13
of the group of countries that constitute the conflict area. In every proposition (as for
example the Stability Pact) the politicians see the aim for Slovenia to be "pushed" back to
the Balkans to help to stabilize and democratize the region. It was quite a shock when in
the beginning of 1994, the special envoy of the American President Bill Clinton,
Madeleine Albright, who came to Europe to explain the initiative for the Partnership for
Peace, classified Slovenia as a "Balkan democracy" together with - can you imagine -
Romania, Bulgaria and even Albania.
4
Recent changes in Croatia and Serbia,
accompanied by proposals of Western politicians to create a kind of association of
Balkan states, caused a similar anxiety.
4
Clintonova odposlanka Albrightova v Sloveniji [Clinton's envoy Albright in Slovenia]. In: Delo, January 15,
1994.
14
Fig. 9: Poor exploited Slovenia (A. Novak, Delo, September 29, 1986). The cartoon represents
Slovenia as a hen, which is about to be beaten by the Yugoslav federation.
15
Fig. 10: Because of its geographical image, the hen is one of the symbols of Slovenia. It can also
be characterized as a naive, slightly slow minded, typical animal, which is waiting for its destiny.
This cartoon was created at the end of the eighties by Mat'kurja - one of the first domestic Internet
servers, which is still operating on the web.
16
Fig. 11: Slovenia, stripped bare, rests with only a coif (national cap) — Milan Maver, Delo,
September 29, 1988.
17
Fig. 12: After the national plebiscite in December of 1990, a discourse with a Serbian (Yugoslav)
soldier is represented in a completely different manner as on the previous cartoon from the time of
the establishment of Yugoslavia when he was seen as a great deliverer of the Slovenes. A drunken,
brutal soldier says: "Let's go home!" And the Slovene girl answers: "Oh, don't be ridiculous!"
(Franco Juri, Delo, December 24, 1990).
18
Fig. 13: Innocent Slovenia, supposedly raped by a Yugoslav soldier (Mladina, June 25, 1991).
19
Fig. 14: Oh, that Balkan, says Slovenia, the self-sufficient, clean and reborn girl as she slams the
door behind her (Franco Juri, Delo, Sobotna priloga, October 12, 1991).
20
In Slovenia, the critical assessment of the national position in different periods is slow in
forming, and it is even slower in becoming a part of the historical consciousness. Here I
am referring to the acknowledgement that Slovenes did not only suffer the negative sides,
but were also faced with a positive experience. For example, in the multinational milieu
of the Danubian Monarchy they were able to form, besides the regional one, also a
national consciousness; Slovenes acquired political culture and, though in a limited form,
became accustomed to parliamentarism. They achieved a sort of informal cultural
autonomy in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, despite it being centralist and nondemocratic.
Communist Yugoslavia rendered it possible for the Primorska (coastal) region (i.e. one
third of the Slovene population and more than a quarter of its territory) to be joined with
Slovenia; and last but not least, Slovenes were given federal status, a constitution, their
own national assembly and other state agencies, and under the specific circumstances of
the Communist Party state, implemented the delayed processes of modernization that
former elites either could not or did not want to bring to effect, for example, the agrarian
reform, industrialization, separation of Church from State, women's emancipation, a more
balanced social structure.
5
What differentiates the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s from the previous historical
periods is the simultaneousness of the two processes, i.e. the gradual democratization,
which ended in the installment of a multi-party system, and the fight for national
emancipation, which ended with the formation of the Slovene states.
6
Namely, in earlier
periods the development of democracy did not always correspond with the current
position of the Slovene nation; often it was even in opposition to making progress in
resolving the national issue (as I mentioned before: in the centralist Kingdom of
Yugoslavia Slovenes had made enormous cultural progress, including the establishment
of the first university, which Austria had not allowed in all the time of its existence;
communist Yugoslavia successfully solved the question of the Western border, etc).
Among the political elites and factors of development in the 80s there were, in fact,
differences concerning priorities. The League of Communists, for example, was quick to find
common ground with the opposition as regards Yugoslavia, but much slower as to the issue of
5
More on the subject in abridged form: Božo Repe: Slovenci v XX. stoletju [Slovenes in the 20th Century],
Katalog stalne razstave Muzeja novejše zgodovine v Ljubljani [Catalogue of the permanent exhibition of the
Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana] (Ljubljana 1999) 19-36.
6
Leopoldina Plut-Pregelj, Aleš Gabrič, Božo Repe: The Repluralization of Slovenia in the 1980s (with an
Introduction by Dennison Rusinow) (= The Donald W. Treadgold Papers No. 24, The Henry M. Jackson School
of International Studies, University of Washington, February 2000).
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