The Semantics of Yugoslav Socialist Utopia in Guest Worker Lyric Language

This article analyzes guest worker lyric language as a poetic and semantic formation situated at the intersection of economic experience, linguistic marginalization, and utopian imagination in socialist Yugoslavia. Focusing on selected poems by Domonkos István, Ernst Jandl, and Ivan Slamnig, the study advances the hypothesis that the non-normative, fragmented language of “Gastarbeiter” poetry does not merely reflect social exclusion but actively models utopian and dystopian configurations through its linguistic form. Methodologically, the article combines comparative close reading with a semantic–theoretical concept of utopia, contextualizing poetic language within the economic-historical conditions of Yugoslav socialism. The analysis demonstrates that guest worker lyric language functions simultaneously as social critique and as a site of utopian experimentation, exposing the contradictions of socialist and capitalist economic frameworks alike. By foregrounding the entanglement of poetic form, economic meaning, and utopian discourse, the article contributes to utopian studies by showing how poetry can articulate and critically reconfigure unrealized social futures.