The LGBTQ+ community in Slovenia is celebrating a milestone recognition move as a small park in a central Ljubljana borough has been named in honour of a lesbian intellectual couple who were together for almost half a century. A lesbian activist described the experience as cathartic.

Located in the leafy borough of Prule, the previously nameless park is now named after poet Ada Škerl (1924-2009) and translator Sonja Plaskan (1922-2000) in what is the first time a park in Slovenia bears the name of LGBTQ+ persons.

The couple lived close to the park, whose name plaque was unveiled on 3 April.

Long road to milestone achievement

The proposal was put forward two years ago by poet and gay rights activist Brane Mozetič, and Oto Luthar, the director of the Research Centre at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) and a distant relative of Plaskan's.

Having been long dedicated to efforts to uncover Slovenia's hidden LGBTQ+ history, Mozetič found out that Škerl and Plaskan were more than just friends or roommates during his research into the former's life.

Helped by several other experts, including Luthar, who knew the couple personally, he unearthed the truth and in September 2019 he published his findings in the journal Poiesis.

But even then he faced scepticism from some. "As I had convincing evidence of the nature of their relationship, I did not expect that many people would show scepticism and reject my arguments," he told the Slovenia Times.

Visiting places where the two lived and spent time, he stumbled upon a nameless park a few hundred metres from what used to be their home and got the idea to name it after the couple.

He filed the proposal in September 2022, but because he knew that his word "would not do much good", he talked Luthar into joining the proposal as ZRC SAZU head. There were several others who backed the initiative, including PEN Slovenia, the cultural NGO Škuc and 8 March Institute, an NGO committed to women's rights in particular.

It took the city authorities two years to get it done as the first news of the activists' successful efforts emerged last summer. Mozetič, who continues with his efforts to bring LGBTQ+ stories to light, said he was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

He hopes the Slovenian LGBTQ+ community, which he says is getting more and more fragmented, will embrace the park as an important part of its efforts.

Catharsis after 40 years of LGBTQ+ movement's struggle

The park, the first in Slovenia named after a same-sex couple, "is a major milestone, both for our LGBTQ+ community and for the openness of society as a whole," writer and lesbian activist Suzana Tratnik told the Slovenia Times. "Decades ago, we could not really have imagined something like this."

She described the naming of the park as a "cathartic experience" after 40 years of the movement's struggle to be treated the same as heterosexual and cisgender people.

Slovenia's LGBTQ+ movement celebrated their 40th anniversary last year with many events.

The latest milestone is also meaningful to all those to come, contributing to efforts to make sure that being part of the community "must never again be something that puts individuals at risk or reduces their quality of life because of social stigma," Tratnik said.

She finds it especially important that the park honours not just two lesbians, but also a poet and a translator, as "there is usually very little information about lesbian artists or intellectuals."

According to Luthar, with the exception of a few no one at the time knew for sure that Škerl and Plaskan were together.

"They remained extremely discreet later as well, which is why some of the younger members of our family only found out about the true nature of their relationship when the park in Prule was named after them," he told the Slovenia Times.

Having met in 1951, Škerl and Plaskan were together for 49 years, until the latter's death in 2000.

Škerl was best known as an intimist poet. Her works were ignored mostly because of sexism and her rejection of the dominant social realism of the time, Tratnik and Luthar said. Her lack of interest in men made her contemporaries even less inclined to take her poetry seriously, Luthar added.

Recent research has indicated that she was actually the pioneer of the Slovenian post-WWII poetic movement known as intimism. Tratnik is confident that amid the ongoing push for unearthing many neglected Slovenian women authors her work will be rediscovered.