Ljubljana related

13 Jan 2020, 09:48 AM

STA, 12 January 2020 - Several thousand people made the pilgrimage to the village of Dražgoše in north-west Slovenia on Sunday to attend a ceremony marking the 78th anniversary of a battle that is seen as one of the defining events of WWII on Slovenian soil. 

The first event of the year on the annual calendar of major celebrations of WWII turning points, the ceremony commemorates a battle that started on 9 January 1942, when the 200-strong Cankarjev Battalion tried to stop German troops advancing towards the village of Dražgoše.

It was fought in deep snow and below-zero temperatures against some 2,000 Nazi Germans to prevent the deportations of locals. After three days, the German troops reached the village and killed twenty locals and another twenty in retaliation after the Partisans retreated.

The Nazis, who lost over 100 soldiers, completely destroyed the village and drove the survivors out. The Partisans lost nine soldiers.

Senior official including President Borut Pahor, Speaker Dejan Židan, Defence Minister Karl Erjavec, former president Milan Kučan and several other cabinet members and MPs from the ranks of leftist parties were on hand today.

The turnout reflects the historical division over WWII that persist through this day, with leftist parties celebrating Partisan achievements during WWII and rightist parties and media decrying the Dražgoše ceremony as a "red orgy".

The keynote speaker today, the poet Ervin Fritz, used the opportunity to decry neoliberal capitalism, which he said should be the subject of "radical critique", while extolling the virtues of socialism, even as he acknowledged it has its mistakes and had become "degenerated" in Yugoslavia to the extent that Slovenia's national independence was jeopardised.

This necessitated leaving Yugoslavia, but in doing so Slovenia went from bad to worse, he asserted. "That present-day Slovenia is the realisation of the dreams of centuries and millennia is merely rhetorical hubris, for the renowned protagonists of independence had carried out a counter-revolution at the same time - the restoration of capitalism," he said.

As a result, all public good has become prey and "now we allow the sell-off of all that had been created. We give domestic and foreign predators freedom to act, he said.

11 Jan 2020, 10:37 AM

STA, 10 January 2020 - The Supreme Court's controversial annulment of the guilty sentence for a WWII collaborationist general has raised questions about the legal and historical implications of the decision. While the court has ordered a retrial, the most likely outcome seems to be a termination of procedure.

The Supreme Court recently annulled the death sentence of Slovenian general Leon Rupnik (1880-1946), who collaborated with the occupying forces during World War II, on an appeal on a point of law lodged by his relative, and sent the case to the Ljubljana District Court for retrial.

Rupnik was a general in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in WWI and later collaborated with the Fascist Italian and Nazi German occupation forces during World War II. He served as the head of the Provincial Government of the Nazi-occupied Province of Ljubljana in 1943-1945, and was also chief inspector of the Domobranci (Slovene Home Guard), a collaborationist militia.

The Supreme Court's ruling rests on procedural grounds: the court held that the military court's ruling had not been sufficiently reasoned, even under the standards applicable at the time.

The annulment means the case will now be sent into retrial, and Miha Hafner, an associate professor at the Ljubljana Faculty of Law, believes it will either be thrown out by the prosecution, or that the court will declare it cannot conduct a retrial since the accused is already dead.

Under the criminal procedure act, courts cannot try dead persons, which means that Rupnik's guilt will not be examined once again, Hafner told the STA.

The end effect of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, is that "since the procedure will be terminated whereas the previous ruling was annulled and the presumption of innocence applies [in Slovenia], Rupnik cannot legally be regarded as guilty of this criminal act," according to Hafner.

Hafner stressed, however, that the decision does not strictly mean Rupnik is rehabilitated. "If the gentleman were still alive, a retrial would start and the court of first instance would carry out the entire procedure."

Another consequence of the ruling may be that Rupnik's heirs may claim the return of property since Rupnik's property was seized by the state after the trial, said Hafner.

The ruling has earned the Supreme Court fierce criticism, in particular from the left, but the court told the STA it had no other choice than to decide on the Rupnik heir's appeal on a point of law.

All our stories on Leon Rupnik are here

09 Jan 2020, 11:33 AM

STA, 8 January - The Supreme Court has annulled the death sentence of Slovenian general Leon Rupnik (1880-1946), who collaborated with the occupying forces during World War II, on an appeal from his relative, and sent the case to the Ljubljana District Court for retrial, the newspapers Dnevnik and Večer reported on Wednesday.

Rupnik was a general in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in WWI and later collaborated with the Fascist Italian and Nazi German occupation forces during World War II.

Wikimedia CC-by-0 1945 Leon_Rupnik.jpg

Wikipedia, CC-by-0

He served as the president of the Provincial Government of the Nazi-occupied Province of Ljubljana in 1943-1945, and was also chief inspector of the Domobranci (Slovene Home Guard), a collaborationist militia.

In May 1945, Rupnik fled to Austria, where he was arrested by the British and returned to Yugoslavia in early 1946. He was court-martialled along with several other people and sentenced to death for treason and collaboration with the occupiers later that year.

Rupnik on stage with fellow Nazis in Ljubljana

The verdict was confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Yugoslav Army, and the appeal for clemency was rejected on 2 September 1946.

Rupnik was executed by firing squad in Ljubljana on the same day and buried in Žale Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

One of his descendants, allegedly a grandson, had filed an appeal on a point of law through an attorney, and the appeal has now been granted by the Supreme Court.

The part of the verdict relating to Rupnik has been annulled and the case has been returned to the Ljubljana District Court for retrial.

According to the newspapers, the court says that the verdict was not in compliance with the legal principles at the time, and that not all accusations of the acts he had been sentenced for had been supported with facts and circumstances.

For one of the acts the court has found that it does not bear signs of a criminal act.

Rupnik's relative claimed, among other things, that the verdict had not been sufficiently explained, that the reasons conflict each other, that he was violated his right to defence, and that judges who had reached the verdict should have been excluded.

08 Jan 2020, 10:52 AM

8 January, 2020 - Slovenia’s declaration of independence on 25 June 1991 came just a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, and the ensuing collapse of the post-World War 2 order in Europe. While there were many differences between East and West, and many reasons for the break-up of Yugoslavia and end of the Soviet Union, economics undoubtedly played a key role, and living standards a much-watched indicator of the success, or failure, of the transition to a market economy. Although, once again, note that Slovenia (as part of Yugoslavia) was not a member of the USSR, and operated a different, more open and non-aligned form of socialism than that seen behind the Iron Curtain.

Still, how have the various economies of post-communist Eastern and Central Europe fared in the three decades since opening to the world? One way to look at this is with the following video, which shows the GDP per capita from 1992 to 2017 for the top 10 nations included in the data. The GDP is presented in US dollars and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms, a measure that considers the crude income compared to the prices of goods in the different countries. As such, it’s seen as a good measure of relative affluence, and for comparing the economic productivity and standards of living between different nations

It’s best and most fun to just watch the video, and see how nations rise and fall over time, but in summary: Slovenia starts at #2, slightly behind the Czech Republic (aka Czechia) in 1992. These two then stay at the top, very close together, until 1998, when Slovenia takes pole position. After this, Slovenia pulls ahead, soon maintaining a lead of some US$2,000 until 2007, when Czechia closes the gap, then takes over the top spot in 2009. Slovenian then regains #1 for 2010 and 2011, but after that Czechia is in the lead.

Another way to look at this data is to zoom out and put Slovenia among the all the other EU Member States, with the country having joined the organisation in 2004. It’s on watching this you may have some questions about Luxembourg, with a population just under a third that of Slovenia.

Note that the first the video was produced by Lionwork Statistics, and was released with the following notes:

  1. There was no data available for Slovenia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia until 1995. In these cases, the average growth rate of the nearest region was used to calculate the estimated value. In the case of Estonia, data are shown from 1993, since no similar region is present due to geographical placement.
  2. The comparison includes Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Some never made it to the Top 10 during the time period.
23 Dec 2019, 16:20 PM

STA, 23 December 2018 - Slovenia started annual celebrations of its independence on Monday, which marks the 29th anniversary of the independence plebiscite that culminated in the declaration of the results on 26 December 1990, now celebrated as Independence and Unity Day.

The main national Independence and Unity Day ceremony will be held this evening at Cankarjev Dom with a keynote address by President Borut Pahor, preceded by a ceremonial session of the National Assembly.

