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Founding
Founding of Slovenia
country in Central Europe
- 700 – 1991 CE
- Ljubljana
- Europe
Founding
country in Central Europe
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to its west, Austria to its north, Hungary to its northeast, and Croatia to its south and southeast; its southwestern boundary consists of a 46.6-kilometre (29.0 mi) coastline on the Adriatic Sea. The country is mostly mountainous and forested, covering 20,271 square kilometres (7,827 sq mi). Its population is approximately 2.1 million people. Slovene is the official language. Slovenia has a predominantly temperate continental climate, with the exception of the Slovene Littoral and the Julian Alps. Ljubljana, the capital and largest city, is geographically situated near the centre of the country. Other urban centers include Maribor, Ptuj, Kranj, Celje, Koper, Novo Mesto, Velenje, Nova Gorica, Sežana, Murska Sobota, and Jesenice.
The region has a long history of settlement. Proto-Illyrian tribes settled the area during the Early Bronze Age, stretching from present-day Albania to the city of Trieste, while the Slavic tribes (the ancestors of modern Slovenes) arrived in the 5th century AD. The present territory has been part of many different states, including the Roman Empire, the Western Roman Empire, the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Republic of Venice, the Habsburg Empire, Napoleonic France, the Austrian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in December 1918; in 1929, the Kingdom became known as Yugoslavia. In 1941, during World War II, Slovenia's territory was partitioned by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Horthyist Hungary, and the Independent State of Croatia. Following World War II, in 1945 Slovenia was established as one of six constituent republics that made up the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Modern Slovenia emerged in June 1991, when the country declared independence from Yugoslavia. After the brief Ten-Day War, it became a sovereign state.
Slovenia is a developed country, with a high-income economy characterized by a mixture of traditional industries, such as manufacturing and agriculture, and modern sectors, such as information technology and financial services and has a developed tourism sector. The economy is highly dependent on trade, with exports accounting for a significant portion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Slovenia is a member of the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and other associations in the global community.
The name Slovenia etymologically means "land of the Slavs". The origin of the name Slav itself remains uncertain. The suffix -en forms a demonym.
The area later known as Slovenia has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Evidence of human habitation dates to around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, dating from 43100 ± 700 BP, found in 1995 in Divje Babe cave near Cerkno, is considered to be a kind of flute, and possibly the oldest musical instrument discovered in the world. In the 1920s and 1930s, Cro-Magnon artifacts, such as pierced bones, bone points, and a needle were found by archaeologist Srečko Brodar in Potok Cave.
In 2002, remains of pile dwellings over 4,500 years old were discovered in Ljubljana Marsh, later protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the Ljubljana Marshes Wooden Wheel, the world's oldest wooden wheel. It shows that wooden wheels appeared contemporaneously in Mesopotamia and Europe. In the transition period from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archaeological remains from the Hallstatt period, particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them situlas in Novo Mesto, the "Town of Situlas".
During Roman times, the area of modern-day Slovenia was divided between Venetia et Histria (region X of Roman Italia in the classification of Augustus) and the imperial provinces Pannonia and Noricum. The Romans established strategic urban posts at Emona (Ljubljana), Poetovio (Ptuj), and Celeia (Celje); and constructing major trade and military roads to connect Italy with Pannonia. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the region became a geopolitical flashpoint. In 394, the historic Battle of the Frigidus took place in the Vipava Valley, where Eastern Emperor Theodosius I defeated German usurper Eugenius. As the western empire weakened in the 5th and 6th centuries, the area was subject to invasions by Huns and Germanic tribes during their incursions into Italy. To protect the Italian heartland, the Romans built the Claustra Alpium Iuliarum (defensive line of towers and walls).
The Slavic tribes migrated to the Alpine area after the westward departure of the Lombards (the last Germanic tribe) in 568 and, under intense pressure from Avars, established a Slavic settlement in the Eastern Alps. From 623 to 624 (or possibly 626) onwards, King Samo united the Alpine and Western Slavs against both the Avars and Germanic peoples and established what is referred to as Samo's Kingdom. After its disintegration following Samo's death around 658, the ancestors of the Slovenes formed independent geopolitical entities: duchy of Carantania, and Carniola, later duchy Carniola. While the Avars temporarily reclaimed surrounding territories, Frankish King Charlemagne decisively defeated them in 803, bringing the entire region under Western European influence.
The Carantanians, one of the ancestral groups of the modern Slovenes, particularly the Carinthian Slovenes, were the first Slavic people to accept Christianity. They were mostly Christianized by Irish missionaries, among them Modestus, known as the "Apostle of Carantanians". This process, together with the Christianization of the Bavarians, was later described in the memorandum known as the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, which is thought to have overemphasized the role of the Church of Salzburg in the Christianization process over similar efforts of the Patriarchate of Aquileia.
In the mid-8th century, Carantania became a vassal duchy under the rule of the Bavarians, who began spreading Christianity. Three decades later, the Carantanians were incorporated, together with the Bavarians, into the Carolingian Empire. During the same period, Carniola also came under the Franks and was Christianized from Aquileia. Following the anti-Frankish rebellion of Liudewit at the beginning of the 9th century, the Franks removed the Carantanian princes, replacing them with their own border dukes. Consequently, the Frankish feudal system reached the Slovene territory.
After the victory of Emperor Otto I over the Magyars in 955, Slovene territory was divided into multiple border regions of the Holy Roman Empire. Carantania was elevated into the Duchy of Carinthia in 976.
By the 11th century, Germanization of the area that later became Lower Austria effectively isolated Slovene-inhabited territory from the other western Slavs, speeding up the development of the Slavs of Carantania and of Carniola into an independent Carantanian/Carniolans/Slovene ethnic group. By the High Middle Ages, Carniola, Styria, Carinthia, Gorizia, Trieste, and Istria developed from the border regions and were incorporated into the medieval Holy Roman Empire. The consolidation and formation of these lands took place in the period between the 11th and 14th centuries and were led by feudal families, such as the Dukes of Spanheim, the Counts of Gorizia, the Counts of Celje, and, finally, the House of Habsburg. In a parallel process, an intensive Germanization significantly diminished the extent of Slovene-speaking areas. By the 15th century, the Slovene ethnic territory was reduced.
In 1335, Henry of Gorizia, Duke of Carinthia, Landgrave of Carniola and Count of Tyrol, died without a male heir. His daughter Margaret was able to keep the County of Tyrol, while the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV passed Carinthia and the Carniolan march to Habsburg Duke Albert II of Austria, whose mother, Elisabeth of Carinthia, was a sister of the late Duke Henry of Gorizia. Therefore, most of the territory that later became Slovenia emerged as a hereditary land of the Habsburg monarchy. As with the other component parts of the Habsburg monarchy, Carinthia and Carniola remained semi-autonomous states with their own constitutional structures.
The Counts of Celje, a local feudal family that in 1436 acquired the title of state princes, were powerful competitors of the house of Habsburg for some time. This large dynasty, important at a European level, had its seat in Slovene territory, but died out in 1456. Its large estates subsequently became the property of the Habsburgs, who retained control until the beginning of the 20th century. Patria del Friuli ruled the western portion of the lands that would later become Slovenia until Venetian takeover in 1420.
At the end of the Middle Ages, Slovene Lands suffered a serious economic and demographic setback because of the Turkish raids. In 1515, a peasant revolt spread across Slovene territory. In 1572 and 1573, the Croatian-Slovenian peasant revolt wrought havoc throughout the wider region. Such uprisings, which often met with bloody defeats, continued throughout the 17th century.
After the dissolution of the Republic of Venice in 1797, Venetian Slovenia passed to the Austrian Empire. Slovene Lands were successively part of the Napoleonic Illyrian Provinces, the Austrian Empire, and Austria-Hungary. Slovenes inhabited most of Carniola, the southern part of the duchies of Carinthia and Styria, the northern and eastern areas of the Austrian Littoral, as well as Prekmurje in the Kingdom of Hungary. Industrialization was accompanied by construction of railroads to link cities and markets, but urbanization was limited.
Due to limited opportunities, between 1880 and 1910 emigration was extensive; around 300,000 Slovenes (1 in 6) left, mostly to the United States, but also to South America (mostly Argentina), Germany, Egypt, and to larger cities in Austria-Hungary, especially Vienna and Graz. Literacy was high, at 80–90%.
The 19th century saw a revival of Slovene culture, accompanied by a Romantic nationalist quest for cultural and political autonomy. The idea of a United Slovenia, first advanced during the revolutions of 1848, became the common platform of most Slovene parties and political movements in Austria-Hungary. During the same period, Yugoslavism, an ideology stressing the unity of all South Slavic peoples, spread as a reaction to Pan-German nationalism and Italian irredentism.
World War I brought heavy casualties to Slovenes, particularly in the twelve Battles of the Isonzo. Hundreds of thousands of Slovene conscripts were drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and over 30,000 of them were killed. Hundreds of thousands of Slovenes from Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca were resettled in refugee camps in Italy and Austria. While refugees in Austria received decent treatment, those in Italian camps were treated as state enemies, and several thousand died of malnutrition and diseases between 1915 and 1918. Entire areas of the Slovene Littoral were destroyed.
The Treaty of Rapallo of 1920 left approximately 327,000 Slovenes in Italy. After fascists took power in Italy, they subjected Slovenes to a policy of violent Fascist Italianization. This caused the mass emigration of Slovenes, especially the middle class, from the Slovene Littoral and Trieste to Yugoslavia and South America. Those who remained organized connected networks of passive and armed resistance. The best known was the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR, formed in 1927 to fight in the Julian March.
The Slovene People's Party launched a movement for self-determination, demanding the creation of a semi-independent South Slavic state under Habsburg rule. The proposal was picked up by most Slovene parties, and a mass mobilization of Slovene civil society, known as the Declaration Movement, followed. This demand was rejected by Austrian elites, but following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs took power in Zagreb on 6 October 1918. On 29 October, independence was declared by a national gathering in Ljubljana and by the Croatian parliament, declaring the establishment of the new State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs.
On 1 December 1918, the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs merged with Serbia, becoming part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; in 1929, it was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The area that later became Slovenia, as the most industrialized and westernized compared to other less developed parts of Yugoslavia, became the main centre of industrial production. Slovene industrial production was four times greater than Serbia's and 22 times greater than North Macedonia. The interwar period brought further industrialization in the area, with rapid economic growth in the 1920s, followed by a relatively successful economic adjustment to the 1929 economic crisis and Great Depression.
Although Slovenia was not an autonomous administrative unit between 1921 and 1941, the Drava Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was frequently called simply "Slovenia", even in some official documents.
Following a plebiscite in October 1920, the Slovene-speaking southern Carinthia was ceded to Austria. With the Treaty of Trianon, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was awarded the mostly Slovene-inhabited Prekmurje region, formerly part of Austria-Hungary. Slovenes living in territories that fell under the rule of the neighbouring states—Italy, Austria, and Hungary—were subjected to assimilation.
During World War II, Nazi Germany and Hungary annexed northern areas (brown and green, respectively), and Fascist Italy annexed the southeastern area (the black western part had been annexed by Italy in 1920 with the Treaty of Rapallo). Six villages (not marked) south of Brežice were also incorporated into the Independent State of Croatia. After 1943, Germany also occupied the area that Italy had annexed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Slovenia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.