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Slovenia

Bravo Ltd

LAND & PEOPLE

GEOGRAPHY

Slovenia's natural beauty is astonishing, and it would be more accurate to speak of the country's natural beauties. A Slovenian legend has it that when God was allotting nature's bounty, he initially forgot this country. His last-minute solution was to take bits of the best from other places: gorgeous Alpine ranges, the less craggy Pohorje Mountains, the Pannonian plain stretching toward Hungary, hill after hill rolling southward into the horizon, the unique Karst landscape, rivers aplenty, and a few miles of Adriatic coastline. There's even a disappearing body of water here — for much of the year Lake Cerknica is dry but, come the spring rains, the basin fills to become a massive, shallow lake.

The fourth-smallest of the twenty-seven European Union states, Slovenia is half the size of Switzerland and almost exactly the size of Massachusetts or Wales. Driving from any border to any other border of Slovenia takes about three hours.

A political map of Slovenia looks like a running chicken: Prekmurje, in the northeast, is the head and beak that poke into Hungary; the Alpine northwest contains the tail feathers, and the Adriatic region forms the hind leg. More than half of the chicken is colored a pleasant green by the abundant forests, and traveling in by air offers a stunning view of both verdant and Alpine terrains.

Slovenia is bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and about twenty-five miles (43 km) of the Adriatic coast, which makes for an astounding degree of regional, cultural, and geographical variety. The seaside town of Piran looks like an extension of Venice, and a day spent strolling its narrow, winding streets will give you a completely different picture from a day spent in Maribor, near the Austrian border, or in Murska Sobota, near Hungary.

There are four main geographical regions in Slovenia: the Alpine region, which extends over 40 percent of Slovenian territory and includes Mount Triglav (9,396 feet, or 2,396 m), the fertile and densely populated Pannonian plain, the southern Karst region that rests on porous limestone, and the Slovenian Littoral near the Adriatic Sea.

The traditional names for the individual regions include Gorenjska (Upper Carniola), Štajerska (Styria), Prekmurje (for the lands beyond the Mura River), Koroška (Carinthia), Notranjska (Inner Carniola), Dolenjska (Lower Carniola), Bela Krajina (White Carniola), and Primorska (the area "by the sea"). These names are derived for the most part from the German labels the Habsburg rulers slapped on their crown lands in present-day Slovenia. In spite of this dubious heritage, Slovenians identify most strongly with these traditional regions. Many insist on using the Slovenian designations even in English texts, and so it is that visitors will see "Koroška" at least as often as "Carinthia."

Fresh water is abundant in Slovenia, and in addition to the many underground springs there are dozens of rivers crisscrossing the country. The largest of these is the Sava, which starts as a trickle at the Savica Falls in the Julian Alps, and grows and grows as it makes its way south. Other major rivers are the Drava and Mura, whose waters cross the Austrian-Slovenian border before converging in Croatia. The clear Alpine waters of the Soca River — better known as the Isonzo River of First World War infamy — wind among lovely mountain scenery near the Italian border. On the opposite side of Slovenia is the equally picturesque Kolpa River, which forms seventy miles (113 km) of the border with Croatia.

CLIMATE

In Slovenia you can have a late-season Alpine ski in the morning and then head to the beach in Piran or Portoroz for an early-season dip. The difference in temperature is only partly determined by elevation, because any description of Slovenia's climate must first specify which Slovenia. There are three climatic regions, and traveling just a few dozen miles may take you into a different weather zone as blue skies suddenly darken and the temperature drops.

The Adriatic coast is blessed with a Mediterranean climate of warm summers and mild winters. The port city of Koper, for example, has an average winter temperature well above freezing. However, Koper and the rest of the Primorska region pay for this winter mildness with the Burja (Bora), a biting wind that can reach 120 mph (200 kmph).

Most of Slovenia has a continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. The average winter temperature in Ljubljana, Maribor, and Murska Sobota hovers just below the freezing point, and the average summer temperature is approximately 70°F (20°C). Heat waves are a given in any summer, but there is usually a welcome overnight breeze to help bring the mercury down.

In the Alps the temperature is always significantly cooler than in the lowlands. The average year-round temperature measured at the meteorological station at Kredarica (elevation 8,250 feet, or 2,515 m) below Mount Triglav is below the freezing point.

Precipitation in Slovenia averages just below five inches (125 mm) in January, and a little above five inches (135 mm) in July. Flooding, especially in the fall, is not uncommon.

