Early Alpine Slavs In the 6th century AD,
Slavic people settled the region between the
Alps and the
Adriatic Sea in two consecutive migration waves: the first wave came from the
Moravian lands around 550, while the second wave, coming from the southeast, moved into the area after the migration of the
Lombards to Italy in 568. From 623 to 658 Slavic peoples between the upper
Elbe River and the
Karawanks mountain range united under the leadership of
King Samo () in what became known as
"Samo's Tribal Union". The tribal union collapsed after Samo's death in 658, but a smaller Slavic tribal principality,
Carantania (
Slovene:
Karantanija), remained, with its centre in the present-day region of
Carinthia.
Alpine Slavs during the Frankish Empire Faced with the pressing danger of
Avar tribes from the east, the
Carantanians accepted a union with
Bavaria in 745, and later in the 8th century recognized
Frankish rule and accepted Christianity. The last Slavic state formation in the region, the
principality of Prince
Kocel, lost its independence in 874. Slovene ethnic territory subsequently shrank due to pressure from
Germans from the west and the arrival of
Hungarians in the
Pannonian plain; it stabilized in its present form in the 15th century.
16th century: Slovene Protestant reformation and consolidation of Slovene The first mentions of a common Slovene ethnic identity, transcending regional boundaries, date from the 16th century. During this period, the first books in Slovene were written by the
Protestant preacher
Primož Trubar and his followers, establishing the base for the development of standard Slovene. In the second half of the 16th century, numerous books were printed in Slovene, including an integral translation of the Bible by
Jurij Dalmatin. At the beginning of the 17th century, Protestantism was suppressed by the Habsburg-sponsored
Counter Reformation, which introduced the new aesthetics of
Baroque culture.
18th century: Slovenes under Maria Theresa and Joseph II The
Enlightenment in the Habsburg monarchy brought significant social and cultural progress to the Slovene people. It hastened economic development and facilitated the appearance of a middle class. Under the reign of
Maria Theresa and Emperor
Joseph II (1765–1790) many reforms were undertaken in the administration and society, including land reforms, the modernization of the Church and compulsory primary education in Slovene (1774). The start of cultural-linguistic activities by Slovene intellectuals of the time brought about a national revival and the birth of the Slovene nation in the modern sense of the word. Before the
Napoleonic Wars, some secular literature in Slovene emerged. During the same period, the first history of the
Slovene Lands as an ethnic unity was written by
Anton Tomaž Linhart, while
Jernej Kopitar compiled the first comprehensive
grammar of Slovene.
Slovenes under Napoleon (1809–1813) Between 1809 and 1813, Slovenia was part of the
Illyrian Provinces, an autonomous province of the Napoleonic
French Empire, with Ljubljana as the capital. Although the French rule was short-lived, it significantly contributed to the rise of national consciousness and political awareness of Slovenes. After the fall of Napoleon, all Slovene Lands were once again included in the
Austrian Empire. Gradually, 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 advancing the first steps towards standardization of the language.
Illyrian movement,
Pan-Slavic and
Austro-Slavic ideas 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 Slovenes into a wider Slavic nation.