Prime Minister Marjan Šarec will host a reception for the relatives of those who died in the independence war, while Archbishop of Ljubljana Stanislav Zore will say homeland mass at the Ljubljana cathedral.

The rightist Association for the Values of Slovenian Independence (VSO) marked the independence anniversary last Monday with a ceremony featuring Democrat (SDS) leader Janez Janša as the keynote speaker.

Janša said the independence referendum almost three decades ago was the highlight in the history of the Slovenian nation.

Slovenians voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence in the 23 December 1990 referendum, endorsing leaving Yugoslavia with a majority of almost 95%, equalling 88.5% of all eligible voters.

Three days later, on 26 December 1990, the National Assembly declared the outcome, triggering a milestone year that included the declaration of independence in June 1990 and a ten-day war.

Legally speaking, the independence efforts were completed on 23 December 1991, when the National Assembly declared the Slovenian Constitution. This is why 23 December is observed as Constitution Day.

31 Oct 2019, 10:43 AM

To mark Reformation Day, here's a short introduction to Primož Trubar

31 Oct 2019, 09:54 AM

STA, 31 October 2019 - Reformation Day, a public holiday and work-free day, will be marked on Thursday with a mass celebrated at the Ljubljana protestant church as well as a ceremony at the Trubar Homestead south of the capital which will include a keynote by President Borut Pahor.

Today's mass will be attended by a number of senior state officials, including President Pahor and Prime Minister Marjan Šarec. It will be celebrated by Geza Filo, the outgoing head of Slovenia's Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The Protestant leader told the STA in an interview ahead of the holiday that the spirit and teachings of the Reformation were still relevant five centuries after the movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church pushed through Europe.

The Reformation paved the way for the first printed books in the Slovenian language as well as the Slovenian translation of the entire Bible - the foundation of the Slovenian literary language and national identity.

The main ceremony marking Reformation Day took place on the eve of the holiday, with Speaker Dejan Židan delivering the keynote.

There will be another high-level ceremony today at the Trubar Homestead, the birthplace of Primož Trubar (1508-1586), a Protestant priest and scholar and one of the leading Slovenian Reformation figures.

He was the first to translate parts of the Bible into Slovenian and authored the first Slovenian printed book, consolidating Slovenian as a literary language.

17 Oct 2019, 20:55 PM

As an author living in Ljubljana, much of my work is inspired by Slovenia and the region. Most recently I was inspired to write an alternate history of the breakup of Yugoslavia, which asks the question: What if Marshal Tito had named a totally untrained and untested successor? The first book centers on Slovenia and its war of independence. Here are ten interesting things that I learned, or discovered more about, while doing research for Tito’s Lost Children: War One Slovenia.

1. If you live in Ljubljana, Marshal Josip Broz Tito died in the hospital you probably go to.

Josip Broz Tito died at the University Clinical Center in Ljubljana on Njegoševa cesta. In 1980 it was one of the newest and most advanced medical centers in Yugoslavia, so he chose to travel to Ljubljana for treatment. The procession that took his body back to Belgrade on his famous Blue Train started from the Slovenian Parliament and what is today called Republic Square. A bit over ten years later this was the same location where Slovenian independence was declared.

Related: May 4 in Slovenian History: Tito Dies in Ljubljana

In the Tito’s Lost Children trilogy, eleven years after his death, Tito’s fictional successor is tasked with stopping the breakup of Yugoslavia, avoiding capture by Serbian nationalists and preventing a wider war and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

2. The rest of the former Yugoslavia has stereotypes that Slovenes are cheap, that Slovene girls are ‘easy,’ and that Slovene men are wimpy.

In the rest of the former Yugoslavia, ‘going Dutch’ is apparently referred to as ‘being Slovene.’ Despite – or possibly because of --the fact that Slovenia was the wealthiest member republic of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenes have a reputation as the misers of the region. In my experience the Slovenian attitude toward money seems to be more of an overt concern with good accounting. Be sure you keep the receipt for that one piece of burek you just bought!