THE PEOPLE

On a clear day, the view from Mount Triglav extends to almost all areas that are or once were Slovenian lands, including the still existing Slovenian communities in Italy and Austria. The Republic of Slovenia has approximately two million inhabitants, of which the overwhelming majority (83 percent) are ethnically Slovenian. However, many Slovenians may have an Austrian great-grandmother, a Croatian uncle, or an Italian aunt, and so on.

There are two traditional minorities of Italians and Hungarians in the border regions, numbering approximately 4,000 and 8,000 respectively. In acknowledgment of their centuries-long presence, the Constitution grants official language status "in those municipalities where Italian or Hungarian national communities reside...." In addition to bilingual schools and signs, the law guarantees a set amount of radio and television programming in Italian and Hungarian. While these communities preserve their cultural and linguistic heritage, they are well integrated into Slovenian society. Similarly, there are some 180,000 ethnic Slovenians living in Austria, Italy, and Hungary.

Predictably, there is also a strong Croatian presence in border regions, and mixed marriages are frequent. The closer you get to the frontier, the harder it is to discern who is speaking a Croatian-flavored Slovenian dialect and who a Slovenian-flavored Croatian dialect.

The German-speaking population, including those in the ancient settlements in and around Kocevje (German "Gottschee"), dwindled away during the twentieth century, dropping to nil after the Second World War. The original group came to the region in the fourteenth century, diligently carved out an existence from the heavily forested terrain, built villages, and, living in linguistic isolation, developed their own dialect over time.

One other traditional minority deserves mention: there is a tiny community of Serbians in the southwest region of Bela Krajina. Originally settlers fleeing Ottoman rule in 1526, they established four villages and have maintained an archaic type of Serbian to the present, along with a penchant for handcrafting traditional shirts.

Today, major groups include about 4,000 Roma, or Gypsies — some of whose ancestors arrived in the fifteenth century — as well as Albanians and other immigrants from the former Yugoslavia. Slovenians often point out that integration is less obvious with these groups — something visitors may not notice.

Ljubljana (pop. 263,000) and Maribor (pop. 110,000) are the two large cities, and only half of the population in Slovenia is truly urban. Most people live in one of the hundreds of smaller towns and villages. As far as values and attitudes go, the division between city and country is not great, and Ljubljana is not radically more open and liberal than most midsized towns. Beyond rabid soccer rivalries, regional animosity is more playful than visceral.

Beyond Europe, there are large Slovenian minorities living in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Argentina. These communities are keeping traditions alive through church activities, newspapers, language classes, and the not-so- occasional picnic or daylong party complete with pig roast. In Argentina, many third-generation Slovenians still speak the language without ever having visited their ancestral country.

A BRIEF HISTORY

"Finally!" sums up Slovenia's progression from nation to state, as their history is one of resilience and patience. Slovenia gained independence in 1991, after seven hundred years of toil under the Habsburgs, and several decades under Yugoslav rule. In each case, they had a homeland but no state of their own. That this relatively small nation was not swallowed up by Germanic or a neighboring Slavic culture is remarkable.

Before Slovenians

There is much evidence of human habitation that predates the sixth-century arrival of the Slavic tribes. The earliest remains date from prehistory and include a few implements as well as what appears to be a Neanderthal flute crafted from a bear's femur. Though experts quibble over whether this forty- thousand-year-old artifact is really a musical instrument, the former femur portends a rich cultural tradition.

During the Bronze Age (2000 to 900 BCE), settlers lived in the marshy surroundings of what is today Ljubljana, building houses on stilts to keep their feet dry. In the eighth century BCE Illyrian tribes swept through this area. Four centuries later Celtic tribes came all the way from France and Germany, mixing with the locals and establishing the kingdom of Noricum. The names of the Sava and Drava rivers, as well as the lovely Alpine surroundings of Bohinj, are derived from Celtic roots.

The Romans arrived in the second century BCE, initially trading with the Celts, then battling them, and finally assimilating in the newly established provinces of Pannonia and Noricum. The many Roman ruins that remain in the cities of Emona (Ljubljana), Celeia (Celje), and Poetovio (Ptuj) are all part of the via gemina that leads eastward to Hungary.

Under pressure from the barbarians, Rome abandoned the area at the end of the fourth century CE, and Huns, Ostrogoths, and Langobards stormed through these parts in the fifth and sixth centuries, sacking and plundering as they pleased. The Langobards made their collective way into Italy in 568, crossing the Julian Alps in the style of Hannibal.

