The Balkans, also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographic area in southeastern Europe with various definitions and meanings, including geopolitical and historical. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria from the Serbian-Bulgarian border to the Black Sea coast. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea on the northwest, the Ionian Sea on the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south and southeast, and the Black Sea on the east and northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala, 2,925 metres (9,596 ft), in the Rila mountain range.
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a sovereign state located in southern Central Europe at a crossroads of important European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest. It covers 20,273 square kilometers (7,827 sq mi) and has a population of 2.07 million. One of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia is a parliamentary republic and a member of the United Nations, of the European Union, and of NATO. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana.
Yugoslavia was a country in Southeastern and Central Europe for most of the 20th century. It came into existence after World War I in 1918 under the name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the Kingdom of Serbia, and constituted the first union of the South Slavic people as a sovereign state, following centuries in which the region had been part of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Peter I of Serbia was its first sovereign. The kingdom gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris. The official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929.
Neue Slowenische Kunst, a.k.a. NSK, is a controversial political art collective that formed in Slovenia in 1984, when Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia. NSK's name, being German, is compatible with a theme in NSK works: the complicated relationship Slovenes have had with Germans. The name of NSK's music wing, Laibach, is also the German name of the Slovene capital Ljubljana. The name created controversy because some felt it evoked memories of the Nazi annexation of Slovenia during the Second World War. It also refers to Slovenia's previous seven centuries as part of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Janez Drnovšek was a Slovenian liberal politician, President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1989–1990), Prime Minister of Slovenia (1992–2002) and President of Slovenia (2002–2007).
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher. He is a professor at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London. He works in subjects including continental philosophy, political theory, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, film criticism, Marxism, Hegelianism and theology.
The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians, are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia, and also to Italy, Austria and Hungary in addition to having a diaspora throughout the world. Slovenes share a common ancestry, culture, history and speak Slovene as their native language.
Delo is a national daily newspaper in Slovenia. For more than 50 years, Delo has been involved in active co-creation of the Slovenian public space. It covers politics, economics, sports, culture and social events in Slovene language. In addition to Slovenia, the paper is available in several Croatian cities and in Belgrade, Serbia. It is based in Ljubljana.
Liberal Democracy of Slovenia is a liberal and social-liberal political party in Slovenia. Between 1992 and 2004 it was the largest party in the country. In the 2011 Slovenian parliamentary election, it failed to win entry to the Slovenian National Assembly. The party was a member of the Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
The Slovenian People's Party is a conservative, agrarian, and Christian democratic political party in Slovenia. Formed in 1988 under the name of Slovenian Peasant Union as the first democratic political organization in Yugoslavia, it changed its name to Slovenian People's Party in 1992. On 15 April 2000 it merged with the Slovene Christian Democrats to form the SLS+SKD Slovenian People's Party, and changed its name in 2001 to Slovenian People's Party.
New Slovenia – Christian Democrats is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Slovenia. Since 2008, it is led by Ljudmila Novak. The party was formed on 4 August 2000 following a split in the unified Slovenian People's Party and Slovene Christian Democrats (SLS+SKD). NSi is a member of the European People's Party (EPP) and in the European Parliament its MEP Lojze Peterle sits with the EPP Group. NSi won 4.88% of the vote at the early 2011 Slovenian parliamentary election on 4 December 2011, thus gaining 4 seats in the National Assembly.
The Social Democrats is a centre-left political party in Slovenia, currently led by Dejan Židan. From 1993 until 2005, the party was known as the United List of Social Democrats. Since 13 September 2018, the Social Democrats have been a coalition partner in the Šarec government.
Ivan Janša, baptized and best known as Janez Janša[ˈjàːnɛs], is a Slovenian politician who was Prime Minister of Slovenia from 2004 to 2008 and again from 2012 to 2013. He has led the Slovenian Democratic Party since 1993. Janša was Minister of Defence from 1990 to 1994, holding that post during the Slovenian War of Independence.
The Breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart, but the unresolved issues caused bitter inter-ethnic Yugoslav wars. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighboring parts of Croatia and some years later, Kosovo.
The Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation, or simply Liberation Front, originally called the Anti-Imperialist Front, was the main anti-fascist Slovene civil resistance and political organization. It was active in the Slovene Lands during World War II. Its military arm were the Slovene Partisans. The organisation was established in the Province of Ljubljana on 26 April 1941 in the house of the literary critic Josip Vidmar. Its leaders were Boris Kidrič and Edvard Kardelj.
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was one of the six republics forming the post-World War II country of Yugoslavia. It existed under different names from 29 November 1945 until 25 June 1991. In 1990, while the country was still a part of the Yugoslav federation, the League of Communists of Slovenia allowed for the establishment of other political parties, which led to the democratization of the country. The official name of the republic was Federal Slovenia until 20 February 1946, when it was renamed the People's Republic of Slovenia. It retained this name until 9 April 1963, when its name was changed again, this time to Socialist Republic of Slovenia. On 8 March 1990, the Socialist Republic of Slovenia removed the prefix "Socialist" from its name, becoming the Republic of Slovenia, though remaining a constituent state of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until 25 June 1991, when it enacted the laws resulting in independence.
Mladina is a Slovenian weekly left-wing current affairs magazine. Since the 1920s, when it was first published, it has become a voice of protest against those in power. Now it is printed weekly throughout the country and is considered one of the most influential political magazines in the country.
Slovenian nationalism is the nationalism that asserts that Slovenes are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Slovenes. Slovenian nationalism first arose in response to the influx of ideas of nationalism from the French Revolution that arrived in Slovenia when the French forces of Napoleon Bonaparte made Slovenia part of the Illyrian Provinces from 1809 to 1813. Slovenian nationalists such as Anton Korošec endorsed Yugoslav unification during World War I as a means to free Slovenia from Austro-Hungarian rule.
Slobodan Milošević was a Yugoslav politician and the President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He also led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990. He rose to power as Serbian President after he and his supporters claimed the need to reform the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia due to both the marginalization of Serbia and its political incapacity to deter Albanian separatist unrest in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
