Slovenia – national flag
The flag was officially introduced in 1991, but it is already known without the weapon from the mid-1800’s. with the pan-Slavic colors, inspired by the Russian tricolor. In the coat of arms, the three points symbolize Triglav, Slovenia’s highest mountain; the wavy lines stand for the Adriatic Sea, the three stars for the Duchy of Celje. The stars can also refer to three important years in the country’s history: 1918, 1945 and 1991. The entire coat of arms symbolizes “the land between the mountains and the sea”.
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Slovenia – prehistory
According to a2zgov, the oldest sure signs of human presence are more than 40,000 years old tools from the moustérien culture, which have been found in rock caves in northern and southwestern Slovenia. From the olchévien culture approximately 35,000 years before now, finds of lanceolate bone tips originate in the cave Potočka Zijalka, which is located at an altitude of 1700 m in the Julian Alps. From the Mesolithic, two ocher-strewn burials are known in the cave Jama na Dolech. Only after approximately 4000 BC there are traces of settled peasant communities. Several lakefront settlements testify to continued settlement through the Copper Stone Age and Bronze Age. Crafts and material culture show close connections with the Croatian Vučedol culture.
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In the late Bronze Age-early Iron Age, approximately 750-300 BC, Slovenia belonged to the eastern Alpine Hallstatt culture. Population centers sprang up with a rich craft industry, which processed bronze, iron, gold and glass. In the Eastern Alps there is the burial ground St. Lucia with 7000 graves, whose equipment illustrates an increased social division and import of luxury goods in the time approximately 700-300 BC The burial mounds at Stična with warrior funerals with helmets and body armor from the same period give a picture of the armed elite of the time. From the Dolenjsko area are known a number of finds of richly decorated bronze vessels, situals, from 600-400 BC. with scenes from upper-class life.
Slovenia – history
In ancient times Slovenia was probably inhabited by Illyrian tribes and Celtic immigrants and was completely or partially Romanized around 500 AD. From the end of the 500’s, the Slovenes, a Slavic people, immigrated. They settled in present-day Slovenia as well as in the adjacent parts of present-day Italy and Austria. Around 800, the area became part of Charlemagne’s empire, later it was divided between various German principalities and the patriarchate Aquileia in northern Italy. The central territory of the Slovenes was the Margraviate (later Duchy) Krain with the cities of Kranj and Ljubljana. Krain came together with other Slovenian territories under the Austrian Habsburgs in 1282,
In 1809, the Austrian Habsburgs had to cede their Slovenian territories to France, which made them part of its “Illyrian provinces”, which made Ljubljana its capital. In 1814 Austria got them back, and until 1918 Slovenia was an integral part of the Austrian Empire. When it was dissolved in November 1918, Slovenia was divided. The western territories came under Italy, while the central and eastern parts, where the majority of the population were Slovenes, became part of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929 Yugoslavia).
During World War II, upon the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1941, Slovenian territory was divided between Germany and Italy. In 1945, a Slovenian People’s Republic was created within the framework of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia; for the first time, an independent political entity, Slovenia, came into being. In 1947, Slovenia’s border was extended to the west at the expense of Italy, although Trieste and northwestern Istria were made a free state. It was divided in 1954, so that the city of Trieste was reunited with Italy, while the hinterland was divided between Slovenia and Croatia. This gave Slovenia a short stretch of coastline along the Adriatic Sea.
The Slovenian state is thus of new date, but the population has maintained its own language and culture for more than 1000 years. Towards the end of the 1800’s. achieved Slovenian equality with German as the official language of the Duchy of Krain, where the Slovenes gained a majority in the Landtag in 1867. The Slovenes also got their own representatives in the Austrian parliament, the Reichsrat, in Vienna, and in 1907 universal suffrage was introduced for men. The period up to 1918 was also a time of strong economic progress. The Slovenes therefore had both political, cultural and economic backgrounds to play a significant role in the new Yugoslav state. At Tito’s death in 1980, Slovenia was by far the most economically well – developed of the Yugoslav republics and also had a dynamic and liberal cultural life.
