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Because of the emergence of Nova revija, 1982 was a watershed in the contemporary intellectual history of Slovenia. The Communist Party in this republic, the most economically advanced and most Western-oriented in political outlook of all of the Yugoslav republics, was lucid and far-sighted enough to permit this relatively liberated intellectual forum to flower. The rationale behind the green light thus given to the untested publication was rooted in conflicts within the Slovenian Communist leadership at the time.
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In 1987, a legendary issue of Nova revija, No. 57, utterly transformed the rules of the game. For the governing Slovenian Communist Party, which was, despite its own reservations, obliged to kow-tow to headquarters in Belgrade, Nova revija's issue No. 57 was devastatingly honest and politically scandalous. "Contributions to the Slovenian National Program", as this special issue was entitled, tackled the crucial question of how Slovenian civil society and its political state should be organized within the framework of a democratic republic. It provided a clear-headed and unambiguous response which covered all aspects - geographical, economic, financial, historical, social, cultural, and political.
Issue No. 57 appeared in a small print run in an effort to blunt the immediate wrath of the powers-that-be, but it was ultimately circulated in xeroxed versions to an avid readership. It is no exaggeration to suggest that it must be seen as the complex intellectual foundation upon which rests, to a large degree, today's democracy in Slovenia.
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After Slovenian independence in 1991, Nova revija and many of its unprepared contributors were unexpectedly faced with "normal" public life. This new and "normal" public life has been noteworthy, for better or worse, for its lack of intellectual avatars. It has been permeated with a sort of "democratic melancholy," as Pascal Bruckner is wont to call the prevailing condition of the Western mind, lacking clear direction and moral commitment.
The teleological project of nation-building was thus, under the conditions of an independent nation-state, sapped of its energies. The easy target of the evil Communist Colossus was replaced by nuanced "gradations of grey," that is, by arguments about minor yet increasingly relevant political distinctions. The brief period of heroic unity while dismantling the ancien régime was followed by an aggravating succession of deep rifts between contributors, all too often reflecting the allegiances of individual writers to the various political parties which had sprung up after the fall of communism. This splintering of opinion began to undermine the hitherto high degree of tolerance, dividing writers into opposing camps that were difficult to distinguish from political party platforms.
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Grafenauer, the current editor-in-chief of Nova revija, has, so far, successfully managed to balance the conflicting interests of the many splinter groups among the contributors. He appears able to manoeuvre between the Scylla of the intellectual ivory tower into which proponents of unrestrained economic pragmatism would like to see Nova revija retreat and the Charbydis of support for one party whose pull is exemplified by those writers who feel that the mythic ideals of the struggle for independence survive exclusively in the bloc of the "Slovenian Spring," that is, in the anti-Communist oppositional parties.
Grafenauer has no easy task. By succumbing to the seductive comfort of armchair philosophy, the magazine would lose its political edge and sacrifice its long-standing position in res publica affairs. The other danger is no less grave: by throwing its weight squarely behind one political party, Nova revija would degenarate into slogan-mongering and would thereby lose its proud heritage of intellectual scepticism and critically independent voice.
Thus far avoiding both extremes, Nova revija has managed to maintain its increasingly fragile prestige. It is precisely because of this resistance to ready-made solutions that the recent cultural, social, and political history of the Slovenian nation could not have been written without the history of Nova revija.