The history of Slovenia chronicles the period of the Slovenian territory from the 5th century BC to the present. In the Early Bronze Age, Proto-Illyrian tribes settled an area stretching from present-day Albania to the city of Trieste. The Slovenian territory was part of the Roman Empire, and it was devastated by the Migration Period's incursions during late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The main route from the Pannonian plain to Italy ran through present-day Slovenia. Alpine Slavs, ancestors of modern-day Slovenians, settled the area in the late 6th Century AD. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the land for nearly 1,000 years. Between the mid-14th century through 1918 most of Slovenia was under Habsburg rule. In 1918, most Slovene territory became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and in 1929 the Drava Banovina was created within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with its capital in Ljubljana, corresponding to Slovenian-majority territories within the state. The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was created in 1945 as part of federal Yugoslavia. Slovenia gained its independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, and today it is a member of the European Union and NATO.
The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians, are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia, and adjacent regions in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Slovenes share a common ancestry, culture, history and speak Slovene as their native language. According to ethnic classification based on language, they are closely related to other South Slavic ethnic groups, as well as more distantly to West Slavs.
Andrej Bajuk, also known in Spanish as Andrés Bajuk was a Slovene politician and economist. He served briefly as Prime Minister of Slovenia in the year 2000, and was Minister of Finance in the centre-right government of Janez Janša between 2004 and 2008. He was the founder and first president of the Christian Democratic party called New Slovenia.
Ivan Cankar was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet, and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Slovene, and has sometimes been compared to Franz Kafka and James Joyce.
Leon Rupnik, also known as Lav Rupnik or Lev Rupnik was a Slovene general in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia who collaborated with the Fascist Italian and Nazi German occupation forces during World War II. Rupnik served as the President of the Provincial Government of the Nazi-occupied Province of Ljubljana from November 1943 to early May 1945. Between September 1944 and early May 1945, he also served as chief inspector of the Slovene Home Guard, a collaborationist militia, although he did not have any military command until the last month of the war.
Boris Kidrič was a Slovene and Yugoslav politician and revolutionary who was one of the chief organizers of the Slovene Partisans, the Slovene resistance against occupation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy after Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. He became the de facto leader of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. As such, he had a crucial role in the anti-Fascist liberation struggle in Slovenia between 1941 and 1945. After World War II he was, together with Edvard Kardelj, a leading Slovenian politician in communist Yugoslavia.
Jože Snoj was a Slovenian poet, novelist, journalist and essayist. He was awarded the 2012 Prešeren Award for his lifetime work and rich literary opus.
Gregorij Rožman was a Slovenian Roman Catholic prelate. Between 1930 and 1959, he served as bishop of the Diocese of Ljubljana. He may be best-remembered for his controversial role during World War II. Rožman was an ardent anti-communist and opposed the Liberation Front of the Slovene People and the Partisan forces because they were led by the Communist party. He established relations with both the fascist and Nazi occupying powers, issued proclamations of support for the occupying authorities, and supported armed collaborationist forces organized by the fascist and Nazi occupiers. The Yugoslav Communist government convicted him in absentia in August 1946 of treason for collaborating with the Nazis against the Yugoslav resistance. In 2009, his conviction was annulled on procedural grounds.
The Province of Ljubljana was the central-southern area of Slovenia. In 1941, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy, and after 1943 occupied by Nazi Germany. Created on May 3, 1941, it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when the Slovene Partisans and partisans from other parts of Yugoslavia liberated it from the Nazi Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral. Its administrative centre was Ljubljana.
Ivan Hribar was a Slovene and Yugoslav banker, politician, diplomat and journalist. During the start of the 20th century, he was one of the leaders of the National Progressive Party, and one of the most important figures of Slovene liberal nationalism. Between 1896 and 1910, he was the mayor of Ljubljana, and greatly contributed to its rebuilding and modernisation after the 1895 earthquake.
Brezovica pri Borovnici is a settlement south of Borovnica in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia. The settlement includes the hamlets of Kapitov Grič, Prod, and Vrbljene.
Mitja Ribičič was a Slovenian and Yugoslav communist politician. He was the only Slovenian Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1969 to 1971.
Josip Ribičič was a Slovene writer, known as an author of popular children's literature.
Miha Krek was a Slovenian lawyer and conservative politician. Between 1941 and 1969, he was the informal leader of the Slovenian anti-Communist emigration.
The Slovene People's Party was a Slovenian political party in the 19th and 20th centuries, active in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Between 1907 and 1941, it was the largest and arguably the most influential political party in the Slovene Lands. It was dissolved by the Yugoslav Communist authorities in 1945, but continued to be active in exile until 1992, when it merged with the Slovene Christian Democrats. The contemporary Slovene People's Party, founded in 1988, was named after it.
Marko Natlačen was a Slovenian politician and jurist, who also served as the last ban (governor) of the Drava Banovina in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. His assassination at the hands of the Slovenian Communist secret police (VOS) during World War II was an important event in the escalation of the armed conflict between the Slovenian partisans and the Slovenian paramilitary anti-revolutionary forces in the Province of Ljubljana. The role of Natlačen during World War II and the extent to which he collaborated with the Fascist Italian forces has been disputed.
Janez Stanovnik was a Slovenian economist, politician, and Partisan. He served as the last President of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia between 1988 and 1990. From 2003 to 2013, he was the president of the Slovenian Partisan Veterans' Association.
The Slovene Partisans, formally the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia, were part of Europe's most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement led by Yugoslav revolutionary communists during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans. Since a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory and approximately 327,000 out of total population of 1.3 million Slovenes were subjected to forced Italianization after the end of the First World War, and genocide of the entire Slovene nation was being planned by the Italian fascist authorities, the objective of the movement was the establishment of the state of Slovenes that would include the majority of Slovenes within a socialist Yugoslav federation in the postwar period.
World War II in the Slovene Lands started in April 1941 and lasted until May 1945. The Slovene Lands were in a unique situation during World War II in Europe. In addition to being trisected, a fate which also befell Greece, Drava Banovina was the only region that experienced a further step—absorption and annexation into neighboring Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Hungary. The Slovene-settled territory was divided largely between Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, with smaller territories occupied and annexed by Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia.
Ježica is a formerly independent settlement in the northern part of the capital Ljubljana in central Slovenia. It is part of the traditional region of Upper Carniola and is now included with the rest of the municipality in the Central Slovenia Statistical Region.