Slavs and Slovenians

At some time in the sixth century Slavic tribes arrived from the Carpathian Basin. They traveled westward toward the Alps and the Karst landscape, and eventually absorbed the Roman, Celtic, and Illyrian cultures.

A large east-Alpine Slavic state that stretched perhaps as far as Leipzig in present-day Germany was soon established under King Samo, but this federation disintegrated after his death in 658. Slavs from this once formidable kingdom succumbed to Bavarian and Magyar attacks. Cut off from other Slavs, the Alpine Slavs began to develop a distinct language and culture.

The history of the Slovenians as a people dates from around the time of Samo's death, and the pre-Slovenian Duchy of Carantania was soon established at Krn Castle by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. (This is now Karnburg, just north of Klagenfurt, in Austria). This Duchy is of symbolic importance because it marked the first Slovenian "state."

It also played host to a rather democratic ceremony: whenever wealthy commoners confirmed a new nobleman as their leader, a peasant would perch on the "Prince's Stone" (knjezji kamen). He would not budge until the chosen one publicly swore his allegiance to the people and pledged to act on their behalf. Details about the ceremony are sketchy, but it is known to have been carried out in a Slavic language. Slovenia opted to use the Prince's Stone to adorn the obverse side of their two-cent piece when it joined the Eurozone in 2007. This bothered some Austrians, who pointed out that the Prince's Stone had long been housed in a museum in Klagenfurt, before being moved to the provincial parliament there in 2005.

The Middle Ages (500-1500)

Carantania remains a powerful symbol, not least because for centuries Slovenian statehood remained a dream. After the supremacy of the Franks, Slovenia fell to Germanic lands, and the history of division begins: Slovenia became the marks, or crown lands, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria.

Slovenia converted to Christianity during the eighth century and was later controlled from Salzburg and the Patriarchate of Aquileia near the city of Udine in northeastern Italy. The latter, especially, gained great secular power over time. More significantly for Slovenian cultural history, the religious texts that make up the Freising Manuscripts date from the late tenth or early eleventh century. Written on parchment, these three short texts are translations from Latin and German sources and represent the earliest preserved instance of Slovenian.

During medieval times, Slovenian nobles lost out to German counts, and peasants became serfs in the feudal system. This loss in social status did bring them to the West, a legacy still obvious in Yugoslavia, where Slovenia (along with Croatia) was more developed when it came to education and trade.

Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries a number of monasteries were established in Slovenian lands, the most important being the Carthusian monasteries at Bistra, Zice, and Jurklošter, and the Cistercian monasteries at Kostanjevica na Krki and Sticna. Long before the first central European universities were founded, these were leading educational centers in which many languages flourished. Some manuscripts produced in these places include marginal notes written in Slovenian — evidence, perhaps, of the Catholic Church's early role in preserving Slovenian identity.

After the defeat of Ottokar II, King of Bohemia and Margrave of Moravia, by Rudolf of Habsburg in 1278, centuries of Habsburg rule over Slovenians began. Habsburg hegemony over the Slovenian lands, however, was not obvious from the start and was only solidified in subsequent decades and centuries thanks to the family's knack of marrying well and wisely.

By the early fifteenth century, the Counts of Celje were acting as a counterbalance to the Habsburgs. They had acquired much land around Celje and elsewhere in present-day Slovenia, and soon they were no longer beholden to the Habsburgs; they established a court and took on the aspect of an independent state. Unfortunately for them, they were less successful than the Habsburgs at marrying, and even weaker at producing robust male offspring. The family line ended in Belgrade in 1456 when Ulrich II, in town to help defend against the Turks, was murdered at the command of Hungarian noblemen with a score to settle. Despite their Germanic heritage, the Counts remain a key symbol of Slovenia — and the three yellow stars rising above the image of Mount Triglav on the Slovenian flag attest to this.

As the Middle Ages waned, Slovenia suffered Turkish raids, albeit not as often as its eastern neighbors. Unlike Hungary and Croatia, Slovenia was never under Ottoman rule. Turkish figures appear — always nefariously — in Slovenian folk and literary tales. In the story of Martin Krpan, for example, the simple Slovenian peasant travels to Vienna, where he saves the Empire by slaying the giant Brdavs, an obvious representation of Turkish marauders.

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Excerpted from Slovenia by Jason Blake. Copyright © 2011 Kuperard. Excerpted by permission of Bravo Ltd.
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