Alojzij Geržinič (1915-2008) was a schoolteacher, professional in culture, publicist, musician and chess player. The first part of the paper outlines his youth, his education and his principled ...Catholic philosophical outlook. The second part, which covers World War II and the time immediately after it, outlines his career. As an opponent of the Liberation Front, he then, at the request of the Home Guard leadership in Primorska, began to engage in the restoration of the Slovenian schools that had been suppressed by fascism. Upon the arrival of the Yugoslav Army in Trieste, he moved to refugee camps in Italy. At the invitation of dr. Srečko Baraga, he returned to Trieste and took part in the restoration of the Slovenian school system. Despite the opposition of Italians and that part of Slovenians who did not accept the Allied administration and anti-Communist teachers (refugees), the restoration effort succeeded in Trieste and also in the Gorizia region. However, Geržinič soon had to leave Trieste because of his Home Guard past and the dangerous circumstances. He emigrated to Argentina. The third part of the paper focuses on his life in Argentina, where he soon found a suitable employment and started a family. He actively participated in organisations and contributed to bulletins founded by the local Slovenian post-war emigration. Alongside, he extensively indulged in musical composition.
The article analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the life and work of the Slovenian community in Croatia, focusing on the attitude of the Republic of Slovenia towards the members of such ...community and the challenges they encountered in maintaining contacts with Slovenia. The article studies Slovenian and Croatian media reports as well as documents published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia. In addition, it examines data obtained from interviewees who live in the border area and/or are active members of the Slovenian community in Croatia. The testimonies largely relate to changes of the border regime that have affected the interviewees’ private and professional life. The processes resulting from the measures adopted to tackle the pandemic have indeed left a deep imprint on the lives of the members of the Slovenian community in Croatia.
Bogdan Radica (1904–1993), who began studying art history at the University of Ljubljana in 1923, left interesting accounts of Slovenians in his opus. Although they rarely occupied the forefront of ...his interest, they had a significant impact on him with their perception of Russia. As to the Yugoslav politics, he mostly found them to be too pro-Serbian. The situation in Ljubljana deterred Radica from politically oriented Catholicism. In his later years, Radica interacted with important Slovenian politicians and literary figures (Anton Korošec, Louis Adamič, Izidor Cankar and Edvard Kardelj) and in his accounts shattered many stereotypes about most of them. After the outbreak of World War II, Korošec was in his opinion not principally an advocate of pro-German politics, but a neutralist out of fear of the Third Reich, Izidor Cankar was critical of the Serbian dominance in Yugoslavia, and Louis Adamič was so much in favour of the Communists after 1945, that he became insensitive to the trampling of human rights in Tito’s Yugoslavia.
The article examines Slovenian liberal and clerical magazines to analyse the adaptations of the political narratives of the two main Slovenian political parties from the assassination in Sarajevo in ...1914 until early in the final stage of World War I in March 1918. Slovenian clericals, who gathered together in the Slovenian People's Party, reacted to the killings in Sarajevo by adopting a strong pro-Habsburg and anti-Serbian position. Their magazines even called for a military invasion of Serbia. In comparison, their primary political competitors on Slovenian soil, the Slovenian liberals congregated in the National Progressive Party and condemned the act of assassination, yet they were critical of the Austrian anti-Serbian policy for having escalated the war. These two Slovenian political parties were also divided on the issue of the future envisioned for the Slovenian nation within South Slavic state formations. The clericals pressed for realization of the trialist idea, which forecast a Croatian–Slovenian state unit within the Habsburg Monarchy with its centre in Zagreb. The liberals, in contrast, dreamed of a larger South Slavic state that would bring all South Slavs together and have its centre in Serbia. The development of the war, chiefly the Entente's foreseeable victory, the threat of implementation of the London Pact, and the fact that Austrian Germans characterized all emancipatory Slovenian political movements as an anti-state element, all worked to force Slovenian clericals to cooperate with their pre-war enemies. The overriding aim was for them to retain their leading position among Slovenians by formally cooperating with the liberal stream, including taking over part of the liberal political strategy, in order to ensure that it was in the best possible position in the South Slavic state at end of the war.
The article deals with the main German-Croatian guidelines for the transfer of the population during the Second World War. Some Slovenians were supposed to move to the Independent State of Croatia ...from the German-occupied Slovenian territory to the properties of the Serbs who were supposed to emigrate to Serbia. It was not possible to execute the volume and course of the plan, neither on the state level nor in the Banovina and Kordun areas.
For many decades, the question of setting up bilingual place-name signs accompanied the ethnic conflict between the German-speaking majority and the autochthonous Slovene-speaking minority in ...Carinthia (Austria). On the 10th anniversary of the 2011 compromise concerning the dispute about place-name signs, this article takes a closer look at the characterization of ethnic relations in Carinthia in the past few decades. According to a practice–theoretical empirical approach, the key to understanding this ethnic minority is the disappearance of the Slovene language. This article examines the manifold strategies used by young people to perform Carinthian Slovenian identity during leisure time in the context of, or apart from, cultural associations. With these strategies, adolescents actively try to react to the threatened disappearance of their language as they advocate for its preservation and ensure its enduring presence. The central role of the symbolic dimension of Slovenian language usage is striking. The social cohesion of the Slovene-speaking population must therefore be understood as performative ethnicity.
Like other camps (for example in Italy: Gonars, Chiesanuova, Visco, Renicci; in Dalmatia: Rab, Molat) the Treviso concentration camp was created by fascists in order to imprison civilians, Slovenians ...and Croats. These people were captured to suppress the resistance which developed after the Italian occupation. There were around 200 victims of the camp, including 53 children under ten years of age. The prisoners were supported by a network of solidarity, both religious and secular. The former was headed by the Ljubljana Bishop, the latter by a rich Slovenian engineer Milan Lenarčič, who was helped by his niece Breda, daughter of Mavricij Rus, medical director in Ljubljana. Lenarčič came to live in Preganziol in the “Villa Pace”, and his house became a logistical base for aid to prisoners.
Slovenes live as an autochthonous minority in neighbouring countries of Italy,
Austria, Hungary and Croatia. The common European space allows them to
develop a cultural area with far-reaching ...implications. An analytical review of
Slovenian minorities through the content of curricula of primary and
secondary schools examined the presence of topics related to them.
Researchers that analysed the school curricula and textbooks with a special
questionnaire for pupils, students and general population assessed the current
situation in school practice. Following the processing of quantitative data and
consultation meetings with experts changes and additions to the curricula of
primary and secondary schools were proposed.
In the article are analyzed cooperation of the Ukrainian and Slovenian deputies in the Vienna parliament as a part of the group – "Slavic Christian national union". Functioning of the group was a ...consequence of common interests of its participants on national equality. The main stages of activity of the group and also the factors which had an impact on its efficiency are considered. This group was nearly only in the Austrian parliament for 1897–1900 which was on positions of national equality and protected the interests of Slavs. The activity of the group's deputies regarding the improvement of the socio-economic, cultural and educational situation of Ukrainians and Slovenians in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was analyzed.