Ask anything Slovenija related

[MCMXCV]

5. Has the territory of today's Slovenia had indigenous in their origin Slavic nobles (noble families)?

The shortest answer is: (most likely) no. It also depends on what exactly is meant with indigenous in this case. I think all prominent noble families came from somewhere and only then inculturated.

During the socialist Yugoslavia, the history of our nobility had been written exclusively from an extremely negative perspective. And all of them were deemed as foreigners (Germans) who exploited poor Slovenes. Luckily, this is changing, as new generations of historians who research this aren’t from the onset determined to spread a negative and ideological narrative.

I don’t know nearly enough about our nobility to give an objective judgement; however, I’ll mention the Counts of Cilli (Celje). They were the most important noble family here and were even rivals to the Habsburgs themselves. The three golden stars from their coat of arms appear today in that of Slovenia, including the flag.



Some of the others nobles who either had their main residence here or were relevant as they held possessions in our lands were from the Houses of Auersperg, Attems, Andechs, Spanheim, Herberstein, Otakar, Heunburg, Windisch-Graetz. An exhaustive list is here.

I almost forgot to mention that Barbara of Cilli was the Holy Roman Empress.

[MCMXCV]

I had this in mind: When the Netherlands separated from the common Germans it happened by maintaining an other High language (High Dutch instead of High German) and in the fringes it was this state that formed who became Dutch and who German. This is visible at the fact that there - in contrast to the German - Danish border f. i. - are no minorities on both sides of the border.

Now, if I'm not mistaken this is also mostly the case as for the Slovene border towards other Slavs. The border seems to me "too perfect" for having followed a prior defined Slovene ethnos, which makes me assume that instead the political border defined what is Slovene (in these border areas, not in the core).

What I see different in the case of Slovenes, when compared to your example, is that we weren’t first in some common union with other South Slavs — in this case Croats — from whom we later separated. We shared neither a common political nor cultural or literary history with them until the first Yugoslavia. (I presume sharing all of these was the case with the Dutch and Germans?) We were fractured even within our own ethos. For example, for some time, during the critical period of awakening, there was another literary standard of eastern Slovenes (in addition to a third one, of the adjacent Slovenes in Hungary, as I already explained in an answer in your personal thread), and there was a possibility that — in addition to the Slovenes centred around the Carniolan identity — another eastern Slovene identity would be formed, maybe even together with the Kajkavians. When you mention the “border areas” of what is Slovene, I’d say the Kajkavian regions were the outer extent of a possible Slovene ethos. At least based on language. Kajkavians referred to themselves as Slovenci before we ourselves have, and certain Slovene linguists in the nineteenth century claimed Kajkavian speech was a dialect of Slovene. But since the Croatian nation had a history of being a state-forming people, their established borders — encompassing the Kajkavians — remained.

The second part is true at least in certain aspects. The border between the present-day Slovenia and Croatia is (excluding Istria) one of the oldest borders in Europe. It existed for a millennium as the outer border of the Holy Roman Empire and, later, as the inner border of the Dual Monarchy. In the ethnic sense, Catholic (South) Slavs within the empire later became Slovenes and those outside Croats. It was a clean cut, with no minorities on either side, like you mentioned. But people and language don’t all of a sudden change when one crosses this border. The dialectal continuum goes from Slovene into Kajkavian and Čakavian in the southwest. The non-existent minorities by the border you refer to actually reveal themselves within the Republic of Croatia.

[rothaer]

Indeed, Notranja Avstrija / Innerösterreich is quite a forgotten term and entity to the outside world. It embodied the (South) Slavic provinces of the core of the Habsburg monarchy — represented by the aforementioned Austria Interior and Austria Inferior / Niederösterreich, Austria Superior / Oberösterreich and Austria Anterior / Vorderösterreich (shown in the second graphic below, albeit missing the possessions in present-day Switzerland) — especially if one keeps in mind that the ethnic border used to be much more northern in the mediæval times, when these subdivisions were conceptualised. There’s a town even in East Tyrol / Osttirol that used to be named Windisch-Matrei until the year 1921.







That is the old border that existed for centuries — as it was also the outer border of the Holy Roman Empire with the Most Serene Republic of Venice — until Napoleon invaded the region. After his defeat, that area, with the remainder of the peninsula, became part of the Margraviate of Istria within the Austrian Littoral. Additionally, one can notice on old maps how the Inner Austrian coast northwestern of Trieste had ethnically been Slovene, while the coast that the Republic of Slovenia has today was actually ethnically Italian…

Yes, crazy!

Vorderösterreich is known to me. As for Ost Tirol you simply still have the Drava valley there, so Windishh XY is not that big surprise.

[rothaer]

Believe me or not, I was actually intending to include Gorenje but later didn’t. Since they’ve been acquired by the Chinese Hisense, the quality of all of their products declined immensely. I’m positively surprised you even know about them.