1840s: the first Slovene national political programme 's
map of the Slovene Land, designed during the
Spring of Nations in 1848, became the symbol of the quest for a
United Slovenia. In the 1840s, the
Slovene national movement developed far beyond literary expression. In 1848, the first Slovene national political programme, called
United Slovenia (), was written in the context of the
Spring of Nations movement within the Austrian Empire. It demanded a unification of all Slovene-speaking territories in an autonomous kingdom, named
Slovenija, Although the project failed, particularly in the 1860s and 1870s, when mass Slovene rallies, named
tabori, were organised. The conflict between Slovene and German nationalists deepened. In 1866, some Slovenes were left to Italy, In the 1890s, the first Slovene political parties were established. All of them were loyal to Austria, but they were also espousing a common South Slavic cause. Those who settled in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania came to be called
Windish, from the Austrian German term
Windisch '
Wend'. The largest group of Slovenes in the United States eventually settled in
Cleveland, Ohio, and the surrounding area. The second-largest group settled in Chicago, principally on the
Lower West Side. The American Slovenian Catholic Union (Ameriško slovenska katoliška enota) was founded as an organization to protect Slovene-American rights in
Joliet, Illinois, southwest of
Chicago, and in Cleveland. Today there are KSKJ branches all over the country offering life insurance and other services to Slovene-Americans. Freethinkers were centered around 18th and Racine Ave. in Chicago, where they founded the
Slovene National Benefit Society; other Slovene immigrants went to southwestern Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio and the state of
West Virginia to work in the coal mines and lumber industry. Some Slovenes also went to the
Pittsburgh or
Youngstown, Ohio, areas, to work in the steel mills, as well as
Minnesota's
Iron Range, to work in the iron mines and also to
Copper Country on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan for copper mining. Many also went west to
Rock Springs in
Wyoming to work in the coal mines that supported the Union Pacific Railway.
World War I There were more than 30,000 casualties among ethnic Slovenes during
World War I because they were and still are inhabiting the territory where the
Isonzo Front was fought. While the majority of them were drafted in the
Austro-Hungarian Army, also Slovene civil inhabitants from the
Gorizia and Gradisca region suffered in hundreds of thousands because they were resettled in
refugee camps where, however, Slovene refugees were treated as state enemies by Italians and several thousands died of malnutrition in Italian refugee camps.
Fascist Italianization of Littoral Slovenes The annexed western
quarter of Slovene speaking territory, and approximately 327,000 out of the total population of 1.3 million Slovenes, were subjected to forced
Fascist Italianization. On the map of present-day Slovenia with its traditional regions' boundaries. After the First World War (1914–1918), the majority of Slovenes joined other South Slavs in the
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, followed by the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and finally the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the new system of
banovinas (since 1929), Slovenes formed a majority in the
Drava Banovina. In the ex-
Austrian Empire area given to Italy in exchange for joining
Great Britain in
World War I, the forced
Fascist Italianization of the
Slovene minority in Italy (1920–1947) was under no international restraint especially after
Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922. Already during the period of Italian occupation, between the years 1918 and 1920, all Slovene cultural associations (
Sokol, "reading rooms" etc.) had been forbidden.
Fascist Italy brought Italian teachers from
southern Italy to Italianize ethnic Slovene and
Croatian children, while the Slovene and Croatian teachers, poets, writers, artists and clergy were exiled to
Sardinia and elsewhere to
southern Italy. In 1926, claiming that it was restoring surnames to their original Italian form, the Italian government announced the Italianization of names and surnames not only of citizens of the Slovene minority, but also of
Croatian and
German. Some Slovenes willingly accepted Italianization in order to lose the status of being second-class citizens with no upward social mobility. By the mid-1930s, around 70,000 Slovenes had fled the region, mostly to Yugoslavia and
South America. In the bilingual regions people of
Carinthia decided in a 1920
referendum that most of Carinthia should remain in Austria. Slovene volunteers also participated in the
Spanish Civil War and the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
World War II and aftermath During WWII,
Nazi Germany and Hungary occupied northern areas (brown and dark green areas, respectively), while
Fascist Italy occupied the vertically hashed black area, including
Gottschee area (solid black western part being annexed by Italy already with the