During Yugoslavia’s increasingly serious economic crisis in the 1980’s, tensions between Slovenia and the other republics, in particular Serbia, increased. The Slovenes were in favor of far-reaching reforms in the liberal direction, and attempts to keep the Slovenes down, especially after S. Milošević’s takeover of Serbia in 1987, only led to increased Slovenian dissatisfaction. In January 1990, the Slovenian Communist Party broke out of the Yugoslav Communist League, and under the leadership of M. Kučan, the party was transformed into the Party for Social Change. In the spring of 1990, Slovenia became the first republic of Yugoslavia to hold free elections with several parties. Kučan was elected president, but to parliament won a coalition of non-communist parties under the name DEMOS. Slovenia’s policy was now the transformation of Yugoslavia into a federation of states, a confederation of independent states, which Serbia in particular opposed. In December 1990, 93% of eligible Slovenes voted in favor of Slovenia’s future status, and 88.5% were in favor of full independence. When attempts in the spring of 1991 to bring about a peaceful political transformation of Yugoslavia into a state union stalled on Serbian opposition, Slovenia declared its withdrawal from Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. This triggered on 27/6 an attack by the Yugoslav Federal Army, but the fighting stopped already 4/7 and the Federal Army withdrew. Slovenia introduced its own currency on 8 October 1991, but it was not until 15 January 1992 that Slovenia (like Croatia) was officially recognized by most European countries as an independent country. Slovenia won its independence with significantly fewer victims than neighboring Croatia, and the political situation stabilized rapidly. In December 1990, 93% of eligible Slovenes voted in favor of Slovenia’s future status, and 88.5% were in favor of full independence. When attempts in the spring of 1991 to bring about a peaceful political transformation of Yugoslavia into a federation failed on Serbian resistance, Slovenia declared its withdrawal from Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. This triggered on 27/6 an attack by the Yugoslav Federal Army, but the fighting stopped already 4/7 and the Federal Army withdrew. Slovenia introduced its own currency on 8 October 1991, but it was not until 15 January 1992 that Slovenia (like Croatia) was officially recognized by most European countries as an independent country. Slovenia won its independence with significantly fewer victims than neighboring Croatia, and the political situation stabilized rapidly.
After independence 1991
The country’s president, the former leader of the Communist Party Milan Kučan, elected after the first free elections in 1990 and re-elected in 1992 and 1997, did not step down until 2002, as the last of the Yugoslav heads of state from the outbreak of war in 1991. His successor Janez Drnovšek had been prime minister in 1992. -2002 except for a brief period in 2000 before the parliamentary elections the same year, which brought him back as leader of a major coalition led by the LDS. His party colleague Anton Rop (b. 1960) took over the leadership of the coalition after the change of president, which took place in December 2002; the same month, the invitation from the EU summit in Copenhagen to Slovenia to join the union as the first country from the former Yugoslavia. In Slovenia, there was broad political agreement on European policy, less on the issue of accession to NATO. Both questions were put to the voters in a referendum 23.3. 2003, with 89.6% voting in favor of EU accession and 60.3% in favor of NATO accession. The following year, Parliament unanimously ratified the accession to the EU and with only three no-votes the accession to NATO.
The spring of 2004 was marked by a political crisis in domestic politics as a result of the Constitutional Court in September 2003 declaring the deprivation of citizenship approximately 30,000 expelled minority citizens (especially Serbs and Croats) in 1992 for invalidity. The majority of the parliament passed a law accordingly, which prompted the Slovenian National Party and other right-wing parties to demand a referendum on the law. The vote in April 2004 (with a turnout of 31.5%) gave an overwhelming no to the law, and the Slovenian People’s Party withdrew from the governing coalition, leading to a major government shake-up. LDS did poorly in the subsequent European elections in June, leading to the replacement of Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, LDS, (b. 1946), with whom Rop had repeatedly been in conflict,
The widespread dissatisfaction with relations with the neighboring state contributed to the election defeat of Rops and LDS in November 2004, when the right-wing Democratic Party (DS) more than doubled its mandate and for the first time became Slovenia’s largest party, while LDS lost a third of its seats and slipped down to second place. The result was a center-right government led by Janez Janša. Dimitrij Rupel (b. 1946) became Foreign Minister in the new government and in January 2005 entered into an agreement with the Prime Minister of Croatia Sanader on the maritime border issue; although the problems have not been resolved, it has, however, underlined the otherwise positive co-operation between neighboring states.