Slovenia

Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia (Republika Slovenija, ), is a country in Central Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy on the west, Croatia on the south and east, Hungary on the northeast, and Austria on the north, and also has a small portion of coastline along the Adriatic Sea. It covers an area of 20273 km2 and has a population of 2.05 million. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana.

Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. During World War Two, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy and Hungary, only to emerge afterwards reunified with its western part as a founding member of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1991, Slovenia declared full sovereignty. Today, Slovenia is a member of the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen area, NATO and OECD. Per capita, it is the richest Slavic nation-state, at 85.5% of the EU27 average GDP (PPP) per capita.

Culturally and demographically, Slovenia has been a border area throughout its history. Here, four linguistic and cultural groups of the continent have been meeting: Slavic, Germanic, Romance and Finno-Ugric. The population of Slovenia has become more diverse in regard to its language and ethnic composition through recent decades but is still relatively homogenous. Approximately 83% of inhabitants considered themselves Slovenes in the 2002 census. Another major group are immigrants from the countries of Former Yugoslavia.

Slovenia is a largely secularised country, however major religions are politically and legally privileged. Roman Catholicism is the most prevalent religion. The development of the Slovenian identity was also markedly influenced by Protestantism in the centuries past.

History
Although Slovene history can be traced back to the 8th century, Slovenia itself is a relatively modern political entity, having been independent since 1991. The notion of "Slovenia" first emerged in the 19th century with the idea of United Slovenia, an autonomous kingdom within the Habsburg Monarchy that would unite all Slovene Lands around the Duchy of Carniola, the central Slovene-populated imperial crownland. It became a reality only after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, when Slovenia became a de facto self-governing entity within the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which it helped to create. Slovenian autonomy was later abolished with the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes of 1921, and although Slovenia proper managed to regain territorial integrity in 1931 as the Drava Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, it did not enjoy actual autonomy, and the name itself was not officially in use. Slovenia became an autonomous political entity after World War II, as a full-scale republic, the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Its current borders were finalized in 1954, with the abolition of the Free Territory of Trieste and the official annexation of the Koper district of the so-called Zone B of the Free Territory to Yugoslavia, which was confirmed by the Treaty of Osimo in 1975.

Prehistory


The earliest signs of human settlement in present-day Slovenia were found in the Jama Cave in the Loza Woods near Orehek in Inner Carniola, where two stone tools approximately 250,000 years old were recovered. During the last glacial period, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Neanderthals; the most famous Neanderthal archeological site in Slovenia is a cave close to the village of Šebrelje near Cerkno, where the Divje Babe flute, the oldest known musical instrument in the world was found in 1995. In the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Numerous archeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found in Slovenia, with important settlements in Most na Soči, Vače, and Šentvid pri Stični. Novo Mesto in Lower Carniola, one of the most important archeological sites of the Hallstatt culture, has been nicknamed the "City of Situlas" after numerous situlas found in the area.

In the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC, when the Romans conquered the region establishing the provinces of Pannonia and Noricum. What is now western Slovenia was included directly under Roman Italia as part of the X region Venetia et Histria. Important Roman towns located in present-day Slovenia included Emona, Celeia and Poetovio. Other important settlements were Nauportus, Neviodunum, Haliaetum, Atrans, and Stridon.

During the migration period, the region suffered invasions of many barbarian armies, due to its strategic position as the main passage from the Pannonian plain to the Italian peninsula. Rome finally abandoned the region at the end of the 4th century. Most cities were destroyed, while the remaining local population moved to the highland areas, establishing fortified towns. In the 5th century, the region was part of the Ostrogothic kingdom, and was later contested between the Ostrogoths, the Byzantine Empire and the Lombards.

The Middle Ages


The Slavic ancestors of present-day Slovenes settled in the East Alpine area at the end of the 6th century. Coming from two directions, North (via today's East Austria and Czech Republic), settling in the area of today's Carinthia and west Styria and South (via today's Slavonia), settling in the area of today's central Slovenia. This Slavic tribe, also known as the Alpine Slavs, was submitted to Avar rule before joining the Slavic chieftain Samo's Slavic tribal union in 623 AD. After Samo's death, the Slavs of Carniola (in present-day Slovenia) again fell to Avar rule, while the Slavs north of the Karavanke range (in present-day Austrian regions of Carinthia, Styria and East Tyrol) established the independent principality of Carantania. In 745, Carantania and the rest of Slavic-populated territories of present-day Slovenia, being pressured by newly consolidated Avar power, submitted to Bavarian overrule and were, together with the Duchy of Bavaria, incorporated into the Carolingian Empire, while Carantanians and other Slavs living in present Slovenia converted to Christianity.

Carantania retained its internal independence until 828 when the local princes, following the anti-Frankish rebellion of Ljudevit Posavski, were deposed and gradually replaced by a Germanic (primarily Bavarian) ascendancy. Under Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia, Carantania, now ruled by a mixed Bavarian-Slav nobility, shortly emerged as a regional power, but was destroyed by the Hungarian invasions in the late 9th century.



Carantania-Carinthia was established again as an autonomous administrative unit in 976, when Emperor Otto I, "the Great", after deposing the Duke of Bavaria, Henry II, "the Quarreller", split the lands held by him and made Carinthia the sixth duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, but old Carantania never developed into a unified realm. In the late 10th and beginning of 11th century, primarily because of the Hungarian threat, the south-eastern border region of the German Empire was organized into so called "marks", that became the core of the development of the historical Slovenian lands, the Carniola, the Styria and the western Goriška/Gorizia. The consolidation and formation of the historical Slovenian lands took place in a long period between 11th and 14th century being led by a number of important feudal families such as the Dukes of Spannheim, the Counts of Gorizia, the Counts of Celje and finally the House of Habsburg.

The first mentions of a common Slovene ethnic identity, transcending regional boundaries, date from the 16th century.

During the 14th century, most of the Slovene Lands passed under the Habsburg rule. In the 15th century, the Habsburg domination was challenged by the Counts of Celje, but by the end of the century the great majority of Slovene-inhabited territories were incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy. Most Slovenes lived in the administrative region known as Inner Austria, forming the majority of the population of the Duchy of Carniola and the County of Gorizia and Gradisca, as well as of Lower Styria and southern Carinthia.

Slovenes also inhabited most of the territory of the Imperial Free City of Trieste, although representing the minority of its population.

Early Modern Period


In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation spread throughout the Slovene Lands. During this period, the first books in the Slovene language were written by the Protestant preacher Primož Trubar and his followers, establishing the base for the development of the standard Slovene language. In the second half of the 16th century, numerous books were printed in Slovene, including an integral translation of the Bible by Jurij Dalmatin. During the Counter-Reformation in the late 16th and 17th centuries, led by the bishop of Ljubljana Tomaž Hren and Seckau Martin Brenner, almost all Protestants were expelled from the Slovene Lands (with the exception of Prekmurje). Nevertheless, they left a strong legacy in the tradition of Slovene culture, which was partially incorporated in the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 17th century. The old Slovene orthography, also known as Bohorič's Alphabet, which was developed by the Protestants in the 16th century and remained in use until mid-19th century, testified to the unbroken tradition of Slovene culture as established in the years of the Protestant Reformation.

