About Slovenia

Karantania

History

The Slavic Duchy of Karantania mainly occupied the territory of today's Austrian Carinthia and Slovenian Carinthia. It emerged from the ashes of the first Slavic union: Samo's Tribal Union.

Samo connected the Western and the Southern Slavic tribes. The union spanned from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea. Its purpose was to defend the Slavs from the Bavarians, the Langobards and the Avars. It collapsed due to the death of Samo (658) and the disconnected link between the Western and the Southern Slavs.

After the demise of Samo's Tribal Union, Karantanians established their duchy under the guidance of knez (lord) Valuk. In 745 Karantania joined the Frankish kingdom as an independent country with its own law (consuetudo Sclavorum) and perserved the inauguration of its knez (lord) in Slovenian language until the year 1414 on the stone of the knez (knežji kamen). To the year 1651 the oath ceremony of the lord took place at the Duke's Chair (Vojvodski stol) and then until the year 1728 in the county house in Klagenfurt (Celovec). The inauguration ritual is described in Jean Bodin's book Six livres de la République and it is known that Thomas Jefferson learnt about it from that book.

Fauna

Nature

Lipizzaner horse

The Lipizzan breed dates back to the 16th century, when it was developed with the support of the Habsburg nobility. The horses take their name from one of the oldest stud farms where the breed developed, Lipica, a karst countryside village in west Slovenia, close to the Slovene-Italian border.

Lipizzaner horses by by Nick Fraser (Wikipedia)

Lipizzans are compact and muscular, with very powerful hindquarters, allowing them to do the difficult "High School" (Dressage) movements, including the "airs above the ground". They generally have a strong-featured head with a convex profile, set high on a well-muscled, arched neck. They have short cannons, their legs have good bone, and well-sloped shoulders. Their gaits are powerful and elastic, although different in style from the Warmblood breeds seen in many Dressage competitions. Lipizzans are naturally balanced, well-known for excellent trainability and intelligence. Aside from the rare solid-colored horse, all Lipizzans are gray.

Read more: Fauna

Key Numbers

Key Facts

Geography

Nature

Slovenia is situated in Central Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. The Alps — including the Julian Alps, the Kamnik-Savinja Alps and the Karavanke chain, as well as the Pohorje — dominate Northern Slovenia along its long border to Austria.

Slovenia's Adriatic coastline streches approximately 50 kilometers from Italy to Croatia.

The term "Karst" originated in Southern Slovenia's Kras Plateau (German Karst Plateau), a limestone region of underground rivers, gorges, and caves, between Ljubljana and Mediterranean.

On the Pannonian plain to the East and Northeast, toward the Croatian and Hungarian borders, the landscape is essentially flat. However, the majority of Slovenian terrain is hilly or mountainous, with around 90% of the surface 200 meters or more above sea level.

Area

• Total: 20,273 km²

Borders

• Land boundaries
  • Total: 1,334 km
  • Border countries: Austria 330 km, Croatia 670 km, Italy 232 km, Hungary 102 km
• Coastline: 46.6 km

Elevation extremes

• Lowest point: Adriatic Sea 0 m
• Highest point: Triglav 2,864 m (9,396 feet)

Middle Ages

History

From as early as the 9th century, the lands inhabited by Karantanians, later Slovenes, fell under non-Karantanian ruler, including partial but co-operative control by Bavarian dukes and by the Republic of Venice.

The Slovenes living in the provinces of Carinthia, Carniola and Styria, lived under the rule of the Habsburg dynasty from the 14th century until 1918, with the exception of Napoleon's 4-year tutelage of parts of modern-day Slovenia and Croatia — the "Illyrian provinces".

While the elites of these regions mostly became Germanized, the peasants strongly resisted Germanizing influences and retained their unique Slavic language and culture.

A major step towards the social and cultural emancipation of the Slovenians happened during the Reformation, when Primož Trubar published the first printed books in the Slovenian language (Catechismus and Abecedarium, 1550 in Tübingen, Germany). Protestant publishing in Slovene culminated by a full translation of the Bible (Jurij Dalmatin, Wittenberg 1584). Even though the majority of the population assumed Protestant teaching, the region became re-Catholicized under the rule of Archduke Ferdinand of Inner Austria (ruled 1590 - 1637), who later became Emperor and pursued similar policies in the other Habsburg territories.

Holidays

Key Facts

Yugoslavia

History

In 1918, after World War I, the Slovenes joined with other southern Slav peoples in forming the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (October 29, 1918) and then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (December 1, 1918) under King Peter I of Serbia. Renamed in 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia fell to the Axis powers during World War II, when Germany, Italy and Hungary each annexed parts of Slovenia, the largest part being the Südsteiermark annexed to the "Ostmark" (Nazi German Austria).

Following Yugoslav partisan resistance to German, Hungarian, and Italian occupation and elimination of rival resistance groups that were forced into open collaboration with Italian and/or German forces while fighting communism, Josip Broz Tito established the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945, of which Slovenia formed a constituent republic.

Slovenia continued to form Yugoslavia's most prosperous and advanced republic throughout the communist era, at the forefront of Yugoslavia's unique version of communism.