The Slovenes are descendants of a tribe or tribes of Southern Slavs who settled in the eastern Alps by the late sixth or early seventh century C. E. They are among the ancestors of the Slovenes now living in Slovenia and neighboring countries (see Slovenes: nationality). A tribe known as the Slovienie has a different tradition.
Origins
The peoples who became known as Slovenes probably first migrated westward across the Hungarian Plain to the eastern Alps from present-day Romania in the sixth century. Some of them may be descendants of Slavic peoples referred to by ancient writers as Antes and Sclaveni. The name Slovenes did not appear in written sources until the 16th century.
The migration of Slavs to the eastern Alps was part of a “second wave” of the Slavic migrations across a wide region of central and eastern Europe, known to have begun during the sixth century, into many of the lands that have Slavic populations today. The impetus for this widespread migration is not known with certainty It may have begun as part of a twofold process; Slavs moving into abandoned territories as tribes and tribal confederacies of Germanics, such as that of the Goths, moved out of central and eastern Europe toward the toppling empire of the Romans, some hoping for plunder, others hoping for lands where they could settle away from the Avars and other steppe peoples invading at this time; also at the same time tribes who may have joined into a Slavic confederacy somewhere between the Lower Danube and present-day western Ukraine in the sixth century developed a warrior elite, probably in part under Avaric influence, which began to move into lands vacated by Germanic groups, including areas of Slovenia.
The Slovenian dialect is part of the South Slavic branch, which includes Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian. Slovenian is written in the Latin alphabet, unlike Serbian and many other Slavic languages, which are written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
HISTORY
Migrations
It is thought that Slavic groups migrated westward in response to the arrival of the Avars on the Lower Danube River in 561 c. e. and probably arrived in the Alps by the early seventh century. The early history of Slovenia is uncertainly known. A Frankish merchant named Samo, in 623, according to a Frankish account written in the 660s, led Slavs living somewhere on the Frankish borders in a successful revolt against the Avars, founding a kingdom there. it is plausible that Samo’s kingdom was located in present-day Slovenia, closer to the Avars. in any case it is thought that somem among its inhabitants founded the state of Carantania, but it was at the mercy of the Avars.
Power Struggle
Around 740 the Carantanians rebelled against Avar rule and invited the duke of Bavaria to protect them. They became Christianized under Bavarian influence. The Carantanians came under the rule of the Franks in 788 when Charlemagne overthrew the duke of Bavaria. They are thought to have gained significant territory in present-day Austria as well as Hungary and Slovenia. The Carantanians were also pressured by the Magyars, who settled Hungary in about 895. Otto I, king of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, incorporated most of these lands into the duchy of Carinthia in 952.
Enduring Identity
Over the centuries the Slovene identity took shape. Carinthia, with its mixed population of Germanic and Slavic groups, remained part of the Holy Roman Empire until in 1918 it became part of a new state, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929), a federation largely spearheaded by Serbs who expected to dominate their fellow southern Slavs. Slovenes, like other non-Serbs in the kingdom, resisted this. In April 1990 as Communist power crumbled throughout eastern and central Europe Slovenia held the first multiparty elections in former Yugoslavia since World War II. The winning coalition called for independence, and nearly 90 percent of Slovenia’s population voted for independence in a referendum in December 1990. The independent Slovenian state was recognized by the European Union in 1992. The name Carinthia has endured as a state in southern Austria (see Austrians: nationality).
The overwhelming majority of people who consider themselves Slovenes live in Slovenia, small numbers of Slovenes live elsewhere in central Europe; in order of Slovene population size, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Hungary.
CULTURE (see also Slavs)
In the ninth and 10 th centuries a rich culture developed in Carinthia, characterized by richly enameled jewelry.
From the eighth century the Slovenes were converted to Western Christianity by Italian and German missionaries. In the ninth century monks trained in the Eastern Orthodox Slavic
A Slovenian woman poses in traditional clothing in this 1897 photomechanical print. (Library of Congress)
Rite in Moravia were expelled and sought refuge in Slovenia.
The Slovenes have retained many elements of their traditional culture to modern times. Austrian Slovenes struggled to do so in the face of accusations by other Austrians that this made them unpatriotic. Both the long dominance of German culture in western Slavic lands and “pan-Slavism,” a movement championing Slavic identity first spearheaded by Russians in the 19th century, which Slovenian intellectuals embraced as a means of opposing German dominance, have tended to polarize people of Slavic and Germanic descent, especially those who live close to one another.
Further Reading
Edi Berk. Traditional Arts and Crafts in Slovenia (Ljubljana, Slovenia: Domus,1993).
Irene Portis-Winner. Semiotics of Peasants in Transition: Slovene Villagers and Their Ethnic Relatives in America (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2002).
Leopoldina Plut-Pregelj and Carole Rogel. Historical Dictionary of Slovenia (London: Scarecrow, 1996).
World History