Between the 15th and the 17th century, the Slovene Lands suffered many calamities. Many areas, especially in southern Slovenia, were devastated by the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars. Many flourishing towns, like Vipavski Križ and Kostanjevica na Krki, were completely destroyed by incursions of the Ottoman Army, and never recovered. The nobility of the Slovene-inhabited provinces had an important role in the fight against the Ottoman Empire. The Carniolan noblemen's army thus defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Sisak of 1593, marking the end of the immediate Ottoman threat to the Slovene Lands, although sporadic Ottoman incursions continued well into the 17th century.

In the 16th and 17th century, the western Slovene regions became the battlefield of the wars between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Venetian Republic, most notably the War of Gradisca, which was largely fought in the Slovene Goriška region. Between late 15th and early 18th century, the Slovene lands also witnessed many peasant wars, most famous being the Carinthian peasant revolt of 1478, the Slovene peasant revolt of 1515, the Croatian-Slovenian peasant revolt of 1573, the Second Slovene peasant revolt of 1635, and the Tolmin peasant revolt of 1713.

Late 17th century was also marked by a vivid intellectual and artistic activity. Many Italian Baroque artists, mostly architects and musicians, settled in the Slovene Lands, and contributed greatly to the development of the local culture. Scientists like Johann Weikhard von Valvasor and Janez Gregor Thalnitscher contributed to the development of the scholarly activities. By the early 18th century, however, the region entered another period of stagnation, which was slowly overcome only by mid-18th century.

Age of Enlightenment to the national movement


Between early 18th century and early 19th century, the Slovene lands experienced a period of peace, with a moderate economic recovery starting from mid-18th century onward. The Adriatic city of Trieste was declared a free port in 1718, boosting the economic activity throughout the western parts of the Slovene Lands. The political, administrative and economic reforms of the Habsburg rulers Maria Theresa of Austria and Joseph II improved the economic situation of the peasantry, and were well received by the emerging bourgeoisie, which was however still weak.

In the late 18th century, a process of standardarization of Slovene language began, promoted by Carniolan clergymen like Marko Pohlin and Jurij Japelj. During the same period, peasant-writers began using and promoting the Slovene vernacular in the countryside. This popular movement, known as bukovniki, started among Carinthian Slovenes as part a wider revival of Slovene literature. The Slovene cultural tradition was strongly reinforced in the Enlightenment period in the 18th century by the endeavours of the Zois Circle. After two centuries of stagnation, Slovene literature emerged again, most notably in the works of the playwright Anton Tomaž Linhart and the poet Valentin Vodnik. However, German remained the main language of culture, administration and education well into the 19th century.

Between 1805 and 1813, Slovenia was part of the Illyrian Provinces, an autonomous province of the Napoleonic French Empire, the capital of which was established at Ljubljana. Although the French rule in the Illyrian Provinces was short-lived it significantly contributed to greater national self-confidence and awareness of freedoms. The French did not entirely abolish the feudal system, their rule familiarised in more detail the inhabitants of the Illyrian Provinces with the achievements of the French revolution and with contemporary bourgeois society. They introduced equality before the law, compulsory military service and a uniform tax system, and also abolished certain tax privileges, introduced modern administration, separated powers between the state and the Church, and nationalised the judiciary.

In August 1813, Austria declared war on France. Austrian troops led by General Franz Tomassich invaded the Illyrian Provinces. After this short French interim all Slovene Lands were, once again, included in the Austrian Empire. Slowly, a distinct Slovene national consciousness developed, and the quest for a political unification of all Slovenes became widespread. In the 1820s and 1840s, the interest in Slovene language and folklore grew enormously, with numerous philologists collecting folk songs and advancing the first steps towards a standardization of the language. A small number of Slovene activist, mostly from Styria and Carinthia, embraced the Illyrian movement that started in neighboring Croatia and aimed at uniting all South Slavic peoples. Pan-Slavic and Austro-Slavic ideas also gained importance. However, the intellectual circle around the philologist Matija Čop and the Romantic poet France Prešeren was influential in affirming the idea of Slovene linguistic and cultural individuality, refusing the idea of merging the Slovenes into a wider Slavic nation.

In 1848, a mass political and popular movement for the United Slovenia (Zedinjena Slovenija) emerged as part of the Spring of Nations movement within the Austrian Empire. Slovene activists demanded a unification of all Slovene-speaking territories in a unified and autonomous Slovene kingdom within the Austrian Empire. Although the project failed, it served as an almost undisputed platform of Slovene political activity in the following decades.

Clashing nationalisms in late 19th century


Between 1848 and 1918, numerous institutions (including theatres and publishing houses, as well as political, financial and cultural organisations) were founded in the so-called Slovene National Awakening. Despite their political and institutional fragmentation and lack of proper political representation, the Slovenes were able to establish a functioning national infrastructure.

With the introduction of a constitution granting civil and political liberties in the Austrian Empire in 1860, the Slovene national movement gained force. Despite its internal differentiation among the conservative Old Slovenes and the progressive Young Slovenes, the Slovene nationals defended similar programs, calling for a cultural and political autonomy of the Slovene people. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, a series of mass rallies called tabori, modeled on the Irish monster meetings, were organized in support of the United Slovenia program. These rallies, attended by thousands of people, proved the allegiance of wider strata of the Slovene population to the ideas of national emancipation.

By the end of the 19th century, Slovenes had established a standardized literary language, and a thriving civil society. Literacy levels were among the highest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and numerous national associations were present at grassroots level. The idea of a common political entity of all South Slavs, known as Yugoslavia, emerged.

Since the 1880s, a fierce culture war between Catholic traditionalists and integralists on one side, and liberals, progressivists and anticlericals dominated Slovene political and public life, especially in Carniola. During the same period, the growth of industrialization intensified social tensions. Both Socialist and Christian socialist movements mobilized the masses. In 1905, the first Socialist mayor in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was elected in the Slovene mining town of Idrija on the list of the Yugoslav Social Democratic Party. In the same years, the Christian socialist activist Janez Evangelist Krek organized hundreds of workers and agricultural cooperatives throughout the Slovene countryside.

At the turn of the 20th century, national struggles in ethnically mixed areas (especially in Carinthia, Trieste and in Lower Styrian towns) dominated the political and social lives of the citizenry. By the 1910s, the national struggles between Slovene and Italian speakers in the Austrian Littoral, and Slovene and German speakers, overshadowed other political conflicts and brought about a nationalist radicalization on both sides.

In the last two decades before World War One, Slovene arts and literature experienced one of its most flourishing periods, with numerous talented modernist authors, painters and architects. The most important authors of this period were Ivan Cankar and Oton Župančič, while Ivan Grohar and Rihard Jakopič were among the most talented Slovene visual artists of the time.

After the Ljubljana earthquake of 1895, the city experienced a rapid modernization under the charismatic Liberal nationalist mayors Ivan Hribar and Ivan Tavčar. Architects like Max Fabiani and Ciril Metod Koch introduced their own version of the Vienna Secession architecture to Ljubljana. In the same period, the Adriatic port of Trieste became an increasingly important center of Slovene economy, culture and politics. By 1910, around a third of the city population was Slovene, and the number of Slovenes in Trieste was higher than in Ljubljana.

At the turn of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Slovenes emigrated to other countries, mostly to the United States, but also to South America, Germany, Egypt, and to larger cities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially Zagreb and Vienna. It has been calculated that around 300,000 Slovenes emigrated between 1880 and 1910, which means that one in six Slovenes left their homeland. Such disproportionally high emigration rates resulted in a relatively small population growth in the Slovene Lands. Comparatively to other Central European regions, the Slovene Lands lost demographic weight between the late 18th and early 20th century.

