Damjan Hančič came to the surprising findings in both the extent of violence as well as the number of civilian casualties caused by the revolutionary site. For the communist revolution in Upper Carniola it is typical that there were some cases of direct revolutionary violence in 1941 and 1942, which were mostly directed towards actual opponents of the partisan movement. In this period residents indirectly felt the revolutionary violence through revenge of the German occupier for the performed partisan actions. The direct party or revolutionary violence strengthened in the middle of 1943, especially after Italy’s capitulation in autumn 1943. At the time in Upper Carniola started an even bigger ideologization of the resistance movement that consequently led to a growing flare up of the civil war, which culminated at the end of 1943 and in the middle of 1944. Even more: precisely the establishment and activities of the Security and Intelligence Service (VOS), which has in addition to actual opponents of the resistance movement started to murder political and ideological opponents of the communist party, caused the establishment of armed self-protection departments of the anticommunist oriented population. This was eventually, especially since spring 1944, allowed also by the German occupier. The same way, following the example of Home Guards from the Ljubljana region, Upper Carniolan Home Guards or Upper Carniolan Self-protection has formatted. While the Home guard at the Kamnik and Jesenice Region did not spread much, it was successfully enforced in the central Upper Carniola – the Kranj and Škofja Loka Region. Accordingly there were more victims of post-war communist confrontation with the Carniolan counterrevolution. In short, when the German Nazi terror was stronger, the civil war or ideologization in Upper Carniola was not present in such a great extent, but when the German occupation pressure has lessen, the ideological dispute among the Slovenes began to deepen, which caused the flair up of the civil war. Its part was also the revolutionary violence in various forms, e.g. the confiscation of property of political opponents, persecutions, threats, torture, killings... If we compare the conditions in that period at the Kamnik or eastern Upper Carniolan area with those at the central and western Upper Carniola, we can conclude that there are certain similarities and also differences. The differences are shown particularly in the amount of killings and encounters with ideological opponents of the communist party, particularly the elite members of the pre-war Slovenian People’s Party. This was to a much greater extent present in western Upper Carniola, as from the records of these organs on killings it is much easier to figure out that the executions were carried out for ideological and political reasons, as in the eastern Upper Carniola. On the other hand revolutionary violence did not only manifest as means for confrontation of political opponents, but also as means of some dissatisfied individuals to confront those, towards whom they held personal or typical neighbourhood grudges, in the framework of the unpredictable war period, when it is thought that many things are allowed. And only after the war, according to the doctrine of the communist party separation of victims on »yours and ours«, this conducted war violence was given an ideological connotation, since even totally non-political victims of the revolutionary violence were put through »political hell«, with all from the fact arisen consequences for the relatives of this victims. The study is based on the now known and accessible archival sources, testimonies and literature, including emigrant. Very valuable are testimonials, photos, and above all the documents in the appendix.
COBISS.SI-ID: 270243072
Maximilian Držečnik was on the top of the Diocese Maribor-Lavant during the worst post-war persecution of the Catholic Church in Slovenia: since 1946 as auxiliary bishop, whom the authorities did not recognize, after the death of Bishop John Joseph Tomažič first as Apostolic Administrator and finally, from 1960 on, as Ordinarius. He studied at the Theological School in Maribor and at the Gregoriana in Rome, where in 1938 he made his PhD in theology. He was chaplain in Ribnica on Pohorje, in Celje and Svetinje, professor of moral philosophy, assistant professor of Old Testament and Christian philosophy and deputy principal of seminary. After the occupation in April 1941 the Germans arrested him, brought him to Rajhenburg, from where he was expelled to Croatia. There he was four years spiritual assistant of the parish Visoko in Novi Marof in the Croatian Zagorje. After his return, till he became auxiliary bishop, he was principal of Lavantine seminary in Ljubljana and held lectures at Theological Faculty.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1277061
Criteria for treatment of all totalitarian occurences and regimes must be equal. They include prevailing ideology, dictatorŽs cult od personality, one-party system, subjection of individuals to the community, unity of power, no free elections, violation of human and civil rights, influential secret police, no free media, art and science, detention camps and secret prisons as well as secret official gazettes, militarization of society and the privileges of the ruling elite. In accordance with all of criteria, Augoslavia/Slovenia was until its independence, which at the same time represented liberation in the true sense of the word, a totalitarian state. Slovenia totalitarian past must be divided into two periods; the first one, which was the time of complete anarchy and the worst physical and psychological repression, and the second one, in which the regime for tactical reasons slightly altered its countenance and carried out acts of violence in a more subtle manner.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36167981