There is also a stereotype that Slovene girls are ‘easy’, possibly because most interactions between Slovenes and people from other Yugoslav nationalities took place on ‘spring break’ style vacations in Croatia. As a single guy living here, I must report that I don’t have much evidence that this stereotype is true.

Perhaps related to the above, there is also a perception in the Balkans that Slovene men are wimpy. However, Slovenes are quick to point out that this is not the case and that brash behavior is simply frowned upon more here than it is in the rest of the former Yugoslavia.

In Tito’s Lost Children, the main characters meet Slovenes who seem to fulfill these stereotypes, only to turn out to be slightly misunderstood once we actually get to know them.

3. Slovenia declared independence one day before they announced that they would.

88.5% of Slovenians voted for independence in a referendum held on December 23rd 1991, which gave the government six months to implement the decision. The government took almost the entire six months to prepare for the independence and a probable conflict with the Yugoslav People’s Army. However, independence was declared one day early, before the waiting period expired, in order to catch the People’s Army off guard. This surprise move possibly made Slovenian victory easier. It also plays a role in Tito’s Lost Children.

4. Slovenska Cesta used to be named Tito Street.

It seems almost obvious once you know that ‘Tito Street,’ one of the main roads in the center of Ljubljana, was renamed ‘Slovenian Street’ upon independence. The names also changed for a lot of other landmark places in the center of the city. These include: Revolution Square, present day Republic Square, and Liberation Square, which is today’s Congress Square.

Wikimedia Josip in Jovanka Broz v hotelu Slon bereta Delo 1969 public domain 1453px-Josip_in_Jovanka_Broz_v_hotelu_Slon_bereta_Delo_1969.jpg

Tito and Jovanka reading Delo in Hotel Slon, on Tito Street, in 1969. Wikimedia

5. The present day prison hostel in Metelkova was where Janez Janša, an activist in the 1980’s, was imprisoned.

One of Ljubljana’s alternative culture hubs, now known as Metelkova for the street that it fronts on, has a prison that has been converted into a hostel. During the late 1980’s Metelkova was a barracks for the Yugoslav People’s Army, which got abandoned after the Slovenian war of independence. The prison hostel in it was once a very real military jail where politician Janez Janša was imprisoned after leaking classified People’s Army documents to Mladina, a magazine that, at the time, was officially the communist party’s youth magazine. I describe Metelkova as a functioning barracks toward the end of Tito’s Lost Children Book One and in the beginning of Book Two: Croatia.

P9117993.JPG

The prison in Metelkova before the area became a squat. Source: Hostel Celica. Below, the place now. Source: JL Flanner

hostel celica jl flanner.JPG

6. Technically speaking, Slovenia declared war on Yugoslavia, not the other way around.

When you hear about the Ten-Day-War, it often sounds as if the scrappy Slovene defense forces went up against the overwhelmingly superior aggressor of the Yugoslav People’s Army and won. This is true; a People’s Army soldier fired the first actual shots in the war. However, the order to retaliate, should the People’s Army resist Slovenia’s independence, was given before those shots were fired. This means that, technically, Slovenia did not only win the war, it was the first to declare the war in the first place.

7. No one can agree on who gave the order for the Slovene Territorial Defense forces to engage the Yugoslav People’s Army.

To this day, both then-President Milan Kučan and Janez Janša, who was defense minister at the time, claim to have been the one to give the order for the Slovenian forces to fire at the People’s Army. This means no one really knows who gave the actual order to start the war. Spoiler Alert: in Tito’s Lost Children, this is because my main character gives the order and both Kučan and Janša have to cover up her existence!

8. After World War Two a large group of fighters was killed or forced into exile.

Walking around Ljubljana, you will doubtless notice the large number of plaques dedicated to the partisan fighters who fell fighting the fascists during the Second World War. However, there was also another group of soldiers that didn’t get plaques -- to put it mildly.

The Domobranci (Home Defenders) were composed of people who did not support the partisans and the Italians allowed them to band together to defend their homes. Eventually, the Nazis forced them into fighting on their side. Nevertheless, they were branded as traitors after the partisans’ victory and were either forced to flee, sent to ‘reeducation’ camps or shot in mass killing fields. Knowledge of this was largely suppressed during the Yugoslav times. Nowadays, when you hear Slovenes speak of the ‘complicated World War Two history,’ this is what they are talking about.