World War One and the Creation of Yugoslavia
After the outbreak of World War I, the Austrian Parliament was dissolved and civil liberties suspended. Many Slovene political activists, especially in Carniola and Styria, were imprisoned by Austro-Hungarian authorities on charges of pro-Serbian or pan-slavic sympathies. 469 Slovenes were executed on charges of treason in the first year of the war alone, provoking a strong anti-Austrian resentment among the national-minded strata of the Slovene population. Hundreds of thousands of Slovene conscripts were drafted in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and over 30,000 of them lost their lives in the course of the war.

In May 1915, the fighting started on Slovene soil, as well. Italy entered the conflict after the western allies had supported its territorial expansion at the expense of Austria-Hungary. In the Treaty of London of 1915, the Slovenian Littoral and some western districts of Carniola were promised to Italy after the war. The Italian Royal Army launched an attack on Austria-Hungary in 1915, thus opening the Italian front. Some of the fiercest battles were fought along the Soča (Isonzo) river and on the Kras (Carso) plateau in what is now western Slovenia. Entire areas of the Slovenian Littoral were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Slovenes were resettled as refugees in parts of Austria and Italy. While the situation in the Austrian refugee camps were relatively good, Slovene refugees in Italian camps were treated as state enemies, and several thousands died of malnutrition and diseases between 1915 and 1918.

In 1917, after the Battle of Caporetto ended the fighting on Austro-Hungarian (Slovenian) soil, the political life in Austria-Hungary resumed. The Slovene People's Party launched a movement for self-determination, demanding the creation of a semi-independent South Slavic state under Habsburg rule. The proposal was picked up by most Slovene parties, and a mass mobilization of Slovene civil society, known as the Declaration Movement, followed. By early 1918, more than 200,000 signatures were collected in favor of the Slovene People Party's proposal.

During the War, some 500 Slovenes served as volunteers in the Serbian army, while a smaller group led by Captain Ljudevit Pivko, served as volunteers in the Italian Army. In the final year of the war, many predominantly Slovene regiments in the Austro-Hungarian Army staged a mutiny against their military leadership; the most famous mutiny of Slovene soldiers was the Judenburg Rebellion in May 1918.

With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October 1918, the Slovenes formed the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which soon merged with Serbia and Montenegro into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The western parts of the Slovene Lands (the Slovenian Littoral and western districts of Inner Carniola) were occupied by the Italian Army, and officially annexed to the Kingdom of Italy with the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920.

After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in late 1918, an armed dispute started between the Slovenes and German Austria for the regions of Lower Styria and southern Carinthia. In November 1918, Rudolf Maister seized the city of Maribor and surrounding areas of Lower Styria in the name of the newly formed Yugoslav state. Around the same time a group of volunteers led by Franjo Malgaj attempted to take control of southern Carinthia. Fighting in Carinthia lasted between December 1918 and June 1919, when the Slovene volunteers and the regular Serbian Army managed to occupy the city of Klagenfurt. In compliance with the Treaty of Saint-Germain, the Yugoslav forces had to withdraw from Klagenfurt, while a referendum was to be held in other areas of southern Carinthia. In October 1920, the majority of the population of southern Carinthia voted to remain in Austria, and only a small portion of the province (around Dravograd and Guštanj) was awarded to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. With the Treaty of Trianon, however, Yugoslavia was awarded the Slovene-inhabited Prekmurje region, which had belonged to Hungary since the 10th century and had little contact with the rest of the Slovene lands.

The interwar period


In 1921, a centralist constitution was passed in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes against the vote of the great majority (70%) of Slovene MPs. Despite the centralist policies of the Yugoslav kingdom, Slovenes managed to maintain a high level of cultural autonomy, and both economy and the arts prospered. Slovene politicians participated in almost all Yugoslav governments, and the Slovene conservative leader Anton Korošec briefly served as the only non-Serbian Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in the period between the two world wars.

On the other hand, Slovenes in Italy, Austria and Hungary, became victims of policies of State policies of forced assimilation and sometimes violent persecution. The Slovenian Littoral was annexed to Italy and included in the Julian March administrative region. Between 1918 and 1922, several violent actions were directed against the Slovene communities in Italy, both by the mob and by ultra-nationalist militias. After 1922, a policy of violent Fascist Italianization was implemented, triggering the reaction of local Slovenes and Istrian Croats. In 1927, the militant anti-Fascist organization TIGR (an acronym for the place-names Trieste, Istria, Gorizia, and Rijeka) was founded. Between 1922 and 1941, more than 70,000 Slovenes fled from the Italian Julian March, mostly to Yugoslavia, but also to Argentina and other South American countries.

In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The constitution was abolished, civil liberties suspended, while the centralist pressure intensified. Slovenia was renamed to Drava Banovina. During the whole interwar period, Slovene voters strongly supported the conservative Slovene People's Party, which unsuccessfully fought for the autonomy of Slovenia within a federalized Yugoslavia. In 1935, however, the Slovene People's Party joined the pro-regime Yugoslav Radical Community, opening the space for the development of a left wing autonomist movement. In the 1930s, the economic crisis created a fertile ground for the rising of both leftist and rightist radicalisms. In 1937, the Communist Party of Slovenia was founded as an autonomous party within the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Between 1938 and 1941, left liberal, Christian left and agrarian forces established close relations with members of the illegal Communist party, aiming at establishing a broad anti-Fascist coalition.

After 1918, Slovenia became one of the main industrial centers of Yugoslavia. Already in 1919, the industrial production in Slovenia was four times greater than in Serbia, and twenty-two times greater than in Yugoslav Macedonia. The interwar period brought a further industrialization in Slovenia, with a rapid economic growth in the 1920s followed by a relatively successful economic adjustment to the 1929 economic crisis. This development however affected only certain areas, especially the Ljubljana Basin, the Zasavje region, parts of Slovenian Carinthia, and the urban areas around Celje and Maribor. Tourism experienced a period of great expansion, with resort areas like Bled and Rogaška Slatina gaining a an international reputation. Elsewhere, agriculture and forestry remained the predominant economic activities. Nevertheless, Slovenia emerged as one of the most prosperous and economically dynamic areas in Yugoslavia, profiting from a large Balkanic market. Arts and literature also prospered, as did architecture. The two largest Slovenian cities, Ljubljana and Maribor, underwent an extensive program of urban renewal and modernization. Architects like Jože Plečnik, Ivan Vurnik and Vladimir Šubic introduced modernist architecture to Slovenia.

World War II


On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis Powers. Slovenia was divided among the occupying powers: Fascist Italy occupied southern Slovenia (Lower Carniola, Inner Carniola and Ljubljana), Nazi Germany got northern and eastern Slovenia (Upper Carniola, Slovenian Styria, Slovenian Carinthia and Posavje), while Horthy's Hungary was awarded the Prekmurje region. Some villages in south-eastern Slovenia were annexed by the Independent State of Croatia.

While the Italians gave Slovenes a cultural autonomy within their occupation zone (the Province of Ljubljana), the Nazis started a policy of violent Germanisation, which culminated with the resettlement more than 83,000 Slovenes to other parts of the Third Reich, as well as to Serbia and Croatia. More than 63,000 Slovenes were interned to Nazi concentration camps.

