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, and between the mid-14th century and 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.
Slovenia is situated at the crossroads of central and southeast Europe, touching the Alps and bordering the Adriatic Sea. The Alps—including the Julian Alps, the Kamnik–Savinja Alps and the Karawank chain, as well as the Pohorje massif—dominate northern Slovenia along its long border to Austria. Slovenia's Adriatic coastline stretches approximately 47 km (29 mi) from Italy to Croatia. Its part south of Sava river belongs to Balkan peninsula – Balkans.
TIGR, an abbreviation for Trst, Istra, Gorica, and Reka, 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.
Taja Kramberger is a Slovenian poet, translator, essayist and historical anthropologist from Slovenia. She lives in France.
University of Primorska is a public university in Slovenia. It is located in Koper, Izola, and Portorož and is named for the Slovenian Littoral region, where it is located.
The Austrian Littoral was a crown land (Kronland) of the Austrian Empire, established in 1849. It consisted of three regions: the Margraviate of Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, and the Imperial Free City of Trieste. Throughout history, the region has been contested frequently, with parts of it controlled at various times by the Republic of Venice, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Yugoslavia among others.
The Slovene Littoral is one of the five traditional regions of Slovenia. The littoral in its name - for a coastal-adjacent area - recalls the former Austrian Littoral, the Habsburg possessions on the upper Adriatic coast, of which the Slovene Littoral was part.
The Italian language is an officially recognized minority language in Slovenia, along with Hungarian. Around 3,700 Slovenian citizens speak Italian as their mother tongue, mostly Istrian Italians. Italian has a strong presence in Slovenia, both historical and current. An estimated 15% of Slovenians speak Italian as a second language, which is one of the highest percentages in the European Union.
The Slovene lands or Slovenian lands is the historical denomination for the territories in Central and Southern Europe where people primarily spoke Slovene. The Slovene lands were part of the Illyrian provinces, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary. They encompassed Carniola, southern part of Carinthia, southern part of Styria, Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste, and Prekmurje. Their territory more or less corresponds to modern Slovenia and the adjacent territories in Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia, where autochthonous Slovene minorities live. In the areas where present-day Slovenia borders to neighboring countries, they were never homogeneously ethnically Slovene.
Jože Pirjevec, registered at birth Giuseppe Pierazzi because of the Italianization policy under the Fascist regime, is a Slovene–Italian historian and a prominent diplomatic historian of the west Balkans region, as well as a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Boris M. Gombač is a Slovene historian from Italy.
Milica Kacin Wohinz was a Slovenian historian best known for her seminal study on the history of the forceful Italianization of the Slovene minority in Italy (1920–1947) that took place between 1918 and 1943.
Boris Furlan was a Slovenian jurist, philosopher of law, translator and liberal politician. During World War II, he worked as a speaker on Radio London, and was known as "London's Slovene voice". He served as a Minister in the Tito–Šubašić coalition government. In 1947, he was convicted by the Yugoslav Communist authorities at the Nagode Trial.
Istrian Italians are an ethnic group from the Adriatic region of Istria in modern northwestern Croatia and southwestern Slovenia. Istrian Italians descend from the original Latinized population of Roman Histria, from the Venetian-speaking settlers who colonized the region during the time of the Republic of Venice, and from the local Croatian people who culturally assimilated.
The Trieste National Hall or Slovene Cultural Centre, also known as the Hotel Balkan, in Trieste was a multimodal building that served for 15 years as a social and economic centre for the Slovene minority in the city. It included the Slovene theatre in Trieste, a hotel, a restaurant, a gym and numerous cultural associations. It is notable for having been burned in 1920 by Italian Fascists, which made it a symbol of the Italian repression of the Slovene minority in Italy. The building was restored from 1988 to 1990. and later used as a hotel. Around 2010 it has been renovated according to the original plans.
Slovene minority in Italy, also known as Slovenes in Italy is the name given to Italian citizens who belong to the autochthonous Slovene ethnic and linguistic minority living in the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The vast majority of members of the Slovene ethnic minority live in the Provinces of Trieste, Gorizia, and Udine. Estimates of their number vary significantly; the official figures show 52,194 Slovenian speakers in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as per the 1971 census, but Slovenian estimates speak of 83,000 to 100,000 people.
Slavia Friulana, which means Friulian Slavia, is a small mountainous region in northeastern Italy and it is so called because of its Slavic population which settled here in the 8th century AD. The territory is located in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, between the town of Cividale del Friuli and the Slovenian border.
Vida Tomšič néeBernot was a Slovenian communist before World War II, Partisan fighter during the War, prominent communist politician, women's activist, and people's hero in postwar Yugoslavia. She was born and died in Ljubljana, and held many government positions in Slovenia and Yugoslavia during her long career. Tomšič was a Marxist feminist who "saw women’s rights as strictly dependent on the social and economic development of the country as a whole."
Alojzija Štebi was a Slovene feminist, educator and politician. Beginning her career as a teacher, Štebi became involved in women's rights and moved into politics and journalism. Addressing the lack of civic, political and social equality and she used her writing and political stances to advance an equal society. Though supportive of a united Yugoslavia, she was cautious about losing rights that the various states had if they joined. She founded the Feminist Alliance of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to unite women in the newly formed state to advocate for equal pay, civil marriage, protections for children and a social safety net for workers.
Krassimira Daskalova is a Bulgarian academic and pioneer in gender studies. She served as editor of L'Homme: European Journal of Feminist History from 2003 to 2011 and is co-editor of Aspasia since 2007. Between 2005 and 2010 she was president of the International Federation for Research in Women's History.
