, both morally and
physically. Due to the predominant ideal of the purity of the «body of the nation», these women
represented a potential threat to their own Slovenian community, simply because, given the nature
of their work, they were able to cross, undisturbed, the national (and cultural) borders that
were dividing the opposing local communities. One should also keep in mind that in those years
housemaids were also involved in both public and personal, ever more heated struggles for better
working conditions and a better social position and for political rights.