Already in the summer of 1941, a liberation movement under the Communist leadership emerged both in the Italian and German occupation zone. Due to political assassinations carried out by the Communist squads, as well as the pre-existing radical anti-Communism of the conservative circles of the Slovenian society, a civil war between Slovenes broke out in the Italian-occupied south-eastern Slovenia (known as Province of Ljubljana) in the summer of 1942. The two fighting factions were the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People and the Italian-sponsored anti-communist militia, known as the White Guard, initially formed by local anti-Communist activists in order to protect villages from partisans' incursions. A small Monarchist resistance (known as Chetniks) also existed. After September 1943, the anti-Communist militias was re-organized under Nazi command as the Slovene Home Guard.

The Slovene partisan guerrillas managed to liberate large portions of the Slovene lands, contributing to the defeat of Nazism. As a result of the war the vast majority of the native ethnic German population were either forcefully expelled or fled to neighboring Austria. Immediately after the war, some 12,000 members of the Slovene Home Guard were killed in the area of the Kočevski Rog, while thousands of anti-communist civilians were killed in the first year after the war, many of them in concentration camps of Teharje and Šterntal.

These massacres were silenced, and remained a taboo topic until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when dissident intellectuals brought it to public discussion. In addition, hundreds (some say thousands) of ethnic Italians from Istria and Trieste were killed by the Yugoslav Army and partisan forces in the Foibe massacres, while some 27,000 of them fled Slovenia from Communist persecution in the so-called Istrian exodus. The overall number of World War Two casualties in Slovenia is estimated to 89,000, while 14,000 people were killed immediately after the end of the war. The overall number of World War II casualties in Slovenia was thus of around 7.2% of the pre-war population, which is above the Yugoslav average, and among the highest percentages in Europe.

The Communist period
Following the re-establishment of Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, Slovenia became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, declared on 29 November 1943. A socialist state was established, but because of the Tito-Stalin split, economic and personal freedoms were broader than in the Eastern Bloc. In 1947, Italy ceded most of the Julian March to Yugoslavia, and Slovenia thus regained the Slovenian Littoral.

The dispute over the port of Trieste however remained opened until 1954, until the short-lived Free Territory of Trieste was divided among Italy and Yugoslavia, thus giving Slovenia access to the sea. This division was ratified only in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo, which gave a final legal sanction to Slovenia's long disputed western border. From the 1950s, the Socialist Republic of Slovenia enjoyed a relatively wide autonomy.

Between 1945 and 1948, a wave of political repressions took place in Slovenia and in Yugoslavia. Thousands of people were imprisoned for their political beliefs. Several tens of thousands of Slovenes left Slovenia immediately after the war in fear of Communist persecution. Many of them settled in Argentina, which became the core of Slovenian anti-Communist emigration. More than 50,000 more followed in the next decade, frequently for economic reasons, as well as political ones. These later waves of Slovene immigrants mostly settled in Canada and in Australia, but also in other western countries.

In 1948, the Tito-Stalin split took place. In the first years following the split, the political repression worsened, as it extended to Communists accused of Stalinism. Hundreds of Slovenes were imprisoned in the concentration camp of Goli Otok, together with thousands of people of other nationalities. Among the show trials that took place in Slovenia between 1945 and 1950, the most important were the Nagode trial against democratic intellectuals and left liberal activists (1946) and the Dachau trials (1947–1949), where former inmates of Nazi concentration camps were accused of collaboration with the Nazis. Many members of the Roman Catholic clergy suffered persecution. The case of bishop of Ljubljana Anton Vovk, who was doused with gasoline and set on fire by Communist activists during a pastoral visit to Novo Mesto in January 1952, echoed in the western press.

Between 1949 and 1953, a forced collectivization was attempted. After its failure, a policy of gradual liberalization was followed. A new economic policy, known as workers self-management started to be implemented under the advice and supervision of the main theorist of the Yugoslav Communist Party, the Slovene Edvard Kardelj.

In the late 1950s, Slovenia was the first of the Yugoslav republics to begin a process of relative pluralization. A decade of fervent cultural and literary production followed, with many tensions between the regime and the dissident intellectuals. By the late 1960s, the reformist faction gained control of the Slovenian Communist Party, launching a series of reforms, aiming at the modernization of Slovenian society and economy. In 1973, this trend was stopped by the conservative faction of the Slovenian Communist Party, backed by the Yugoslav Federal government. A period known as the "years of lead" (Slovene: svinčena leta) followed.

From the late 1950s onward, dissident circles started to be formed, mostly around short-lived independent journals, such as Revija 57 (1957–1958), which was the first independent intellectual journal in Yugoslavia and one of the first of this kind in the Communist bloc, and Perspektive (1960–1964). Among the most important critical public intellectuals in this period were the sociologist Jože Pučnik, the poet Edvard Kocbek, and the literary historian Dušan Pirjevec.

In the 1980s, Slovenia experienced a rise of cultural pluralism. Numerous grass-roots political, artistic and intellectual movements emerged, including the Neue Slowenische Kunst, the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, and the Nova revija intellectual circle. By the mid 1980s, a reformist fraction, led by Milan Kučan, took control of the Slovenian Communist Party, starting a gradual reform towards a market socialism and controlled political pluralism.

The Yugoslav economic crisis of the 1980s increased the struggles within the Yugoslav Communist regime regarding the appropriate economic measures to be undertaken. Slovenia, which had less than 10% of overall Yugoslav population, produced around a fifth of the country's GDP and a fourth of all Yugoslav exports. The political disputes around economic measures was echoed in the public sentiment, as many Slovenes felt they were being economically exploited, having to sustain an expensive and inefficient federal administration.

Democracy and independence
In 1987 and 1988, a series of clashes between the emerging civil society and the Communist regime culminated with the so-called Slovenian Spring. A mass democratic movement, coordinated by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, pushed the Communists in the direction of democratic reforms. These revolutionary events in Slovenia pre-dated by almost one year the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, but went largely unnoticed by international observers.

At the same time, the confrontation between the Slovenian Communists and the Serbian Communist Party, dominated by the charismatic nationalist leader Slobodan Milošević, became the most important political struggle in Yugoslavia. The poor economic performance of the Federation, and rising clashes between the different republics, created a fertile soil for the rise of secessionist ideas among Slovenes, both anti-Communists and Communists. In January 1990, the Slovenian Communists left the Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in protest against the domination of the Serb nationalist leadership, thus effectively dissolving the Yugoslav Communist Party, the only remaining institution holding the country together.

In April 1990, the first free and democratic elections were held, and the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia defeated the former Communist party. A coalition government led by the Christian Democrat Lojze Peterle was formed, and began economic and political reforms that established a market economy and a liberal democratic political system. At the same time, the government pursued the independence of Slovenia from Yugoslavia. In December 1990, a referendum on the independence of Slovenia was held, in which the overwhelming majority of Slovenian residents (around 89%) voted for the independence of Slovenia from Yugoslavia. Slovenia became independent through the passage of the appropriate acts on 25 June 1991. In the morning of the next day, a short Ten-Day War began, in which the Slovenian forces successfully rejected Yugoslav military interference. In the evening, the independence was solemnly proclaimed on the Republic Square in Ljubljana by the President of Slovenia Milan Kučan. The Ten-Day War lasted till 7 July 1991, when the Brijuni Agreement was made. On 26 October 1991, the last Yugoslav soldier left Slovenia.

