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In the second half of the 1980s, Tine Hribar developed a distinctive interpretation of Sophocles’s Antigone, which he presented in 1991 in the monograph Tragična etika svetosti (The tragical ethics of sacredness). Here he developed an original concept of the sacred, on which he built an ethical system that has become – particularly through its determined defense of the so-called sanctity of the dead – a cornerstone of the Slovene reconciliation project. This paper deals with some of the fundamental problems that stem from Hribar’s enigmatic definition of the sacred as “the world itself in itself,” showing that, in the conclusions Hribar draws from that definition, the clear distinction between being and life is lost. The central aporia of the Tragična etika svetosti is also closely intertwined with other problematic dimensions of the work that are analysed in the paper: the unfounded appropriation of the ethical characteristics of traditions from which he distances himself in principle; the unreflecting distinction between being and action in relation to the sacred; and not least, the unexplained oscillation between vitalism and Antigone’s ideal of self sacrifice.

Martin Heidegger je svoje branje Sofoklove Antigone razgrnil v dveh znamenitih sklopih predavanj na Univerzi v Freiburgu; prvi sklop, ki ga je študentom predstavil leta 1935, je osemnajst let pozneje s popravki in dopolnitvami objavil v knjigi Uvod v metafiziko (Einführung in die Metaphysik); drugega, ki ga je naslovil Hölderlinova himna »Ister« (Hölderlins Hymne »Der Ister«), je lahko leta 1942, sredi vojne vihre, podal le v okrnjeni različici, v natisnjeni celoti pa je svetovni javnosti postal dostopen šele leta 1984. Članek preučuje razloge, zakaj je razkritje Heideggerjeve druge obravnave Antigone – ki s prvo vzpostavlja intriganten interpretativni kontrast – odigralo ključno vlogo v osrednjem filozofskem projektu Tineta Hribarja in s tem v širši slovenski recepciji mita o Antigoni od druge polovice osemdesetih let do danes.

The article critically evaluates The Three Lives of Antigone, Slavoj Žižek’s first dramatic work. Žižek’s polemical rewriting of Sophocles’ tragedy is examined in the broader perspective of Žižek’s philosophy and other Antigones: those of Sophocles, Jean Anouilh, Bertolt Brecht and Dominik Smole. Slavoj Žižek has interpreted Sophocles’ Antigone in numerous philosophical works. In his earlier treatises, he mainly gave a cautious summary of Hegel’s, Heidegger’s and Lacan’s theses on Antigone; lately, however, Žižek’s attitude to Sophocles’ Antigone has grown decidedly negative. The main point in Žižek’s critique of Sophocles’ tragedy is that his Antigone is not an appropriate symbol of genuine social revolt. Based on this conviction, Žižek contrived his own version of Antigone with an alternative ending in which the choir carries out a revolution and condemns Antigone to death. It is argued in the article that Žižek’s dramatic project fails to convince. It is essentially a superficial apology for political violence, which can ultimately only be understood as a veiled defence of the political status quo.