Self-Determination and Statehood

A New State in Europe?Throughout Habsburg and Yugoslav times Slovenian politicians and political theorists were cautious about identifying the concept of the nation with that of the state.Within both the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and its Communist successor formation there was always the risk that the non-Slovenian parent state might squeeze its minority Slovenian nationality out of existence, if only in the course of nurturing a unitary Yugoslav identity.Due to international realities and the small size of the population, the very thought of a Slovenian nation state was felt to be unrealistic.A variety of events, dates, suppositions, and claims vie for pride of place in bringing about the formation of a Slovenian government and establishment of the Slovenian state.New, albeit short-lived Slovenian and Yugoslav authorities emerged simultaneously with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.A Ljubljana-based National Council (Narodni svet) was established in August 1918, while an entity with the same name, but in Croatian (Narodno vijee or National Council), was formed in Zagreb on 6 October.The two national councils assumed power over the territory then referred to as the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs on 27 and 29 October, respectively.On 29 October, on Congress Square in the center of Ljubljana, Ivan Hribar, the city's later mayor, standing in for the absent Anton Koroec, "proclaimed Slovenia's secession from Austria-Hungary and its merger with our fellow Slavs, the Serbs and Croats," as Hribar later noted in his memoirs. 2 On 21 October, the leadership of the Zagreb-based Council, which Koroec also led, "at the recommendation of the National Council in Ljubljana" named the government for Slovenia, which was led by Josip Poganik.That first government and state lasted exactly one month, until the unification of Yugoslavia on 1 December 1918

Communism · National Question · Nationality · Politics · Pride · Secession · Cyprus History, Politics, Society · Political Systems and Governance · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics