During the closing months of World War I in late 1918 and the break-up of the historic multinational empires that for centuries had ruled most of East Central Europe, it became common practice for the varying ethnolinguistic or national groups to form councils whose goals were to determine their group's political future. These national councils, as they came to be known, seemed to appear everywhere, but perhaps most frequently in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was not only the “large” former minorities like the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, Romanians, or Ukrainians who formed national councils, but many smaller groups acted in the same way. And, like the national councils of the larger groups who very soon created independent republics alone or in cooperation with their immediate neighbors, so, too, did some of these smaller groups proclaim their independence. Thus, in the newspapers of the time and scholarly monographs of today one can still find references to the Baranya, East Slovak, Hutsul, or Przemysl “republics” among others, which during the last few months of 1918 seemed to sprout up like mushrooms after a rainfall, but which for the most part ceased to exist when the borders of East Central Europe began to stabilize as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that opened its deliberations in early 1919.

With 20,251 square kilometers, Slovenia has a little less than two million inhabitants. In the last thirty-five years, national productivity has risen on average by 5.2% annually (though it stagnated in the eighties and diminished fast in 1990 and 1991), and per inhabitant, rose 0.7% annually. At approximately 6,000 dollars, per capita productivity is twice as high as the Yugoslav average and eight times higher than per capita productivity in less developed Kosovo. With a 47% economically active population, 9% agricultural population, more than 99% literacy, 30% expenditure on food, and 0.28 vehicles and 0.32 telephones per inhabitant, Slovenia ranks among the rich Eastern European countries.

When the editorial board of the bi-weekly current affairs journal Politika decided, in early 1932, to organize a congress of members of the so-called young Slovak generation, its intent was to find a solution to Slovakia's pressing political, economic, social, and cultural problems. Attended by approximately five hundred members of the intelligentsia, most of them in their late twenties or early thirties, the congress was held on June 25 and 26 in the health resort town of Trencianski Teplice in western Slovakia. The Congress of the Young Slovak Generation attracted the attention of its contemporaries for two reasons. First, it marked the first time since at least 1920 that Slovaks from across the political spectrum came together to discuss issues of mutual concern relating to Slovakia. Second, the congress provided an opportunity for observers of Slovak political life to gauge the mood and become acquainted with the ideas of Slovakia's future leaders, especially as far as the crucial question of relations between Czechs and Slovaks in the Czechoslovak Republic was concerned. From the vantage point of the present-day historian, a further factor enhances the congress's importance: as a manifestation of Slovak national discontent, it was a milestone on Slovakia's road to autonomy. An in-depth examination of the Trencianske Teplice Congress, its background, its course, and its consequences, will illustrate the congress's importance for Slovak national and political development.

The new era of Slovene spiritual, cultural and, in a certain sense, political history, is marked by the condition of exile. The first Slovene book, printed in 1550, was written by Primož Trubar, a Protestant, emigrant and exile par excellence. Trubar and his followers translated, wrote, made plans, and worked, “for the prosperity of their homeland,” in exile; therefore, the fundamental document of Judeo-Christian civilization and culture—the Holy Bible—was translated into Slovene, in exile. Books were sent to the homeland in barrels, and young people were invited to be educated at German universities. Trubar died an exile, convinced that his cause in the homeland was, if not won, at least well on the road to success.

On December 1, 1918, as Regent Alexander proclaimed the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the latter entered the new state under pressure from manifold motives. Besides the desire for Slavonic solidarity, there was also a more prosaic need that made them take that step. Following the disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy, in which they had lived for centuries, they emerged in the international political arena completely alone and inexperienced “as political children.” They had no borders confirmed by history, and no army apart from a handful of volunteers. For a neighbor, they had victorious Italy with the London Treaty in its pocket, in which the Great Powers promised it a large portion of Slovene territory for its participation in the war. The only power which it was possible to rely upon at that moment was Serbia, which, in turn, dictated its own conditions for the unification. The future state was to become a monarchy under a Karadjordjevich dynasty and was to be centrally structured, irrespective of the ethnic and historical distinctions among various “tribes” making up the new state. The fact that the three constituent entities of the Kingdom were lowered to the level of tribes is clearly indicative: it proclaimed the belief in the existence of a single South-Slavic nation which, although cleft into three branches by events in the past, was to reach its initial unity again, in line with the principle: one state, one nation.

The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes inherited a considerable number of Germans along with its ex-Habsburg territories when it was established in December 1918. The two most important German communities in inter-war Yugoslavia were the Germans of Slovenia and the Germans of the Vojvodina and Croatia-Slavonia, the so-called Donau Schwaben (Swabians). There were also scattered pockets of ethnic Germans in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Yugoslavian ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), like the other Yugoslavian non-Slav minorities, were objects of discrimination by the Yugoslavian government. The Slovenian German community responded to this hostility by developing a virulent German nationalism which, after 1933, rapidly turned into Nazism. The Swabian community, on the other hand, generally tried to cooperate with the central government in Belgrade. The Swabians remained rather ambivalent toward the rising Nazi movement until the tremendous successes of the Third Reich in 1938 made Nazism irresistibly attractive. In the face of the government's anti-German policies, why did each of these German communities manifest such different attitudes towards the Yugoslav state during the inter-war period? This article will show how several factors of history, demography, and geography combined to produce the different reactions of the two groups.

