Slovenia is an independent nation in Southern Europe. With the capital city of Ljubljana, Slovenia 2020 population is estimated at 2,078,949 according to countryaah. Today’s Slovenia was ruled by Östrom when the Catholic Church started winning over the Slovenes in the 7th century. The Roman-Roman emperor took over the area, which in the 13th century was connected to the prince’s house Habsburg. After World War I, Slovenia ended up in what became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During World War II, Slovenia was occupied by Germany, Italy and Hungary. After the war, the area was incorporated in Communist Yugoslavia, which was then established.
The Slavic ancestors of the Slovenians settled in the 500s in what is today Slovenia, which was then part of the East Roman (Byzantine) empire. Greater or smaller parts of the area then, for a few centuries, obeyed various rulers, such as Hungarians, Bavarians and Franks.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Comprehensive guide to and popular abbreviations of Slovenia, covering history, economy, and social conditions.
In the 7th century, the Catholic Church began to convert the Slovenes and in the beginning of the 8th, the German-Roman emperor Karl took great control of the area. However, Östrom retained influence on the Istrian peninsula and along the Adriatic coast. For Slovenia political system, please check computerminus.
In the middle of the 1300s, the area was connected to the German-Austrian prince Habsburg, during which the Slovenes came to obey until 1918, with a break for 1809-1813 when the Slovenian territories were part of Napoleon’s French empire with Ljubljana as the capital of the imperial province of the empire.
In the middle of the 19th century, the first Slovenian political organizations were formed within the Habsburg Empire. Some wanted to remain within the empire, some dreamed of a South Slavic (Yugoslav, “jugo” = south) nation and others advocated an independent Slovenia. South Slavic nationalism had taken root farther south, in Serbia and Croatia, and gained air under the wings of Habsburg’s hardships in the First World War. When representatives of the South Slavic groups met on the island of Corfu in 1917, the Slovenians also participated. At the meeting, it was decided to form a state under the Serbian crown.
In December 1918, following the collapse of Austria-Hungary, the “Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes” was proclaimed under the King of Serbia, Aleksandar. The former Austrian provinces of Styria and Krain joined the newly formed state, while fighting came to an end over the province of Carinthia. After military clashes and a referendum in 1920, Austria left the area of Gorizia, with a significant Slovenian population, to Italy, while some smaller Slovenian speaking areas in Hungary joined the southern Slavic kingdom. This changed its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.
This first Yugoslavia was poor and politically troubled. Serbs and Croats disputed whether it was a federation or a centralized state. Supporters of a central state, mainly the Serbs, won. The state was ruled from the Serbian capital Belgrade. The Slovenes succeeded in achieving a certain degree of self-government, not least through their linguistic specificity. The Slovenian leader, the priest Anton Korošec, was elected prime minister. When an influential Croat was shot down in Parliament, the country was close to civil war and in 1929 King Aleksandar repealed the constitution. He ruled the country as dictator until he was assassinated in 1934.
At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Yugoslavia began to fall apart. Croatia gained self-government and many Slovenes strived in the same direction. In April 1941, German and Italian forces entered Yugoslavia. The Slovenian territories were divided between Germany, Italy and Hungary.
A liberation front was formed in Slovenia, which fought the occupation in collaboration with Communist Party leader Josip Broz Tito’s partisans from other parts of the country. In parallel, there was also a conflict between Domobranci (the White Guard), which cooperated with the occupants, and the resistance groups. Tito’s partisan army liberated Yugoslavia and a Federal Socialist Republic was formed in 1945 with Slovenia as one of six sub-republics. This laid the foundation for Slovenia’s independence.
2010
September
Big strike against frozen wages
Half of all public servants, 80,000 people, go on strike after the government decides to freeze their salaries in the light of the economic crisis.
June
Apology for ‘erased’
June 15
Parliament Speaker Pavel Ganter apologizes more than officially that more than 25,000 people were removed from the registers a year after independence in 1991. It was mainly people from other Yugoslav republics who were “obliterated” when they did not claim Slovenian citizenship, and thus lost social rights.
Yes to border settlement
6th June
In a referendum held on the initiative of the opposition, voters approve with a marginal margin the border settlement with Croatia.
May
Slovenia in the OECD
Slovenia becomes a full member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
April
Support party leaves the government
Desus leaves the government coalition, but the only vintage party representative, Environment Minister Roko Zarnic, leaves the party and remains in the government as independent.
March
New law makes new citizens
Thousands of Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and Romans who, after independence were deprived of their citizenship, get their rights back through a new law (see also Population and languages).
February
Criticism against the President
The opposition calls for the resignation of President Danilo Turk, after giving a high government award to Tomaz Ertl, who during the Communist era led the secret police and who is suspected of human rights violations.
January
The Minister for the Environment is leaving
Minister of the Environment Karl Erjavec, leader of Desus, resigns after the audit accuses the Ministry of Economic Neglect.
