This study examines how Slovenian communist leadership’s views on the Yugoslav state framework evolved in the late 1980s. To this end, the actions of Slovenian leaders during the procedure of amending the Yugoslav constitution and the discussions in the Slovenian party headquarters on the subject of relations in the federation are analyzed in detail. On the background of growing nationalism in public opinion in Slovenia, the communist leaders of the republic put themselves in an increasingly antagonistic position vis-à-vis the federal center. During 1987, they rejected several proposals for changes to the Yugoslav constitution, which they had initially agreed to based on an incorrect assessment of Slovenian public opinion. Then, in the summer of 1988, in the atmosphere of the Slovenian Spring, local leaders began to favor the weakening of the ties between the Yugoslav republics and redefinition of Yugoslavia as a confederation. Simultaneously, Slovenian politicians were also increasingly questioning some primary assumptions about the existence of the common state and radicalized their political methods in terms of promoting Slovenian interests at the federal level.

The objective of the article is to establish why a financial bonus for Slovenian–Italian bilingualism was introduced in the District of Koper (comprising today’s Slovenian municipalities of Ankaran, Koper, Izola and Piran), which came under Yugoslav rule after 1954. Using Brubaker’s triadic nexus concept and analysis of newly discovered archival sources, the authors found that (a) on the federal level, Yugoslavia only focused on minority protection as much as it was required to by international agreements and treaties, (b) the Italian minority itself was not a relevant actor in the Yugoslav system of minority protection, (c) Italy had a marginal role in the process of protecting the Italian minority in Yugoslavia, and (d) the political elite in Yugoslavia introduced the bilingualism bonus to encourage the integration of the Italian minority when building a new (socialist) sociopolitical order. The Slovenian-Italian bilingualism bonus was therefore not an altruist measure directed at minority protection, but rather a self-serving measure by the authorities to reinforce their power.

The burial of multiple individuals within a single funerary monument invites speculation about the relationships between the deceased: were they chosen on the basis of status, gender or relatedness, for example? Here, the authors present the results of aDNA and isotope analyses conducted on seven individuals from an Early Iron Age barrow at Dolge njive, south-eastern Slovenia. All seven individuals are close biological relatives. While the group composition suggests strict adherence to neither patrilineal nor matrilineal structures, the funerary tradition appears highly gendered, and family links through both the male and female lines seem important in structuring of the community. The results have implications for understanding of kinship and funerary practices in late prehistoric Europe.

Lack of economic data based on ethnicity makes the study of minority economies in linguistically or ethnically mixed regions problematic. Yet, there is much to learn from these hard cases of economic development in terms of the policies that guarantee ethnic or linguistic survival and reproduction. The present article investigates the long-term economic development of the Slovenian minority in Italy between 1954 and 2020. It does so by applying the theoretical framework by new institutional economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (2005), which looks at the dynamic role of political and economic institutions for the generation of economic growth. The parable of this community’s economy shows that political power and economic success can be flimsy and ephemeral. Strategic, long-term economic planning and, especially, contingent planning against foreseeable risks, both of which require the systematic collection of accurate data and the coordination of representative organizations, are key to successful reproduction and sustained growth.

Musical creativity is represented through the activity of “creation” in the curricula for music education in both Montenegrin and Slovenian primary schools. Starting from the assumption that this activity is insufficiently realised, a survey of the teaching practice of the specialist music teachers in the two countries was conducted (N = 154). The obtained results show that creative musical activities are moderately represented in teaching practice and that Slovenian teachers achieve programme-defined goals related to the activities through which pupils create their own music to a greater extent. The results also indicate the particular circumstances that, in real school conditions, make it difficult to systematically realise this activity within regular music classes.

Nematodes of the genus Gongylonema infect a wide range of mammals worldwide but are only sporadically reported in humans. We describe a case of human infection with Gongylonema pulchrum in a 41-year-old man. The patient extracted the nematode from the submucosa under his tongue and correctly self-diagnosed the infection with the help of the Google search engine. In the laboratory, the collected nematode was confirmed as G. pulchrum microscopically by morphological analysis and genetically by amplifying and sequencing the parasite's rDNA. This is the first report of human G. pulchrum infection in Slovenia.

Horseshoe crabs are an archetypal chelicerate group with a fossil record extending back to Early Ordovician time. Although extensively studied, the group generally has a low diversity across the Phanerozoic Eonothem. Here, we expand the known diversity of true horseshoe crabs (Xiphosurida) by the description of a new taxon from the Middle Triassic Strelovec Formation of the Slovenian Alps. The mostly complete fossil is preserved as an external mould and assigned to the family Limulidae Zittel, 1881 as Sloveniolimulus rudkini, n. gen., n. sp. The use of landmark and semilandmark geometric morphometrics is explored to corroborate the systematic palaeontology and suggests that the new genus and species are valid. We also provide the first quantitative evidence for the extensive diversity of Triassic horseshoe crabs. We suggest that Triassic horseshoe crabs likely filled many ecological niches left vacant after the end-Permian extinction.