After 1990, a stable democratic system evolved, with economic liberalization and gradual growth of prosperity. Slovenia joined NATO on 29 March 2004 and the European Union on 1 May 2004. Slovenia was the first post-Communist country to hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, for the first six months of 2008.

Politics


Slovenia is a parliamentary democracy republic with a multi-party system. The head of state is the president, who is elected by popular vote every five years to maximum two consecutive terms, and has mainly advisory and ceremonial duties. The executive and administrative authority in Slovenia is held by the Government of Slovenia (Vlada Republike Slovenije), headed by the Prime Minister and the council of ministers or cabinet, who are elected by the National Assembly (Državni zbor Republike Slovenije). The incompletely bicameral Parliament of Slovenia is characterised by an asymmetric duality. The bulk of power is concentrated in the National Assembly which consists of ninety members. Of those, 88 are elected by all the citizens in a system of proportional representation, while two are elected by the registered members of the autochthonous Hungarian and Italian minorities. Election take place every four years. The National Council (Državni svet Republike Slovenije), consisting of forty members, appointed to represent social, economic, professional and local interest groups, has a limited advisory and control power.

Between 1992 and 2004, the Slovenian political scene was characterized by the rule of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, which carried out much of the economic and political transformation of the country. The party's president Janez Drnovšek, who served as Prime Minister between 1992 and 2002, was the one of the most influential Slovenian politician of the 1990s, together with the Slovenian President Milan Kučan (served between 1990 and 2002), who was credited for the peaceful transition from Communism to democracy. The 2004 election brought to power the right wing coallition, led by Janez Janša of the Slovenian Democratic Party. The Liberal Democracy quickly lost much of its influence and in 2008, the left wing coalition headed by the Social Democrat Borut Pahor won the election by a narrow margin.

Administrative divisions
Officially, Slovenia is subdivided into 210 municipalities (eleven of which have the status of urban municipalities). The municipalities are the only body of local autonomy in Slovenia. Besides, there also exist 62 administrative districts, officially called "Administrative Units" (upravne enote), which are not a body of local self-government, but territorial sub-units of government administration. The Administrative Units are named after their capital, and are headed by a Head of the Unit (načelnik upravne enote), appointed by the Minister of Public Administration.

However, regional identity is strong in Slovenia. The traditional regions of Slovenia, based on the former four Habsburg crown lands (Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, and the Littoral) are the following:





The city of Ljubljana was historically the administrative center of Upper Carniola. However, from the mid 19th century onward, it has not been considered as part of any of the three subdivisions of Carniola (Upper, Lower and Inner Carniola). Nowadays, it is not considered part of any of the traditional historical regions of Slovenia.

For statistical reasons, Slovenia is also subdivied into 12 statistical regions, who have no administrative function. These are further subdivided into two macroregions, for the purpose of the Regional policy of the European Union. These two macroregions are:
 * East Slovenia (Vzhodna Slovenija – SI01), which groups the regions of Pomurska, Podravska, Koroška, Savinjska, Zasavska, Spodnjeposavska, Jugovzhodna Slovenija and Notranjsko-kraška.


 * West Slovenia (Zahodna Slovenija – SI02), which groups the regions of Osrednjeslovenska, Gorenjska, Goriška and Obalno-kraška.

Geography
Slovenia is situated in Central Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. It lies between latutudes 45° and 47° N, and longitudes 13° and 17° E. The 15th meridian east almost corresponds to the middle line of the country in the direction west-east. The geographical centre of Slovenia is at the coordinates 46°07'11.8" N and 14°48'55.2" E. It lies in Spodnja Slivna near Vače. Slovenia's highest peak is Triglav (2864 m); the country's average height above sea level is 557 m.

Four major European geographic regions meet in Slovenia: the Alps, the Dinarides, the Pannonian Plain, and the Mediterranean. Although on the shore of the Adriatic Sea, near the Mediterranean, most of Slovenia is in the Black Sea drainage basin. The Alps—including the Julian Alps, the Kamnik-Savinja Alps and the Karavanke chain, as well as the Pohorje massif—dominate Northern Slovenia along its long border with Austria. Slovenia's Adriatic coastline stretches approximately 47 km from Italy to Croatia. The term "Karst topography" refers to that of southwestern Slovenia's Kras Plateau, a limestone region of underground rivers, gorges, and caves, between Ljubljana and the 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 m or more above sea level.

Over half of the country (1186104 km2) is covered by forests. This makes Slovenia the third most forested country in Europe, after Finland and Sweden. The areas are covered mostly by beech, fir-beech and beech-oak forests and have a relatively high production capacity. Remnants of primeval forests are still to be found, the largest in the Kočevje area. Grassland covers 5593 km2 and fields and gardens (954 km2). There are 363 km2 of orchards and 216 km2 of vineyards.

Climate
There is a Continental climate in the northeast, a severe Alpine climate in the high mountain regions, and a sub-Mediterranean climate in the coastal region. Yet there is a strong interaction between these three climatic systems across most of the country. This variety is also reflected in climatic variability over time and is an important factor determining the impact of global climate change in the country.



Natural regions
The first regionalisations of Slovenia were made by geographers Anton Melik (1935–1936) and Svetozar Ilešič (1968). The newer regionalisation by Ivan Gams divides Slovenia in the following macroregions:
 * the Alps (visokogorske Alpe)
 * the Prealpine Hills (predalpsko hribovje)
 * the Ljubljana Basin (Ljubljanska kotlina)
 * Submediterranean (Littoral) Slovenia (submediteranska – primorska Slovenija)
 * the Dinaric Karst of inner Slovenia (dinarski kras notranje Slovenije)
 * Subpannonian Slovenia (subpanonska Slovenija)

According to a newer natural geographic regionalisation, the country consists of four macroregions. These are the Alpine, the Mediterranean, the Dinaric, and the Pannonian landscapes. Macroregions are defined according to major relief units (the Alps, the Pannonian plain, the Dinaric mountains) and climate types (submediterranean, temperate continental, mountain climate). These are often quite interwoven.

Protected areas of Slovenia include national parks, regional parks, and nature parks, the largest of which being Triglav National Park. There are 286 Natura 2000 designated protected areas, which comprise 36 % of the country's land area, the largest percentage among European Union states.

Biodiversity
Although Slovenia is a small country, there is an exceptionally wide variety of habitats. In the north of Slovenia are the Alps (namely, Julian Alps, Karavanke, Kamnik Alps), and in the south stand the Dinaric Alps. There is also a small area of the Pannonian plain and a Littoral Region. Much of southwestern Slovenia is characterised by Classical Karst, a very rich, often unexplored underground habitat containing diverse flora and fauna. 58.5% of the country is covered by forests making it the third most forested country in Europe. The forests are an important natural resource, but logging is kept to a minimum, as Slovenians also value their forests for the preservation of natural diversity, for enriching the soil and cleansing the water and air, for the social and economic benefits of recreation and tourism, and for the natural beauty they give to the Slovenian landscape. In the interior of the country are typical Central European forests, predominantly oak and beech. In the mountains, spruce, fir, and pine are more common. The tree line is at 1,700 to 1,800 metres (or 5,575 to 5,900 ft). Pine trees also grow on the Kras plateau, although only one third of the region is now covered by pine forest. The Kras and White Carniola are known for the proteus. The lime/linden tree, also common in Slovenian forests, is a national symbol.

