There is also another aspect, in Slovenia we have Italian & Hungarian minorities, now I don't know about Hungarian one, it's quite small & I have never been there, but area of Italian minority is quite big & everything there in bilingual, EVERYTHING, signs for concerts, signs of every business, every government employee there must speak Italian, they have Italian kindergartens, elementary & high schools, but there are really not so many of them, but we still do the full service for them & it's just considered normal. On the other hand lands in Italy & Austria were most definitely ours & we would of got much more if Italy would not switch side during WW2, well or maybe not, because no one (US & UK) wanted communism spreading too far to the west. We also lost a lot of land to Italy & Croatia(debatable), now you know how it is, historic maps and areas are only historic & may even not represent the truth at that time, at the end even us Slavs are just settlers here, but we are here for centuries.įor me the most painful loss is Istria with islands Krk & Cres, but you could easily argue that Istria was never Slovenian. When I was in school we were told that referendum to join the Austria was unjust & fraudulent, now I don't know if that is true, maybe to some degree, but I can also understand those people for choosing Austria. You know how it is, it is always hard to loose land & people for which you believe are rightfully yours. So all in all, I think the future looks bright. Younger generations in both Austria and Italy are a lot less hostile towards Slovenians and the Slovenian language than in the past. Both countries are in the EU and you can work in any country you want and teach your kids any language you want. This isn't the case with Austria and things got pretty wild when Jörg Haider was the governor of Carinthia.Īnyway, I don't think there's any bad blood between us, despite all the ugly shit that happened in the past. This means that no country wants to mistreat its minority, because the other country could do the same in retaliation. With Italy, we have Slovenians in Italy and Italians in Slovenia. However, Austria is a bit of a special case, because there's no Austrian minority in Slovenia. So if someone says that Austria mistreats the Slovenian minority, I say that Slovenia mistreats them too. I met a few people who didn't even know that there was a Slovenian minority in Austria. They were both important parts of our history whether we like it or not. I don't think we can just forget that Yugoslavia or Austria-Hungary ever existed. 100th anniversary of Yugoslavia came and went without even a mention in the media. Apart from Rudolf Maister day, we don't even have any public holidays related to that period. 1918 has been completely overshadowed by 19, but I think it's just as important for our history, if not more. I feel like too many people aren't familiar enough with the events that took place in that period. I would imagine he isn't the most popular figure in Austria, but here he's one of the few ideologically unstained figures and therefore liked by everyone. On that day, Maister's army disarmed the Germans in Maribor and claimed the city for Yugoslavia. Well, we celebrate Rudolf Maister day as a working holiday. I was referring to Serbian soldiers occupying certain areas. I did not choose words correctly, sorry for misunderstandings. You are right about that "independence" term. But older generations would tell you otherwise. (were too young to understand what that shit with haider was about). Never experienced any serious trouble in my 24 years of life. In fact, relationship and integration of the "Windischen" is pretty good. There are several higher schools that only teach in Slovenian. There had been dark episodes in this special relationship but I would never describe it as hostile or dividing. I did learn Slovenian in primary school and folklore is pretty much the same between the river drava (Drau) and kranje. I would not say that it fades away in any kind. Would it have been worse if they voted for Yugoslavia? We don't know.Ībout the cultural aspect. The young republic did, in fact, offer more social security and perspective for its people. Most of the wood was sold in celovec (klagenfurt). You know it ended up in a local civil war right? Only reason for Slovenes to stay with Austria was mainly for economic reasons. As much I understand it and got told from my grandparents, people very really divided. That is an interesting view! Thanks for that.
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