I’m familiar with this wine — Aperol Spritz, anyone? — but had no idea it originates from this Slovene village, a stone’s throw away from the beautiful Miramare Castle! Thank you for informing me.

Maybe it’s time to raise awareness and start a petition for the twinning of these German and Italian towns with Slavic etymology!

They do offer Gorenje at IKEA and when I first saw that I wondered what it is. It ended up in me getting to know it, ofc.

Miramare: This is a typical German linguistic xenophilia, not to say a latinophilia. I'd "vulgarily" call it Seeblick and that's it.

But it's a wonderful estate that I must have missed! A kind of western Abbazio/Opatija, I assume.

And yeah, the two non-Slavics, Germans and Italians, connected by Slavic toponyms, is a noteworthy thing. For Germans, however, this is a conscious part of identity (not in the Rhineland, ofc...).

[MCMXCV]

Miramare: This is a typical German linguistic xenophilia, not to say a latinophilia. I'd "vulgarily" call it Seeblick and that's it.

I thought you’d be more lenient, since it was built specifically for the later Emperor of Mexico.

[rothaer]

I thought you’d be more lenient, since it was built specifically for the later Emperor of Mexico.

Yeah...

Das kommt mir spanisch vor (this seems to me Spanish) is the standard German expression for alienation that was originally caused by the Habsburg-Spanish marriages and the introduction of some - unknown to Germans - procedures at the court in Vienna.

[rothaer]

What I see different in the case of Slovenes, when compared to your example, is that we weren’t first in some common union with other South Slavs — in this case Croats — from whom we later separated. We shared neither a common political nor cultural or literary history with them until the first Yugoslavia. (I presume sharing all of these was the case with the Dutch and Germans?) We were fractured even within our own ethos. For example, for some time, during the critical period of awakening, there was another literary standard of eastern Slovenes (in addition to a third one, of the adjacent Slovenes in Hungary, as I already explained in an answer in your personal thread), and there was a possibility that — in addition to the Slovenes centred around the Carniolan identity — another eastern Slovene identity would be formed, maybe even together with the Kajkavians. When you mention the “border areas” of what is Slovene, I’d say the Kajkavian regions were the outer extent of a possible Slovene ethos. At least based on language. Kajkavians referred to themselves as Slovenci before we ourselves have, and certain Slovene linguists in the nineteenth century claimed Kajkavian speech was a dialect of Slovene. But since the Croatian nation had a history of being a state-forming people, their established borders — encompassing the Kajkavians — remained.

The second part is true at least in certain aspects. The border between the present-day Slovenia and Croatia is (excluding Istria) one of the oldest borders in Europe. It existed for a millennium as the outer border of the Holy Roman Empire and, later, as the inner border of the Dual Monarchy. In the ethnic sense, Catholic (South) Slavs within the empire later became Slovenes and those outside Croats. It was a clean cut, with no minorities on either side, like you mentioned. But people and language don’t all of a sudden change when one crosses this border. The dialectal continuum goes from Slovene into Kajkavian and Čakavian in the southwest. The non-existent minorities by the border you refer to actually reveal themselves within the Republic of Croatia.

Very interetsting. This now touches how Slovenes (in a today sense) came to be defined towards the south. While I can well imagine how Sovenes could have included Kajkavians, I can not imagine the same as for Chakavians. But I guess there may simply have been a continuum as well, just a very long one with bigger differences and that this in sum then may alienate.

Interestingly, the Kajkavians - that here obviously in one particular moment self-identified als Slovenci - were not the original "titular Croats", that had their core of Croat statehood around Knin/Zadar. So yes, inside or outside the long term HRE border will have mattered much in this context...

[Scarface F]

Why Austrians like Croatians more then Slovenians eventhough slovenians are genetically and culturally less balkan more central-european/austrian shifted?

No idea (I am not fan of Austria and had unpleasant experiences there) but neighbours generally dislike each other. Why Slovenes like more Serbs than Croats?

We Croats were always very surprised by negative and sometimes outright hostile behaviour from Slovenes towards Croats, thus they were mockingly called "Alpine Serbs". We never had any problems in history, Croats never claimed any Slovene lands (unlike vice versa as you see some great Slovenia maps include parts of Croatia) and they were our only Slavic speaking neighbours with western Christian culture (and Croats theirs).

I grew to like Slovenes trough years but many Croats didn't forget their unjustified nasty behaviour towards us (including from their institutions like Ljubljanska Bank).

[Scarface F]

Interestingly, the Kajkavians - that here obviously in one particular moment self-identified als Slovenci - were not the original "titular Croats", that had their core of Croat statehood around Knin/Zadar. So yes, inside or outside the long term HRE border will have mattered much in this context...

Yes. Even anthropological anylysis showed that. Skulls from old Croatian medieval locations in Dalmatia closely matched those in Poland, while those in northern Croatia did not as they closely resembled those in Czech Lands/Moravia.

It would be interesting to see same kind of analysis for medieval ancestors of Slovenes.