In the Alps, flowers such as Daphne blagayana, various gentians (Gentiana clusii, Gentiana froelichi), Primula auricula, edelweiss (the symbol of Slovene mountaineering), Cypripedium calceolus, Fritillaria meleagris (snake's head fritillary), and Pulsatilla grandis are found.

The country's fauna includes marmots, Alpine ibex, and chamois. There are numerous deer, roe deer, boar, and hares. The edible dormouse is often found in the Slovenian beech forests. Trapping these animals is a long tradition and is a part of the Slovenian national identity. Some important carnivores include the Eurasian lynx (reintroduced to the Kočevje area in 1973), European wild cats, foxes (especially the red fox), and European jackal. There are also hedgehogs, martens, and snakes such as vipers and grass snakes. As of March 2005, Slovenia also has a limited population of wolves and around four hundred brown bears.

There is a wide variety of birds, such as the Tawny Owl, the Long-eared Owl, the Eagle Owl, hawks, and Short-toed Eagles. Various other birds of prey have been recorded, as well as a growing number of ravens, crows and magpies migrating into Ljubljana and Maribor where they thrive. Other birds include (both Black and Green) Woodpeckers and the White Stork, which nests in Prekmurje. The marble trout or marmorata (Salmo marmoratus) is an indigenous Slovenian fish. Extensive breeding programmes have been introduced to repopulate the marble trout into lakes and streams invaded by non-indigenous species of trout.

The only regular species of cetaceans found in the northern Adriatic sea is the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

Domestic animals originating in Slovenia include the indigenous Karst Shepherd, the Carniolan honeybee and the Lipizzan horse.

Economy


Slovenia has a high-income developed economy which enjoys the highest GDP per capita of the new member states in the European Union, at $ 27,654 in 2009, or 88% of the EU average. Slovenia today is a developed country that enjoys prosperity and stability, as well as a GDP per capita substantially higher than that of the other transitioning economies of Central Europe, which is approximately at the same level of South Korea, New Zealand and Israel. Slovenia benefits from a well-educated and productive work force, and its political and economic institutions are vigorous and effective.

There is however a big difference in prosperity between Western Slovenia (Ljubljana, the Slovenian Littoral and Upper Carniola) with a GDP per capita at 106.7% of the EU average, which is at the level of certain prosperous European areas such as East Flanders, Outer London or Alsace, and South Eastern Slovenia (Inner Carniola, Lower Carniola, Slovenian Styria, Slovenian Carinthia and Prekmurje) which has a GDP per capita at 72.5% of the EU average, comparable to the poorest regions of Spain or Italy, such as Extremadura or Basilicata. The economically most prosperous regions of Slovenia are Central Slovenia and the Slovenian Littoral, while the poorest are Prekmurje, the Central Sava Valley and Slovenian Carinthia.

Although Slovenia has taken a cautious, deliberate approach to economic management and reform, with heavy emphasis on achieving consensus before proceeding, its overall record is one of success. Slovenia's trade is oriented towards other EU countries, mainly Germany, Austria, Italy, and France. This is the result of a wholesale reorientation of trade toward the West and the growing markets of central and eastern Europe in the face of the collapse of its Yugoslav markets. Slovenia's economy is highly dependent on foreign trade.



Trade equals about 120 % of GDP (exports and imports combined). About two-thirds of Slovenia's trade is with EU members.This high level of openness makes it extremely sensitive to economic conditions in its main trading partners and changes in its international price competitiveness. However, despite the economic slowdown in Europe in 2001–03, Slovenia maintained 3% GDP growth. Keeping labour costs in line with productivity is thus a key challenge for Slovenia's economic well-being, and Slovenian firms have responded by specialising in mid- to high-tech manufacturing. Industry and construction comprise over one-third of GDP.

A big portion of the economy remains in state hands and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Slovenia is one of the lowest in the EU per capita. Taxes are relatively high, the labor market is seen by business interests as being inflexible, and industries are losing sales to China, India, and elsewhere.

During the first decade of the 21st century, privatisations were seen in the banking, telecommunications, and public utility sectors. Restrictions on foreign investment are being dismantled, and foreign direct investment (FDI) is expected to increase. Slovenia is the economic front-runner of the countries that joined the European Union in 2004, was the first new member which adopted the euro on 1 January 2007 and held the presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2008.

In the late 2000s economic crisis, Slovenian economy suffered a severe setback. In 2009, the Slovenian GDP per capita shrunk by −7.33 %, which was the biggest fall in the European Union after the Baltic countries and Finland. Unemployment rose from 5.1% in 2008 to 8.4% in 2010, which is still under the average in the European Union. , the total national debt of Slovenia is unknown, but has been estimated by the media to amount to 22,43 billion euros or almost 63% of GDP, surpassing the European Union limit of 60% of GDP.

Tourism
Slovenia offers tourists a wide variety of landscapes in a small space: Alpine in the northwest, Mediterranean in the southwest, Pannonian in the northeast and Dinaric in the southeast.

The nation's capital, Ljubljana, has many important Baroque and Vienna Secession buildings, with several important works of the native born architect Jože Plečnik.

At the North-Western corner of the country lie the Julian Alps with the picturesque Lake Bled and the Soča Valley, as well as the nation's highest peak, Mount Triglav in the middle of Triglav National Park. Other mountain ranges include Kamnik–Savinja Alps, Karavanke and Pohorje, popular with skiers and hikers.

Karst Plateau in the Slovenian Littoral gave the name to karst, a landscape shaped by water dissolving the carbonate bedrock, forming caves. The most famous caves are the Postojna Cave with more than 28 million visitors, and the UNESCO-listed Škocjan Caves. The region Slovenian Istria meets the Adriatic sea, where the most important historical monument is the Venetian Gothic Mediterranean city of Piran while the town Portorož attracts crowds in summer.

The hills around Slovenia's second-largest city, Maribor, are renowned for their wine-making. The northeastern part of the country is rich with spas, with Rogaška Slatina, Radenci, Čatež ob Savi, Dobrna, and Moravske Toplice growing in importance in the last two decades.

Other popular tourist destinations include the historic cities of Ptuj and Škofja Loka, and several castles, such as the Predjama Castle.

Important parts of tourism in Slovenia include congress and gambling tourism. Slovenia is the country with the highest percentage of casinos per 1,000 inhabitants in the European Union. Perla in Nova Gorica is the largest casino in the region.

Transport

 * Railways

The Slovenian Railways company operates 1,229 km of standard gauge tracks, 331 km as double track, and reaches all regions of the country. Electrification is provided by a 3 kV DC system and covers about 503 km. The remainder of the former Yugoslavian railroads that have been electrified operate with 25 kV AC system, thus trains to Zagreb will be switching engines at Dobova until dual system engines are available.


 * Highways

Highways are the central state roads in Slovenia and are divided into motorways (avtocesta, AC) and expressways (hitra cesta, HC). Motorways are dual carriageways with a speed limit of 130 km/h. They have white-on-green road signs. Expressways are secondary roads, also dual carriageways, but without an emergency lane. They have a speed limit of 100 km/h and have white-on-blue road signs. Highway users in Slovenia are required to buy a vignette.

Since the first highway in Slovenia, the A1 motorway connecting Vrhnika and Postojna, was opened in 1972, a network consisting of 528 km of motorways, expressways and similar roads, has been completed, connecting Slovenia to the neighbour countries. The Slovene motorway route heading from East to West is in line with the V. European Transportation Corridor, the motorway heading in the direction North - South is also in line with the Pan-European Corridor X.

