• February 1992 •

Slovenia, Slavonia, Slovakia. Where  is Ljubljana? Where Bratislava? Where Osijek? The countries and towns, emerging from recent history into the European stage, are not merely bits and pieces of a neglected common entity, in different disguises confusing inattentive observers the differences between their historic trials and their present situation are no smaller than, say, the differences between Austria, Sweden and Wales.

And, while each of them is striving for a little European attention, the common image helps them no better than a broken headlight. In the south of Europe, where the warm sea has carved deepest into the land – and where the  snow-covered Alpine peaks conceal the sight of this sea and hinder access to it – in a pleasant triangle between the Alpine, Mediterranean and Pannonian regions, the Slovenes have persevered for at least one and a half millenniums.

Charles the Great, Napoleon and Franz Josef were our emperors. We once had our own princes and principality, and we struggled with the Counts of Celje for the Habsburg throne.

The Yugoslav, Bolshevik, controversial self-management socialist experience is now behind us. Italians and Germans, Hungarians and Yugoslavs have tried to conquer and convert us. Without our own aristocracy, without an army, and hence without memories of Slovene conquests, and with only language and poets, our courage and pride did we know how to stand up for ourselves in critical moments, and survive. Today we have a State, an Academy of Arts and Sciences, a tunnel through the Karavanke mountains.

When we invite people over to the “sunny side of the Alps”, when we offer cooperation and friendship, we would be very happy if we were not confused with the Slovaks and Slavonians. And so, we have produced this magazine.

Jure Apih