The purpose of the article is the legal qualification of the crime which occurred in Huda jama in 1945, that is, the extra-judicial killing of approximately 3,500 people. The article will in the introduction define the legal concept of genocide, sum up the international and domestic legal rules on genocide and analyse genocide against political groups. For the purpose of legal qualification of the crime, the group of people killed in Huda jama has been defined as a political group. These were people who were killed because of their actual or assumed political affiliation. The perpetrators and their victims held diametrivally opposed views on the world and the future social order. In order to be able to classify a historical event as genocide, historical facts may be established. This is the task of the history. It then remains to be determined whether the established facts correspond to the description of genocide in article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This task falls to legal experts. On the basis of this it can be concluded that the crime which took place in Huda jama and all the post-war extra-judicial killings of political and social groups on the Slovene territory can legally be classified as genocide in accordance with the applicable Penal Code of the Republic of Slovenia.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36168237
The present work is being issued almost a quarter of the century after the establishment of Demos (Democratic Opposition of Slovenia). Without Demos the wheel of Slovenia’s modern history would have probably turned in another direction. The historical distance from this groundbreaking processes seems big enough that we can comprehensively, interdisciplinarily and based on various sources objectively study the events that have not been given sufficient attention in the Slovenian science. This theme has been more popular in the political publishing and daily politics. But the absence of comprehensive scientific enlightenment of the events enables manipulative historical interpretation. The task of each scientific analysis is to obtain the (scientific) truth. This book illustrates that particularly Demos was the main actor of democratization and independency-oriented processes in Slovenia. Numerous milestones and processes of the discussed period are being analyzed in the book within a clear theoretical and conceptual framework. The democratization processes were more or less influenced by many new civil-social subjects, whose core was later represented by the democratic opposition, and partially the old subjects, particularly their liberal part within social-political organizations. The first reform processes were – though under the pressure of the new political public – still carried out by the old nomenclature (constitutional changes in September 1989 and the first altered electoral legislation in late 1989). After the government take-over at the first democratic elections, the fundamental reforms that altered the system’s character (from non-democratic to democratic) were led and carried out by Demos. Apart from rare exceptions there was no outstanding pact (co-operation) between both elites that would mark the type of Slovenia’s transition. On the contrary, the old elite acted hindering. In the case of disarmament of the Slovenian armed forces in the framework of the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Slovenia lately issued documents prove a unique collaboration with the Yugoslav military and political power. Demos and the opposition started cooperating during the plebiscite, but right at the beginning, at the first adoption of the plebiscite law, the old elite was against it. The question was arising, whether the independence should be thorough, with all the prerogatives of a state, including its own armed forces, or only partial, so called operetta independence. These contrasts were particularly manifested during the adoption of the necessary legislation in the parliament. In March and April 1991 the key-decisions in the parliament were adopted solely by votes of the Demos members. These were especially the Budget Law – the defence part, the Defence Law and the Military Service Act. These key-decisions were at that time publicly opposed by the prominent members of the opposition. The results of the survey published in the book also clearly show that the new opposition was unconstructive. There was no clean rupture (turn) in Slovenia, because the old elite carried out some reforms, necessary for further democratization, but also because in Slovenia too few elites were replaced in different social subsystems. For the rupture one precondition should have been met, that is the appropriate circulation and rotation of elites, which in fact does not mean a radical replacement of all leading people, but to such extent that the democratic changes would not be threatened. The old nomenclature was not interested in changes. The new elite mainly took over the more exposed political functions, but was almost not present in social subsystems. At the break of the nineties, in Slovenia was thus asserting a new democratic political culture. It was commonly accepted that the old system was undemocratic, totalitarian and that the Slovenian people decided for a new social order. All these liberalization processes have co-created the pol
COBISS.SI-ID: 76805889