The territory of this new European state is crossed by strategically important passes, the lowest in the entire Alps, leading from the Danubian basin to the Mediterranean (Italy). Thus, the Slovenes had been under cultural, civilizational and political domination of centers from these two parts of Europe until 1918. Because the mountainous land forms, dissected also by valleys and basins, were prone to processes of diffusion rather than fusion, the Slovenes became a national and political subject of their own as late as the nineteenth century. From 1918 to 1990 they were joined to Yugoslavia, a South-East European state, and learnt, to their cost, all the differences between the cultures of West and Central Europe on the one hand, and South-East and Eastern Europe and the Near East on the other. Hence the plebiscite decision by the nation for an independent state.

When we talk about Slovenia in Europe, we are talking about a two-way relationship: what does Slovenia mean for Europe? and, what is Slovenia's place in Europe? The first question requires an answer to an additional question: what is Europe, and where is its development leading? As part of Europe, and as a part of its system, Slovenia must also be in harmony with it or, rather, Slovenia's attributes must not be in conflict with those of Europe, otherwise Slovenia would not integrate properly. Europe could not then accept it as a composite part, for Slovenia's development would not align with the direction in which Europe is moving.

As a people, the Slovenes have never had their own national state. Integrated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenes have lived on a subnational level. Only Yugoslavia was recognized as an international subject and remains a member of the United Nations Organization to this day; thus, Slovenia—the homeland of Slovenes—did not enjoy the full status of a nation and the Slovene national identity was not internationally recognized until recently. Slovenes are now determined to achieve permanent recognition, no matter the cost.

My discussion of the position of the Slovenes in “Post-modern” Europe is based on certain premises. First, I perceive the present and the future situation of Europe as one in which so-called post-modern phenomena and values are being realized; secondly, I perceive the current developments in Slovenia as processes of cooperation with and participation in European processes; and thirdly, I view the state independence of Slovenia achieved this year as a prerequisite of the above-mention cooperation and participation. However, these premises require explanation and verification. In providing the explanation and the proof, I would like to point to the problems of a small state existing in the modern world, and outline the challenges that await us, Slovenes.

This chapter is concerned with the swift and unexpected political and social breaks that occurred at the end of the eighties in Eastern and Central Europe and which we have been experiencing as necessary, inevitable, foreseen but delayed. A simultaneous, particularly media-created analysis, has characterized them as a “peaceful revolution,” but at least two questions arise.

In the eyes of the European public, Slovenia is still considered a Catholic country. Since before the last World War, this has had a double meaning. First of all, the Roman Catholic Church has been the leading ecclesiastical institution since the Christianization of the territory settled by Slovenes, decisively influencing the constitution of the cultural and political life of the Slovene nation, as well as its character. In spite of changed social conditions and its fate in the period of “real-socialist” rule from 1945 to 1990, the Church has preserved this role to the present time, although in different forms.

With 20,251 square kilometers, Slovenia has a little less than two million inhabitants. In the last thirty-five years, national productivity has risen on average by 5.2% annually (though it stagnated in the eighties and diminished fast in 1990 and 1991), and per inhabitant, rose 0.7% annually. At approximately 6,000 dollars, per capita productivity is twice as high as the Yugoslav average and eight times higher than per capita productivity in less developed Kosovo. With a 47% economically active population, 9% agricultural population, more than 99% literacy, 30% expenditure on food, and 0.28 vehicles and 0.32 telephones per inhabitant, Slovenia ranks among the rich Eastern European countries.

The new era of Slovene spiritual, cultural and, in a certain sense, political history, is marked by the condition of exile. The first Slovene book, printed in 1550, was written by Primož Trubar, a Protestant, emigrant and exile par excellence. Trubar and his followers translated, wrote, made plans, and worked, “for the prosperity of their homeland,” in exile; therefore, the fundamental document of Judeo-Christian civilization and culture—the Holy Bible—was translated into Slovene, in exile. Books were sent to the homeland in barrels, and young people were invited to be educated at German universities. Trubar died an exile, convinced that his cause in the homeland was, if not won, at least well on the road to success.

On December 1, 1918, as Regent Alexander proclaimed the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the latter entered the new state under pressure from manifold motives. Besides the desire for Slavonic solidarity, there was also a more prosaic need that made them take that step. Following the disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy, in which they had lived for centuries, they emerged in the international political arena completely alone and inexperienced “as political children.” They had no borders confirmed by history, and no army apart from a handful of volunteers. For a neighbor, they had victorious Italy with the London Treaty in its pocket, in which the Great Powers promised it a large portion of Slovene territory for its participation in the war. The only power which it was possible to rely upon at that moment was Serbia, which, in turn, dictated its own conditions for the unification. The future state was to become a monarchy under a Karadjordjevich dynasty and was to be centrally structured, irrespective of the ethnic and historical distinctions among various “tribes” making up the new state. The fact that the three constituent entities of the Kingdom were lowered to the level of tribes is clearly indicative: it proclaimed the belief in the existence of a single South-Slavic nation which, although cleft into three branches by events in the past, was to reach its initial unity again, in line with the principle: one state, one nation.

Contemporary Slovene literature from 1950 to the present has been deeply influenced, above all, by two major factors: first, its own tradition through a century-long development, and secondly, the socio-political position of literature immediately after the Second World War. As concerns tradition, it should be noted that the beginning of literature in the Slovene language coincided with the arrival of Protestantism in the sixteenth century; only sparse religious records are known from previous centuries. This literature remained within the framework of ecclesiastical needs until the late eighteenth century, similar to those found in Lithuania, Estonia or Finland. At the end of the eighteenth century, Slovene literature began to resemble the Central European literature typical of Croatia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. This is not only evident in the same literary trends and genres, but above all in the fact that national ideology as well as social and moral ideas acquired a significant role in its concepts.

Slovenia's geographical position has exposed it to the underlying trends of European spiritual and cultural life from the Middle Ages to the present. The adoption of Christianity by the end of the first millennium, the incorporation of medieval political structures, and economic and cultural trends, were paralleled by Slovenes who adopted European culture. Ever since, Slovenia has been part of the broad framework of Central European spiritual and cultural life as it has unfolded and developed up to today.

I start instinctively as the airplane swings on its descent toward a stretch of land that is my country. A simple view from an aircraft approaching the Ljubljana airport suddenly becomes a fictitious vision of the ‘memory landscape’ conveyed by Dušan Kirbiš in his picture Gesichte einer Jugend (1984). Under the lowered, steel grey sky, among patches of snow-covered landscape, I catch glimpses of a dark green surface which reminds me of the woodland above the Sava river—the Kočevski rog forest or the Pohorje hillsides of dark, peaceful, impenetrable woods and sparse clearings with remote, unfriendly houses. In the coolness of this vision, the landscape of Slovenia looks both like a satellite photo and an object of fantasy.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

(T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

The early strains of Slovene music resound with the echoes of Illyrians and Celts, peoples who once travelled across present-day Slovene territory, now peopled by Slovenes who remained here as the most westernly settled branch of Slavs.

“Let everybody live in his country, at his home, as he would like to live: the Germans in their German way, the Italians in the Italian and the Hungarians in the Hungarian,” maintained, in March 1848, the Slovene priest from Klagenfurt (Carinthia) Matija Majar, “And we the Slavs also demand, firmly and with all our strength, that they let us live at home in our own way: the Slovenes in the Slovene one…”