Literary imagology is a branch of comparative literature that deals with the image of the Foreign in domestic literature and vice versa. It began to develop already in the first half of the 20th century, and it experienced a theoretical flourishing in the seventies when Hugo Dyserinck and Daniel-Henri Pageaux began to engage with it. Although it was occasionally expelled from the profession, due to its distinct interdisciplinary nature, it always returned to comparative research. The monograph Cities, heroes, soldiers, based on Pageaux’s theory, brings discussions about philhellenism, about the image of Poland, Bosnia and German officers in Slovenian literature, and at the same time focuses on descriptions of some European cities (Vienna, Paris, Venice, Rome) done by Slovenian writers.
Prof. Tone Smolej, PhD, is a tenured professor at the Department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana. In the field of French-Slovenian literary contacts, he published three books (Slovenian reception of Emil Zola, 2007; From French Slovenianized, 2008, and Slovenian reception of French literature from classicism to symbolism, 2018). In two monographs, he researched the history of Slovenian writers, students of Austro-Hungarian universities (“What more to experience and become”. Slovenian writers, Viennese students, 2015; Slovenian literature and higher education, 2020). Together with Majda Stanovnik, he wrote the biography of Antun Ocvirk (2007) and is the co-author of the History of the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana (2019). He also commented on several Slovenian editions of French classics..