Everything about Slovenians totally explained
Slovenians or
Slovenes (
Slovenian Slovenci, dual
Slovenca, singular
Slovenec, feminine
Slovenke, dual
Slovenki, singular
Slovenka) are a South
Slavic people primarily associated with
Slovenia and the
Slovenian language.
Most Slovenians today live within the borders of the independent
Slovenia (1,631,363). There are autochthonous Slovenian
minorities in northeastern parts of
Italy (estimated at 83,000 - 100,000), southern
Austria (18,000),
Croatia (13,200) and
Hungary (3,180). The Slovenians are recognised as national minorities in all four countries with which Slovenia shares a land border (Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Italy).
In the Slovenian national census of 2002, 1,631,363 people ethnically declared themselves as Slovenians (
(External Link
)), while 1,723,434 people claimed Slovenian as their mother tongue (
(External Link)).
The total number of Slovenians in Austria is 24,855, of whom 17,953 are representatives of the Slovenian national minority, while 6,902 are foreign nationals (
(External Link)).
Early Alpine Slavs
In
6th century,
Slavic peoples settled the region between the
Alps and the
Adriatic Sea in two consecutive migration waves: the first wave took place around
550 and came from the
Moravian lands, while the second wave, coming from the southeast, took place after the retreat of
Langobards to Italy in
568 (see
Slavic settlement of Eastern Alps).
From
623 to
658, Slavic peoples between the upper
Elbe River and the
Karavanke mountain range were united under the leadership of
King Samo (
Kralj Samo) in the what was to become known as
Samo's Tribal Union. The tribal union collapsed after Samo's death, but a smaller Slavic tribal principality
Carantania (
Slovenian:
Karantanija) remained, with its center in the present-day region of Carinthia.
Alpine Slavs during the Frankish Empire
Due to pressing danger of
Avar tribes from the east,
Carantanians accepted union with
Bavarians in
745 and later recognized
Frankish rule and accepted
Christianity in the 8th century. The last Slavic state formation in the region, the
principality of Prince Kocelj, lost its independence in
874. Slovenian ethnic territory subsequently shrank due to pressing of
Germans from the west and the arrival of
Hungarians in the
Pannonian plain, and stabilized in the present form in the
15th century.
The earliest documents written in a Slovenian dialect are the
Freising manuscripts (
Brižinski spomeniki,
Freisinger Denkmäler), dated between
972 and
1022, found in
1803 in
Freising,
Germany. The first books printed in Slovenian were
Catechismus and
Abecedarium, written by the
Protestant reformer
Primož Trubar in
1550 and printed in
Tübingen, Germany.
Jurij Dalmatin translated the
Bible into Slovenian in
1584. In the second half of the
16th century Slovenian became known to other European languages with the multilingual dictionary, compiled by Hieronymus Megisar.
Slovenians between the 18th century and the Second World War
Slovenian lands were part of the
Illyrian provinces, the
Austrian Empire and
Austria-Hungary (in
Cisleithania).
Many Slovenians emigrated to the
United States at the turn of the 20th century, mostly due to economic reasons. Those that settled in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania came to be called Windish. The largest group of Slovenians eventually ended up settling in
Cleveland, Ohio and the surrounding area. The second largest group settled in Chicago principally on the
Lower West Side, Chicago. The American Slovenian Catholic Union (Kransko Slovenska Katoliska Jednota) was founded as an organization to protect Slovene-American rights in Jolliet, Illinois and Cleveland, OH. Today there are KSKJ branches all over the country offering life-insurance and other services to Slovene-Americans. Freethinkers were centered around 18th and Racine Ave. in Chicago where they founded the
Slovene National Benefit Society, other Slovenian immigrants went to southwestern Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio and the state of
West Virginia to work in the coal mines and lumber industry. Some Slovenians also went to the
Pittsburgh or
Youngstown, Ohio areas to work in the steel mills.
Following the 1st World War (1914-1918), they joined other South Slavs in the
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, followed by
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and finally
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the new system of
banovinas (since 1929), Slovenians formed a majority in the
Drava Banovina.
In
1920 people in the bilingual regions of
Carinthia decided in a
referendum that most of Carinthia should remain in Austria. Between the two world wars the westernmost areas inhabited by Slovenians were occupied by Italy.
Slovenian volunteers also participated in the
Spanish Civil War, and the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
Slovenians during and after World War II
Yugoslavia was invaded by
Axis Powers on April 6, 1941 after a
coup d'état in the Yugoslav government ended Yugoslavia's participation in the Tripartite Pact and enraged
Adolf Hitler. Territory in Yugoslavia was quickly divided between German, Italian, and Hungarian control, and the
Nazis soon annexed
Lower Styria (Untersteiermark) to the "Greater Reich". About 46,000 Slovenians in the Rann (
Brežice) Triangle region were forcibly deported to eastern Germany for potential Germanization or forced labor beginning in November 1941.
The deported Slovenians were taken to several camps in Saxony, where they were forced to work on German farms or in factories run by German industries from 1941-1945. The forced labourers were not always kept in formal concentration camps, but often just vacant buildings where they slept until the next day's labour took them outside these quarters. Toward the close of the war, these camps were liberated by American and Soviet Army troops, and later repatriated refugees returned to Yugoslavia to find their homes in shambles.
In 1945, Yugoslavia liberated itself and shortly thereafter became a nominally federal
Communist state. Slovenia joined the federation as a
socialist republic; its own Communist Party having been formed in
1937.
Most of
Carinthia remained part of
Austria and around 42,000 Slovenians (
(External Link)) in the
Austrian state of Carinthia were recognized as a minority and have enjoyed special rights following the
Austrian State Treaty (Staatsvertrag) of
1955. The Slovenians in the Austrian state of
Styria (4,250
(External Link)) are not recognized as a minority and don't enjoy special rights, although the State Treaty of
July 27, 1955 states otherwise.
Many of the rights required by the 1955 State Treaty are still to be fully implemented. There is also an undercurrent of thinking amongst parts of the population that the Slovenian involvement in the partisan war against the Nazi occupation force was a bad thing, and indeed "Tito partisan" is a not an infrequent insult hurled against members of the minority. Many Carinthians are (quite irrationally) afraid of Slovenian territorial claims, pointing to the fact that Yugoslav troops entered the
state after each of the two World Wars. The current
governor,
Jörg Haider, regularly plays the Slovenian card when his popularity starts to dwindle, and indeed relies on the strong anti-Slovenian attitudes in many parts of the province for his power base. Another interesting phenomenon is for some German speakers to refuse to accept the minority as Slovenians at all, referring to them as
Windische, an ethnicity distinct from Slovenians (a claim which linguists reject on the basis that the dialects spoken are by all standards a variant of the Slovenian language).
Yugoslavia acquired some territory from Italy after WWII but some 100,000 Slovenians remained behind the Italian border, notably around
Trieste and
Gorizia.
In
1991, Slovenia became an independent
nation state after a brief
ten day war.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Slovenians'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://slovenians.totallyexplained.com">Slovenians Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