We examine the effectiveness of bankruptcy institutions at promoting socially efficient allocation of resources. Under the Slovenian simplified reorganization procedure, firms with rejected reorganization proposals are not automatically liquidated. This unique institutional feature facilitates an estimation of the extent of different types of filtering failures. Based on an ex-post conceptualization of firm viability, Type I errors (the acceptance of plans by non-viable firms) are more likely than Type II errors (the rejection of plans by viable firms) and the overall incidence of filtering failure is 27%. Based on an ex-ante conceptualization of firm viability, any given reduction in Type II errors would give rise to three times as many Type I errors. We contextualize our findings in the light of prior results in the literature, alternative mechanisms for insolvency resolution, and related bankruptcy reorganization schemes internationally where courts are awarded a comparatively more prominent role.

This article analyzes the discourse of historical legitimacy in the duchy of Schleswig and in the Slovenian-speaking regions of Carniola, Styria, and especially Carinthia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The question as to who had arrived in the area first was never far from the surface, because in an era of national romanticism, duration of stay seemed to allot special claims to possession. Rather than challenging this rationale, all sides tended to focus their efforts on enhancing their local genealogy. Yet the national conflicts of the period were not about political and linguistic history, but about contemporary interests and identities. In both Jutland and the southeastern Alps, national movements tended to focus on select moments in time that corresponded most closely to their modern-day political aspirations. The comparative analysis of two otherwise fairly divergent European regions reveals the pragmatic similarities of historical nation-building.

On the basis of a comparative analysis of the case studies of the Slovenian Erased and the Latvian Non-citizens, the paper endeavors to identify the reasons for the EU involvement in the latter, but not the former case. These two situations are recognized as similar enough to be compared, and endure the counter-argumentation that the different EU approach is conditioned by the specifics of the local context, not by double standards. Hence, the paper comes to a conclusion that the involvement in Latvia has been conditioned by the fear of the potentially violent conflict, the existence of a proactive kin state, and a minority, significant in number, as well as the explicitly discriminatory legal framework that was in collision with the EU economic acquis. Thus, it has been inferred that double standards occur due to the lack of EU and international interest in these situations of human rights violations, where the powerful kin state and the minority, significant in number, are absent, do not have a potential to develop into a violent conflict, do not derive from explicitly discriminatory legal provision, and do not challenge the fundamental market freedoms of the EU.

After the fall of socialism, besides the attempts to reach national reconciliation, radical reconfigurations and reinterpretations of the past were used to negotiate local, national and transnational identities and strengthen national agendas. In most of the formerly socialist countries, the historical interpretation significantly resembles the struggle over the legitimacy and authenticity of this representation. The author argues that in post-socialist Slovenia instead of the anticipated democratization and break with ideologically predestined historical work after 1989, at least three competing politically contaminated ways of interpreting the past gained momentum: the so-called liberal-conformist position, which insists that we have to look at the future and forget the traumas of the past; the revisionist standpoint which, at least in Slovenia, is the most aggressive one; and the objectivistic approach practiced by most Slovenian historians after 1991. To do that the author investigates how collective memories are mobilized in general, formal and in particular more personalized and/or emotional narratives and traces the changes in Slovenian memorial landscape divided into categories: the authoritarian type, defined by a desire for direct colonization of the interpretation of the past related to the Second World War; the conciliatory type that tries to achieve “reconciliation”; the conflicting type that clashes with the iconography of an existing partisan monument as an alternative interpretation.

As with many states, in the case of Slovenia two songs principally contend for the position of national anthem. In this case an apparent ideological gulf masks perhaps a more essential temperamental divide: the bellicose army song versus the happy drinking “all together…” number. Vacillation between “Zdravljica” (“A Toast”) and “Naprej zastava slave,” (“Forward, Flag of Glory”) might be taken as reflecting the ambivalence with regard to potentially hostile others one reads attributed to Jesus Christ in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke: who's not with me is against me/who's not against me is with me. The 1989 adoption of “Zdravljica” (lyrics courtesy of Slovenia's national poet France Prešeren) is strongly suggestive of an outward looking state, one hoping for a place in a cosmopolitan Europe. “Naprej zastava slave” has remained the anthem of the Slovenian army and so is far from being discarded for the purpose of asserting Slovenian national aspirations. Perhaps retaining it in this minor role has been necessary because “Zdravljica” is a song which - at least as it is presently sung — de-emphasises national aspiration to a degree unusual for the anthem genre. In a crossroads of Europe dominated historically by the national (or imperial) aspirations of larger and more powerful political entities, “Zdravljica” is a song which tests the limits of what an anthem can be by holding out a hope of rising above the national.

There are three constitutionally recognized national/ethnic minorities in Slovenia: the Italians, the Hungarians and the Roma. In addition, there are other ethnic groups that could perhaps be considered as “autochthonous” national minorities in line with Slovenia's understanding of this concept. Among them is a small community of “Serbs” – the successors of the Uskoks living in Bela krajina, a border region of Slovenia. In this article we present results of a field research that focused on the following question: Can the “Serb” community in Bela krajina be considered a national minority? On the basis of the objective facts, it could be said that the “Serbs” in four Bela krajina villages are a potential national minority, but with regard to their modest social vitality and the fact that they do not express their desire for minority status, the realization of special minority protection is questionable.