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. Slovenian territory was part of the Roman Empire, and it was devastated by Barbarian incursions in late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, since 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 A.D. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the land for nearly 1,000 years, and between the mid 14th century and 1918 most of Slovenia was under Habsburg rule. In 1918, Slovenes formed Yugoslavia along with Serbs and Croats, while a minority came under Italy. The state of Slovenia was created in 1945 as part of federal Yugoslavia. Slovenia gained its independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, and is today a member of the European Union and NATO.
TIGR, an abbreviation for Trst (Trieste), Istra (Istria), Gorica (Gorizia) and Reka (Rijeka), full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R., was a militant anti-fascist and insurgent organization established as a response to the Fascist Italianization of the Slovene and Croat people on part of the former Austro-Hungarian territories that became part of Italy after the First World War, and were known at the time as the Julian March. It is considered one of the first anti-fascist resistance movements in Europe. It was active between 1927 and 1941.
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.
Franc Frakelj was a member of the collaborationist Slovene Home Guard and a member of a secret murderous militia called Črna roka who is accused of killing over 60 people during the Second World War. He and his group used wooden sticks to massacre local people in the winter of 1943–44 in Kosler's Thicket in the marshes south of Ljubljana.
The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army, officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, was the Communist-led resistance to the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.
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 Domobranci, a collaborationist militia, although he did not have any military competences until the last month of the war.
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 Slovene Home Guard was a Slovene military anti-Partisan organization during the 1943-1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljubljana. It consisted of former Village Sentries, part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice.
Military operations in World War II in Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and client regimes. Subsequently, a guerrilla liberation war was fought against the Axis occupying forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the fascist Independent State of Croatia and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, by the Communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Partisans, the Serbian monarchist Chetniks, the Croatian Ustashe and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, as well as Slovene Home Guard troops.
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 Fascist 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 Operation Zone of the Adriatic Littoral. Its administrative centre was Ljubljana.
France Balantič was a Slovene poet. His works were banned from schools and libraries during the Titoist regime in Slovenia, but since the late 1980s he has been re-evaluated as one of the foremost Slovene poets of the 20th century.
Ernest Peterlin was a Slovene military officer who rose to a senior position in the Royal Yugoslav Army prior to the Second World War.Married to Anja Roman Rezelj. A decided anti-Communist, during the war he became a prominent anti-Partisan military leader and one of the main exponents of the pro-Western faction of the Slovene Home Guard, an anti-Communist collaborationist militia active in parts of German-occupied Slovenia between 1943 and 1945. In 1945, he was tried and sentenced to death by the new Yugoslav Communist authorities and executed in 1946.
Mitja Ribičič was a Slovenian Communist official and Yugoslav politician. He was the only Slovenian prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1969–1971).
The Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia were local armed auxiliary units composed of Chetniks and Slovene anti-Partisans in Italian-occupied parts of Yugoslavia. The same name was contemporaneously used to designate both similar Slovenian auxiliary units whom sided with the Italian authorities in the Italian-annexed part of Slovenia and also some Montenegrin auxiliaries in Montenegro.
The Slovene Partisans 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 since the end of the First World War, the objective of the movement was the establishment of the state of Slovenes that would include majority of Slovenes within a socialist Yugoslav federation in the post-War period.
The Ustashe Militia was the party army of the Ustashe, established by the fascist regime of Ante Pavelić in the Axis puppet state the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in Yugoslavia during World War II.
World War II in the Slovene Lands started in April 1941 and lasted until May 1945. Slovenia was in a unique situation during World War II in Europe, only Greece shared its experience of being trisected, however, Slovenia 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 by Hungary, and the Independent State of Croatia.
Husein "Huska" Miljković was a Bosnian Muslim military commander who fought with various military formations in Yugoslavia during World War II. A communist politician during the interwar period, he joined the Yugoslav Partisans following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia but defected to the Ustaše in mid-1941. He defected back to the Partisans in December 1941 and was made leader of communist forces in northwestern Bosnia during 1942. Following a political disagreement, he defected to the Ustaše yet again in February 1943 and was given command of 100 soldiers. He formed his own 3,000-strong Bosnian Muslim militia with the help of the Germans and Croats in late 1943. He agreed to align himself with the Partisans once again in early 1944, prompting Muslim anti-communists within his militia to assassinate him in May 1944.
The Blue Guard, also known as the Slovene Chetniks, was a Slovenian anti-communist militia, initially under the leadership of major Karl Novak and later Ivan Prezelj. Their official name was Royal Yugoslav Army in Slovenia
