Slovenia: History

Pre-20th-Century History

The early Slovenes settled in the river valleys of the Danube Basin and the eastern Alps in the 6th century. In 748, Slovenia was brought under Germanic rule, first by the Frankish empire of the Carolingians, who converted the population to Christianity, and then as part of the Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century. The Austro-German monarchy took over in the early 14th century and continued to rule (as the Austrian Habsburg Empire from 1804) right up until 1918, with only one brief interruption. Over these six centuries, the upper classes became totally Germanised, though the peasantry retained their Slavic (later Slovenian) identity.

In 1809, in a bid to isolate the Habsburg Empire from the Adriatic, Napoleon established the so-called Illyrian Provinces (Slovenia, Dalmatia and part of Croatia), making Ljubljana the capital. Though the Habsburgs returned in 1814, French reforms in education, law and public administration endured. The democratic revolution that swept Europe in 1848 also increased political and national consciousness among the Slovenes, and after WWI and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slovenia was included in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Modern History

During WWII much of Slovenia was annexed by Germany, with Italy and Hungary taking smaller shares. Slovenian partisans fought against the invaders from mountain bases. Slovenia joined the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945.

Slovenes worried when Serbia, under Slobodan Milosevic, started to make noises in the late 1980s about asserting its cultural and economic leadership among the Yugoslav republics. In late 1988, when Belgrade abruptly ended the autonomy of Kosovo, Slovenes, along with their Croatian neighbours, feared that the same could happen to them and that the time to decide their own fate was imminent. Undoubtedly, the rapid breakdown of communism throughout the Eastern Bloc gave the independence movement further encouragement.

In the spring of 1990, Slovenia became the first Yugoslav republic to hold free elections and slough off 45 years of socialist rule; the following December the electorate voted overwhelmingly (90%) in favour of independence. The implications for the future of Yugoslavia and regional stability were not taken lightly; both the West and the many Slavs living in Slovenia were lukewarm about the decision. They were right, in so far as Belgrade was not about to let the republic go quietly into that good night. Diplomatic efforts to secede gradually were rejected, and a series of provocative confrontations between the Yugoslav army and the newly established Slovenian army ensued. On 25 June 1991, Slovenia declared its independence, and a show down loomed as Yugoslav forces mobilised. Slovenian troops and civilians called their bluff by taking up what arms they could, and the West stood by and watched. A 10-day war ensued in which lives were lost and much worse was threatened, but with the world watching and fierce resistance from the Slovenian militia, the Yugolsav army backed off. With no territorial claims or minority issues involved, the Yugoslav government agreed to a truce brokered by the European Community (EC). Slovenia paid a comparatively light price for its independence, as Croatia and Bosnia would soon discover. On 15 January 1992, the EC formally recognised the country. Slovenia was admitted to the United Nations in May 1992.

Recent History

In October 2000, in Slovenia's third election since gaining independence, the Liberal Democratic party was returned to power. Events since then have moved Slovenia further towards political and economic integration with western Europe. In 2004, the country was one of a host of countries to be admitted to the European Union and NATO. In a referendum in that same year, voters embarrassed the government by rejecting moves to restore civil and property rights removed from nationals of other Yugoslav republics following independence. Under international pressure, the government has moved to restore the rights of the 'erased people' but many continue to suffer the effects of their civil non-existence.

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