Suicide in the Perception of the Slovene Society from the 19th Century up to World War II.

The article addresses the question of how suicide was perceived by the Slovene society of the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to the question of how autobiographical sources addressed the topic of suicide and how it was presented in the context of the emotional regime of the period. In doing so, focus is given to reasons or motives for suicides mentioned in memoirs and letters, to people who committed them and to the mode in which suicides were described by their contemporaries, family members or friends. As demonstrated, suicides were contextualised in very different ways, depending on one’s gender, social class or political affiliation, and motives for taking one’s life included a wide plethora of reasons.