“Nationalism is not only about culture but about politics.” With these words, Professor Brudny launched his discussion of the recent evolution of Russian nationalism in the USSR, particularly the movement's failure to present a viable political alternative to the chaotic status quo. Much of this dilemma, he asserted, lies in the Russian movement's inability to define for itself a proper concept of nationalism.

Contemporary Slovene literature from 1950 to the present has been deeply influenced, above all, by two major factors: first, its own tradition through a century-long development, and secondly, the socio-political position of literature immediately after the Second World War. As concerns tradition, it should be noted that the beginning of literature in the Slovene language coincided with the arrival of Protestantism in the sixteenth century; only sparse religious records are known from previous centuries. This literature remained within the framework of ecclesiastical needs until the late eighteenth century, similar to those found in Lithuania, Estonia or Finland. At the end of the eighteenth century, Slovene literature began to resemble the Central European literature typical of Croatia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. This is not only evident in the same literary trends and genres, but above all in the fact that national ideology as well as social and moral ideas acquired a significant role in its concepts.

Professor Altschuler launched his discussion of the volatile status of Jews living in the USSR by challenging the popular understanding of ‘Soviet Jewry.’ Fundamental questions arise: how many Soviet Jews are there? What are the various types of Jewish communities within the Soviet Union, and how do they differ one from another? What are the distinguishing cultural activities of Soviet Jews? and what is the status of their emigration from the USSR?

Slovenia's geographical position has exposed it to the underlying trends of European spiritual and cultural life from the Middle Ages to the present. The adoption of Christianity by the end of the first millennium, the incorporation of medieval political structures, and economic and cultural trends, were paralleled by Slovenes who adopted European culture. Ever since, Slovenia has been part of the broad framework of Central European spiritual and cultural life as it has unfolded and developed up to today.

I start instinctively as the airplane swings on its descent toward a stretch of land that is my country. A simple view from an aircraft approaching the Ljubljana airport suddenly becomes a fictitious vision of the ‘memory landscape’ conveyed by Dušan Kirbiš in his picture Gesichte einer Jugend (1984). Under the lowered, steel grey sky, among patches of snow-covered landscape, I catch glimpses of a dark green surface which reminds me of the woodland above the Sava river—the Kočevski rog forest or the Pohorje hillsides of dark, peaceful, impenetrable woods and sparse clearings with remote, unfriendly houses. In the coolness of this vision, the landscape of Slovenia looks both like a satellite photo and an object of fantasy.

A dramatic population increase coupled with a reduction in per capita investment is producing a “demographic cauldron” in Soviet Central Asia. This was the focus of Professor Lewis's December 7 lecture. In his presentation, Professor Lewis outlined the political, economic and social conditions that frame a grim picture for Central Asia. The region is plagued by an unfavorable convergence of factors: a rapidly growing rural population, especially the indigenous population which is concentrated in rural areas, labor surpluses, relatively little rural or northward out-migration, deteriorating economic conditions especially in rural areas and environmental degradation, along with significant social development and, thus, rising expectations and national awareness. At current growth rates, the indigenous, the rural, the total, and the rural working-age populations will double about every generation or less. Besides, there has been little effort on the part of the central government to shift investment and resource allocation priorities to accommodate the demographic changes.

The 1980s witnessed a reversal of internal migration patterns in the Soviet Union as factors associated with ethnicity became one of the predominant influences on the character and volume of population mobility. This is one of the recent trends in Soviet migration highlighted in the presentation by Dr. Beth Mitchneck, a post-doctoral Fellow at the Harriman Institute. Dr. Mitchneck based her analysis on the censuses of 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1989, population registers and both Soviet and western estimates.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

(T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

The early strains of Slovene music resound with the echoes of Illyrians and Celts, peoples who once travelled across present-day Slovene territory, now peopled by Slovenes who remained here as the most westernly settled branch of Slavs.

The Soviet empire, if not crumbling, is transforming itself almost beyond recognition, and Belorussia gives us a case-study insight into this process of political, social, cultural, and psychological change. This was the theme of Dr. Zaprudnik's February 8 presentation in which he surveyed the current political landscape in Belorussia.

“Let everybody live in his country, at his home, as he would like to live: the Germans in their German way, the Italians in the Italian and the Hungarians in the Hungarian,” maintained, in March 1848, the Slovene priest from Klagenfurt (Carinthia) Matija Majar, “And we the Slavs also demand, firmly and with all our strength, that they let us live at home in our own way: the Slovenes in the Slovene one…”

A recent investigation of attitudes among nationalities living in Ukraine reveals a low level of tolerance and high level of hostility towards the non-Slavic nationalities. This was the foremost conclusion of Dr. Valentin Sazhin, who surveyed 10,000 residents of Ukraine on matters relating to ethnicity. Dr. Sazhin based his presentation on the findings from this investigation.

Is the Soviet Union heading towards a new federation, a new confederation, or simply disintegration? At this point, the Soviets themselves do not know, and this is due in part to the fact that they seem confused about the meaning of these terms. Professor Rywkin analyzed recent trends in the Soviet Union, noting three competing principles currently being voiced in the Soviet Union.