Until the end of World War I, the main Austrian imperial port of Trieste (Slovene: Trst, German: Triest) was the main port in the Slovene Lands, and it was of crucial importance for Slovenian economy. With Trieste coming under Italy after the London Memorandum of Understanding, the Port of Koper was established in 1957. The port has since been much expanded, and in 2007 more than 15 million tonnes of cargo passed through it. In 2010, the Port of Koper surpassed the port of Trieste for the first time in its history, becoming the largest port in the region. Further development and expansion of the port in Koper is planned, together with the opening of a second rail track between Koper and the Slovene rail network.
 * Ports and harbours

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport is by far the busiest airport in the country with connections to many major European destinations. Around 1.5 million passengers and 15,000 tonnes of cargo pass through the airport each year. Slovenia has two more international airports, Maribor Edvard Rusjan Airport and Portorož Airport and several sport airports. There is also an active Air Force Base in Cerklje ob Krki.
 * Airports

Demographics
According to the 2002 census, Slovenia's main ethnic group is Slovene (83%). At least 13% of the population were immigrants from other parts of Former Yugoslavia and their descendants. They have settled mainly in cities and suburbanised areas. Relatively small but protected by the Constitution of Slovenia are the Hungarian and the Italian national community. A special position is held by the autochthonous and geographically dispersed Roma ethnic community.

Life expectancy in 2007 was 74.6 years for men and 81.8 years for women. In 2009, the suicide rate was 22 per 100,000 persons per year, which places Slovenia among the highest ranked European countries in this regard. Nonetheless, in the last decade a downward trend in suicide has been observed. According to the Institute of Public Health, suicide in Slovenia grows with age. Older men commit suicide more often than older women.

With 101 inhabitants per square kilometre (262/sq mi), Slovenia ranks low among the European countries in population density (compared to 320/km² (829/sq mi) for the Netherlands or 195/km² (505/sq mi) for Italy). The Notranjska-Kras statistical region has the lowest population density while the Central Slovenian statistical region has the highest. Approximately 51% of the population lives in urban areas and 49% in rural areas.

Urbanization
Slovenia is divided into 210 local municipalities, eleven of which have urban status. Each municipality is headed by a Mayor (župan), elected every 4 years by popular vote, and a Municipal Council (občinski svet). In the majority of the municipalities, the municipal council is elected through the system of proportional representation; only few smaller municipalities use the plurality voting system. In the urban municipalities, the municipal councils are called City Councils.

Every municipality also has a Head of the Municipal Administration (načelnik občinske uprave), appointed by the Mayor, who is responsible for the functioning of the local administration.

Languages
The official language in Slovenia is Slovene, which is a member of the South Slavic language group. In 2002, Slovene was the native language of around 88% of Slovenia's population according to the census, with more than 92% of the Slovenian population speaking it in their home environment. This places Slovenia among the most homogeneous countries in the EU in terms of the share of speakers of predominant mother tongue. Slovene is the most diverse Slavic language in terms of dialects, with different grades of mutual intelligibility. There are 46 distinct dialects, grouped in seven dialect groups.

Hungarian and Italian enjoy the status of official languages in the ethnically mixed regions along the Hungarian and Italian borders. In 2002, around 0.2% of the Slovenian population spoke Italian and around 0.4% spoke Hungarian as their native language. A legally protected language in Slovenia is also Romani, spoken in 2002 as the native language by 0.2% of people. They mainly belong to the geographically dispersed and marginalized Roma community. German, which used to be the largest minority language in Slovenia prior to World War II (around 4% of the population in 1921), is now the native language of only around 0.08% of the population, the majority of whom are more than 60 years old.

A significant number of Slovenian population speak a variant of Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or Montenegrin) as their native language. These are mostly immigrants who moved to Slovenia from other former Yugoslav republics from the 1960s to the late 1980s, and their descendants. However, most of Serbo-Croatian speakers are assimilated to their Slovene-speaking environment, as only 1% of the overall Slovenian population speaks only Serbo-Croatian at home, with another 3.3% using a combination of Serbo-Croatian and Slovene. 0,4% of the Slovenian population declared themselves as native speakers of Albanian and 0,2% as native speakers of Macedonian in 2002. Czech, which used to be the fourth largest minority language in Slovenia prior to World War II (after German, Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian), is now the native language of a few hundred Slovenian residents.

Slovenia is ranked among the top European countries regarding the knowledge of foreign languages. The most often taught foreign languages are English, German, Italian, French and Spanish. , 92% of the population between the age of 25 and 64 spoke at least one foreign language and around 71.8% of them spoke at least two foreign languages, which was the highest percentage in the European Union. According to the Eurobarometer survey, the majority of Slovenes could speak Croatian (61%) and English (56%). A reported 45% of Slovenes could speak German, which was one of the highest percentages outside German-speaking countries. Italian is widely spoken on the Slovenian Coast and in some other areas of the Slovenian Littoral. Around 15% of Slovenians can speak Italian, which is (According to the Eurobarometer pool) the third highest percentage in the European Union, after Italy and Malta.

Religion


Traditionally, Slovenes are predominantly Roman Catholic. Before World War Two, 97% of Slovenes declared as Roman Catholics, around 2.5% were Lutheran, and only around 0.5% belonged to other denominations. Catholicism was an important feature of both social an political life in pre-Communist Slovenia. After 1945, the country underwent a process of gradual but steady secularization. After a decade of severe persecution of religions, the Communist regime adopted a policy of relative tolerance towards the churches, but limited their social functioning. After 1990, the Roman Catholic Church regained some of its former influence, but Slovenia remains a largely secularized society.

According to the 2002 census, 57.8% of the population is Roman Catholic. Like elsewhere in Europe, the affiliation to Roman Catholicism in Slovenia is dropping: in 1991, there were 71.6% self-declared Catholics, which means a drop of more than 1 % annually.



Despite a relatively small number of Protestants (less than 1% in 2002), the Protestant legacy in Slovenia is important because of its historical significance, since the bases of Slovene standard language and Slovene literature were established by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Nowadays, a significant Lutheran minority lives in the easternmost region of Prekmurje, where they represent around a fifth of the population and are headed by a bishop with the seat in Murska Sobota.

Besides these two Christian denominations, a small Jewish community has also been historically present in Slovenia. Despite the losses suffered during the Holocaust, Judaism in Slovenia still numbers few hundred adherents, mostly living in Ljubljana, where the only synagogue in Slovenia operates.

Since the 1970s, Islam has become an important religion in Slovenia. According to the 2002 census, Muslims are the second largest religious denomination with around 2.4% of the population. Most Slovenian Muslims came from Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

The third most important denomination in Slovenia, with around 2.2% of the population, is Eastern Orthodoxy. The vast majority of Slovenian Eastern Orthodox Christians belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church, while a minority belongs to the Macedonian and other Orthodox churches. A small number of Greek Catholics live in the White Carniola region.

In the 2002, around 10% of Slovenes declared themselves as atheists, while another 10% professed no specific denomination. Around 16% decided not answer the question about their religious affiliation. According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2005, 37% of Slovenian citizens responded that "they believe there is a god", whereas 46% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 16% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".

Education
The Slovenian education system consists of:
 * pre-school education
 * basic education (single structure of primary and lower secondary education)
 * (upper) secondary education: vocational and technical education, secondary general education
 * higher vocational education
 * higher education

Specific parts of the system:
 * adult education
 * music and dance education
 * special needs education
 * programmes in ethnically and linguistically mixed areas

Currently there are three public universities in Slovenia:
 * University of Ljubljana
 * University of Maribor
 * University of Primorska

In addition, there is the private University of Nova Gorica.

The Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Slovenia's education as the 12th best in the world and 4th best in the European Union, being significantly higher than the OECD average.

Children first enter primary schooling at about the age of 6 and finish at about the age of 14 (9 school years). Each group of children born in the same year form one grade or class in primary school which lasts until the end of primary school. Each grade or year is divided into 2 terms. Once or twice per term, children have holidays: Autumn, Christmas, winter and May first holidays; each holiday is approximately one week long. At summer time, school ends on 24 June (except in the last/ninth grade, where it ends one week earlier), followed by a holiday of more than two months. The next school year starts on 1 September.

Immigration
Around 12.4% of the inhabitants of Slovenia were born abroad. According to data from 2008, there were around 100,000 non-EU citizens living in Slovenia, or around 5% of the overall population of the country. The highest number came from Bosnia-Hercegovina, followed by immigrants from Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and Kosovo. The number of people migrating to Slovenia has been steadily rising from 1995; in 2007, Slovenia was one of the countries with the fastest growth of net migration rate in the European Union.

Culture
Some of Slovenia's greatest authors were the poets France Prešeren (1800–1849), Oton Župančič, Srečko Kosovel, Edvard Kocbek and Dane Zajc, as well as the writer and playwright Ivan Cankar (1876–1918). Boris Pahor, Drago Jančar, Alojz Rebula, Tomaž Šalamun and Aleš Debeljak are some of the leading names of contemporary Slovene literature.

The most important Slovene painters include Anton Ažbe in late 19th century. Ivana Kobilca, Rihard Jakopič, Ivan Grohar worked in the beginning of 20th century. Prominent artists of the 20th century include Avgust Černigoj, Anton Gojmir Kos, group IRWIN, and Zoran Mušič. The most famed Slovene architects of the 20th century were Jože Plečnik, Edvard Ravnikar and Marko Mušič.



Slovenia is a homeland of numerous musicians and composers, including Renaissance composer Jacobus Gallus (1550–1591), who greatly influenced Central European classical music, the Baroque composer Janez Krstnik Dolar (ca. 1620–1673), and the violin virtuoso Giuseppe Tartini. In the 20th century, Bojan Adamič was a renowned film music composer and Ivo Petrić (born 16 June 1931) is a composer of European classical music.

Contemporary popular musicians have been Slavko Avsenik, Laibach, Vlado Kreslin, Pero Lovšin, Pankrti, Zoran Predin, Oto Pestner, Lačni Franz, Helena Blagne, DJ Umek, Valentino Kanzyani, Siddharta, Big Foot Mama, Terrafolk, Magnifico and others.

Slovene cinema has more than a century-long tradition with Karol Grossmann, France Štiglic, Igor Pretnar, Jože Pogačnik, Matjaž Klopčič, Boštjan Hladnik and Karpo Godina as its most established filmmakers. Contemporary film directors Jan Cvitkovič, Damjan Kozole, and Janez Lapajne are among the most notable representatives of the so-called "Renaissance of Slovenian cinema".

Famous Slovene scholars include the chemist and Nobel prize laureate Friderik - Fritz Pregl, physicist Joseph Stefan, psychologist and anthropologist Anton Trstenjak, philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Milan Komar, linguist Franc Miklošič, mathematician Jurij Vega, sociologist Thomas Luckmann, theologian Anton Strle and rocket engineer Herman Potočnik.

Cuisine
There is no such thing as a single, uniform, distinct Slovenian cuisine. There are more than 40 distinct regional cuisines in a country whose main distinguishing feature is a great variety and diversity of land formation, climate, wind movements, humidity, terrain and history.

Slovenian cuisine is a mixture of three great regional cuisines, the Central European cuisine (especially Austrian and Hungarian), the Mediterranean cuisine and the Balkan cuisine.



Historically, Slovenian cuisine was divided into town, farmhouse, cottage, castle, parsonage and monastic cuisine. The first Slovenian cookbook was published in Slovenian language by Valentin Vodnik in 1799. Soups are a relatively recent invention in Slovenian cuisine, but there are over 100. Earlier there were various kinds of porridge, stew and one-pot meals. The most common meat soups are beef and chicken soup. Meat-based soups are served only on Sundays and feast days; more frequently in more prosperous country or city households.

There is a variety of sausages in the Slovenian cuisine, the most famous of which is Kranjska klobasa, also known in English as Kransky.

One of the most popular fast-food dishes in Slovenia is burek. Burek has numerous connotations in Slovenia. These are largely negative illustrating the nationalistic prejudices of Slovenes towards immigrants especially from the countries of Former Yugoslavia.

Honey is used to a considerable extent. Medenjaki, which come in different shapes are honey cakes, which are most commonly heart-shaped and are often used as gifts.

Slovenian national dishes are Bujta repa, Ričet, Prekmurska gibanica, Potica, Ajdovi žganci, Jota, Mineštra, Pršut, Kranjska klobasa and Žlikrofi.

Sport


A variety of sports are played in Slovenia on professional level, with top international successes in handball, basketball, volleyball, association football, ice hockey, rowing, swimming, tennis, boxing and athletics. Prior to World War II, gymnastics and fencing used to be the most popular sports in Slovenia, with champions like Leon Štukelj, Miroslav Cerar and Rudolf Cvetko gaining Olympic medals for Austria-Hungary and Yugoslavia. Association football gained popularity in the interwar period. After 1945, basketball, handball and volleyball have become popular among Slovenians, and from the mid 1970s onward, winter sports. Since 1992, Slovenian Olympians have won 22 medals, including three gold medals.

Individual sports are also very popular in Slovenia, including tennis, with Grand Slam winners Mima Jaušovec and Katarina Srebotnik, and mountaineering, witch are two of the most widespread sporting activities in Slovenia. Several Slovenian extreme and endurance sportsmen have gained an international reputation, including the mountaineer Tomaž Humar, the mountain skier Davo Karničar, the ultramaraton swimmer Martin Strel and the ultracyclist Jure Robič. Past and current winter sports Slovenian champions include Alpine skiers Mateja Svet, Bojan Križaj, Jure Franko, Rok Petrovič, Jure Košir and Tina Maze, and ski jumpers Franci Petek, Primož Ulaga, Primož Peterka, Rok Benkovič and Peter Žonta. Since Dejan Zavec won the IBF Welterweight World Champion title in 2009, one of the most popular sports in Slovenia has been boxing too.



Since the major international success of the national football team, qualifying for two FIFA World Cup's one UEFA European Football Championship, football has become increasingly popular, as well. Slovenian past and current football stars include Branko Oblak, Srečko Katanec and Zlatko Zahovič. The national basketball team has qualified for eight Eurobaskets, including a 4th place finish in 2009, and two FIBA World Championship appearances. Notable Slovenian basketball players include Marko Milič, Jure Zdovc, Peter Vilfan, Radoslav Nesterović and Ivo Daneu. Slovenia will be the host of European basketball championship in 2013, having previously hosted the final round of 1970 FIBA World Championship. The national ice hockey team has qualified for five Ice Hockey World Championships. One of Slovenia's best-known athletes is Anže Kopitar, other notable Slovenian hockey players include Jan Muršak, Ernest Aljančič senior and Rudi Hiti.