Rudolf "Rudi" Vouk, (born 19 March 1965) is an Austrian lawyer, politician and human rights activist of Slovene ethnic background, known for his legal and political fight for the minority rights of Carinthian Slovenes.
Rudolf "Rudi" Vouk, (born 19 March 1965) is an Austrian lawyer, politician and human rights activist of Slovene ethnic background, known for his legal and political fight for the minority rights of Carinthian Slovenes.
He was born in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, to Carinthian Slovenes parents. After graduating from the Slovene-language high school in his hometown, he went to Vienna to study law. After finishing his studies, he returned to Carinthia to open his own private practice. He took particular interest in cases involving the legal rights of his minority.
Because of his involvement in the subject, he was elected as member of the Presidency of the political party Enotna lista . In 1997, he became a municipal councilor of Eberndorf (Dobrla vas), and in 1999, he became the chairman of the National Council of Carinthian Slovenes, one of the two central coordinating organizations of the Slovene ethnic minority in Carinthia. From 2000 to 2003, he was the chairman of the Carithian Slovenes delegacy at the National Minorities Day, but he moved to the role of Vice-Chairman in 2003. With the political influence he gained, he continued to promote the problem of legal rights of his minority at Austria's Constitutional court.
Austria received a lot of attention and concern about its handling of its minorities after his protest after the erection of bilingual signs in Sankt Kanzian am Klopeiner See (Škocijan), which he considered illegal in this unsatisfactory form. [1]
With Vouk as its prime candidate for Carinthia, the party Liberal forum achieved a result of 1.5% of total votes at the Austrian Parliamentary elections in 2008. [2]
Vouk is married and has two daughters.
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, 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.
Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Bavarian group. Carinthian Slovene dialects, forms of a South Slavic language that predominated in the southeastern part of the region up to the first half of the 20th century, are now spoken by a small minority in the area.
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. They are closely related to other South Slavic ethnic groups, as well as more distantly to West Slavs.
The Carinthian plebiscite was held on 10 October 1920 in the area in southern Carinthia predominantly settled by Carinthian Slovenes. It determined the final border between the Republic of Austria and the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) after World War I. The predominantly Slovene-speaking plebiscite area voted to remain part of Austria with a 59% majority.
Bleiburg is a small town in the south Austrian state of Carinthia (Koroška), south-east of Klagenfurt, in the district of Völkermarkt, some four kilometres from the border with Slovenia.
The Kärntner Heimatdienst is a German nationalist advocacy group in the Austrian state of Carinthia established in 1957. The KHD describes itself as a "non-party patriotic citizens' initiative". It adopts the tradition of the German-Austrian paramilitary forces during the Austrian-Slovene clashes in Carinthia in the aftermath of World War I. As an officially approved traditions association it receives direct funding by the Carinthian state.
United Slovenia is the name originally given to an unrealized political programme of the Slovene national movement, formulated during the Spring of Nations in 1848. The programme demanded (a) unification of all the Slovene-inhabited areas into one single kingdom under the rule of the Austrian Empire, (b) equal rights of Slovene in public, and (c) strongly opposed the planned integration of the Habsburg monarchy with the German Confederation. The programme failed to meet its main objectives, but it remained the common political program of all currents within the Slovene national movement until World War I.
The Unity List or EL seeks to represent the indigenous Slovene minority in Carinthia. It came into existence in 1991, replacing the "Club of Slovenian Local Councillors", which had existed as an initiative of local Slovenian party lists from various local councils. Slovenian party lists have regularly contested elections in Carinthia since 1950. The current chairperson of the EL is Vladimir Smrtnik.
Carinthian Slovenes or Carinthian Slovenians are the indigenous minority of Slovene ethnicity, living within borders of the Austrian state of Carinthia, neighboring Slovenia. Their status of the minority group is guaranteed in principle by the Constitution of Austria and under international law, and have seats in the National Ethnic Groups Advisory Council.
Feistritz im Rosental, often referred to as simply Feistritz, is a market town in the district of Klagenfurt-Land in the Austrian state of Carinthia.
Eberndorf is a market town of the Völkermarkt District in Carinthia, Austria.
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.
Andrej Einspieler was a Slovene politician, Roman Catholic priest and journalist, and one of the early leaders of the Old Slovene national movement in the 19th century. He was known as the "father of the Carinthian Slovenes".
Vinko Ošlak is a Slovene author, essayist, translator, columnist and esperantist from the Austrian state of Carinthia.
Jörg Haider was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Austria, a breakaway party from the FPÖ.
Hans Sima was an Austrian politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), serving as governor (Landeshauptmann) of Carinthia from 1965 to 1974.
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.
The Austro-Slovene conflict in Carinthia was a military engagement that ensued in the aftermath of World War I between forces loyal to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and forces loyal to the Republic of German-Austria. The main theater of the conflict was the linguistically mixed region in southeastern Carinthia. The conflict was settled by the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1919, which stipulated that the territorial dispute be resolved by a plebiscite.
Angelika Rosa Mlinar is an Austrian and Slovenian politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2014 until 2019. She is a member of NEOS – The New Austria, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. She belongs to the minority of Carinthian Slovenes. She is a distinguished fellow of the European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
Minority languages are spoken in a number of autochthonous settlements in Austria. These are:
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