When Did “Dear Slovenes” Come About?

Identities in the Pre-National Period and Their Supposed Role in the Formation of the Slovene Nation

Abstract

The established and predominant explanations of Slovene nation’s establishment presuppose that the nation developed from a pre-existing Slovene ethnic community. However, an analysis of the knowledge on pre-modern identities, which takes into consideration findings of cultural anthropology and other sciences about the dynamic character of ethnic communities and does not assume that they can be objectively definable, shows that no such Slovene ethnic community existed in the period when the modern Slovene nation was starting to form. The population identified itself mostly in terms of locale, region, and province, and the notion of a Slovene community which would be territorially congruent with to the modern Slovene nation did not exist. The notion of a distinct Slo- vene community was not present even among the educated. It emerged as a new idea only at the turn of the nineteenth century. The establishment of the Slovene nation is therefore not a special case; it came into existence in the same manner and in the same period as other Central European nations. The Slovene nation is thus a modern phenomenon. Belonging to this nation was gradually spread among the population by means of nationalist organizations’ agitation, mass politicization, and activities of the state.