Treaty of Rapallo). After 1943, Germany took over the Italian occupational area, as well. During World War II, Slovenes were in a unique situation. While Greece shared its experience of being trisected, Slovenia was the only country that experienced a further step—absorption and annexation into neighboring
Nazi Germany,
Fascist Italy, and Hungary. After Yugoslavia was invaded by
Axis powers on 6 April 1941, Germany and Hungary occupied northern Slovenia. Some villages in
Lower Carniola were annexed by the
Independent State of Croatia. The Nazis started a policy of violent
Germanisation. During the war, tens of thousands of Slovenes were resettled or chased away, imprisoned, or transported to
labor,
internment and
extermination camps. Many were sent into exile to
Nedić's Serbia and
Croatia. The numbers of Slovenes drafted to the
German military and paramilitary formations has been estimated at 150,000 men and women, almost a quarter of them died on various European battlefields, mostly on the
Eastern Front. Compared to the German policies in the northern Nazi-occupied area of Slovenia and the forced
Fascist italianization in the former
Austrian Littoral that was annexed after the First World War, the initial Italian policy in the central Slovenia was not as violent. Tens of thousands of Slovenes from German-occupied
Lower Styria and
Upper Carniola escaped to the Province of Ljubljana until June 1941. However, after resistance started in
Province of Ljubljana, Italian violence against the Slovene civil population easily matched that of the Germans. The province saw the deportation of 25,000 people—which equated to 7.5% of the total population of the province—in one of the most drastic operations in Europe that filled up many
Italian concentration camps, such as
Rab concentration camp, in
Gonars concentration camp, Monigo (Treviso), Renicci d'Anghiari, Chiesanuova (Padua) and elsewhere. To suppress the mounting resistance by the
Slovene Partisans,
Mario Roatta adopted draconian measures of
summary executions, hostage-taking, reprisals, internments, and the burning of houses and whole villages. The "3C" pamphlet, tantamount to a declaration of war on civilians, involved him in
Italian war crimes. In the summer of 1941, a
resistance movement led by the
Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation, emerged in both the Italian and in the German occupation zones. The resistance, pluralistic at the beginning, was gradually taken over by the
Communist Party, as in the rest of occupied Yugoslavia. In the summer of 1942, a civil war between Slovenes broke out. The two fighting factions were the
Slovenian Partisans and the
Italian-sponsored anti-communist militia, later re-organized under Nazi command as the
Slovene Home Guard. Small units of Slovenian
Chetniks also existed in
Lower Carniola and
Styria. The Partisans were under the command of the Liberation Front (OF) and
Tito's Yugoslav resistance, while the
Slovenian Covenant served as the political arm of the anti-Communist militia. The civil war was mostly restricted to the
Province of Ljubljana, where more than 80% of the Slovene anti-partisan units were active. Between 1943 and 1945, smaller anti-Communist militia existed in parts of the
Slovenian Littoral and in
Upper Carniola, while they were virtually non-existent in the rest of the country. By 1945, the total number of Slovene anti-Communist militiamen reached 17,500. Immediately after the war, some 12,000 members of the Slovene Home Guard were killed in the
Kočevski Rog massacres, while thousands of anti-communist civilians were killed in the first year after the war. In addition, hundreds of
ethnic Italians from the
Julian March were killed by the Yugoslav Army and partisan forces in the
Foibe massacres; some 27,000
Istrian Italians fled
Slovenian Istria from Communist persecution in the so-called
Istrian–Dalmatian exodus. Members of the ethnic German minority either fled or were expelled from Slovenia. The overall number of World War II casualties in Slovenia is estimated at 97,000. The number includes about 14,000 people, who were killed or died for other war-related reasons immediately after the end of the war, In addition, tens of thousands of Slovenes left their homeland soon after the end of the war. Most of them settled in Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and the United States. Most of
Carinthia remained part of Austria and around 42,000 Slovenes (per 1951 population census) were recognized as a minority and have enjoyed special rights following the
Austrian State Treaty (Staatsvertrag) of 1955. Slovenes in the Austrian state of
Styria (4,250) are not recognized as a minority and do not enjoy special rights, although the State Treaty of 27 July 1955 states otherwise. Many Carinthians remain uneasy about Slovene territorial claims, pointing to the fact that Yugoslav troops entered the
state after each of the two World Wars. The former
governor,
Jörg Haider, regularly played the Slovene card when his popularity started to dwindle, and indeed relied on the strong anti-Slovene attitudes in many parts of the province for his power base. Yugoslavia acquired some territory from Italy after WWII but some 100,000 Slovenes remained behind the Italian border, notably around
Trieste and
Gorizia. ==Slovenes in Socialist Yugoslavia==