One of my characters in Tito’s Lost Children is a descendant of a Domobranec. She has to deal with the political fallout of this history and was inspired by one of my real ancestors, who I discovered while doing research for the books could possibly have been a Domobranci sympathizer.

9. There was a whole class of people who had their rights as citizens erased when Slovenia became independent.

After Slovenia declared independence in 1991 it erased many non-Slovene Yugoslav nationals living in Slovenia from its list of citizens. This functionally made them non-persons in Slovene society. The issue has not been addressed until relatively recently. Milan Aksentijević, one of the senior officers of the Yugoslav People’s Army in Slovenia, had this happen to him, even though he had lived in Slovenia for years and was married to a Slovene. Something similar happens to a fictional general in my books.

10. Mt. Triglav looks absolutely nothing like it does on the flag.

The climax of Tito’s Lost Children Book One takes place on the summit of Mount Triglav. While doing research for the books I ran across a number of pictures of the mountain and was quite hard pressed to find where the three peaks were. I guess they go in kind of a curve?

At one point, I resolved to finally climb Triglav as research for the books. My mountaineer friend just laughed and suggested that a ‘city rat’ like me should start with Šmarna Gora, a hill on the outskirts of Ljubljana, instead. I had to settle for watching YouTube videos about climbing Slovenia’s highest peak.

Tito’s Lost Children War One: Slovenia is available here.

08 Sep 2019, 19:35 PM

STA, 8 September 2019 - Several thousand firefighters and other visitors gathered in Metlika on Sunday to celebrate the 150th anniversary of firefighting in Slovenia, marking the day in 1869 when the first volunteer fire brigade was founded in Metlika. 

The first fire brigade on Slovenian territory was established on 19 September at the proposal of landowner Josip Savinšek. The following year fire brigades started cropping up in other places, including Laško, Ljubljana and Ptuj.

A century and a half later, Slovenia boasts what is seen as one of the best networks of volunteer fire brigades in the world, with over 1,300 local volunteer fire brigades bringing together 162,000 firefighters, almost a tenth of the country's population.

There are also 700 professional firefighters in 13 professional fire brigades.

Delivering the keynote at the ceremony in Metlika, Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, himself a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Kamnik, stressed that the umbrella Firefighters' Union was the biggest humanitarian organisation in Slovenia.

"Being a firefighter is an honour, but it is also a responsibility ... when all others give up, leave or become scared, the firefighter stays," he said, describing Slovenian firefighters as the envy of the world.

29 Aug 2019, 13:00 PM

STA, 28 August 2019 - Work has started on another mass-grave site in the woods of Kočevski Rog in south-eastern Slovenia to prepare it for exhumation of the remains of victims executed in reprisal killings after the Second World War. The victims are presumably mostly Slovenians.

Currently the main project of the government commission for mass graves, the Macesnova Gorica site is being cleared out with the exhumation scheduled to begin next year.

According to the commission, the remains of more than 1,500 Slovenians lie in the underland of the Kočevski Rog woods, where numerous summary execution sites and mass graves have been discovered in the past years.

Following the government's backing of the commission's programme for this year, the Economy Ministry selected the Kočevje public utility as the project's contractor.

Related: Mass Concealed Graves in Slovenia, an Interactive Map

The company started preparation works in August and has already completed site deforestation. Last week, it started to clear the site of rocks which were piled up after the Second World War to conceal the grave.

"We will remove about 800 cubic metres of rocks, protect embankments and prepare an access for archaeologists this year. We will also create a work site for them out of removed rocks," the commission's president Jože Dežman told the STA.

Selected experts will then exhume the remains and analyse them - a process that will presumably start next year.

Objects, such as prayer cards, crosses and Home Guard paraphernalia found near the pit indicate that the bodies of Slovenian victims lie inside the mass grave. The burial site for them is yet to be determined.

Dežman told the STA that a burial site location for the victims of reprisal executions committed by the Communists just after the Second World War could be set at the Ljubljana Žale cemetery this year pending an agreement on the cooperation between the government and the Ljubljana city.

Historians have determined that there are around 750 mass graves and execution sites across the country, with some 150 possible new locations of concealed graves being considered.

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