Download Historical Development of Central Europe – from the Slovene

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Historical Development of Central Europe – from the Slovene Perspective
Lecture at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Tuesday , February 14, 2016
The term Central Europe first appeared in the 19th century, as did the various political concepts
connected with the area supposedly covered by Central Europe. Such debates began after the fall of
the Holy Roman Empire, when the question arose as to the layout of German territory, or more
precisely after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. As regards what Central Europe is or what it should be
in the political, geographical and cultural sense, many different theories have been and are still being
posed. There are basically two concepts: in the broad sense, it refers to the so-called Centralna Evropa
that is said to cover the entire territory between Scandinavia (or the Baltic Sea) and Greece (including
it), and between Russia and France. In the narrow sense, it refers to the territory covered by the former
Austria-Hungary (even though its territory extended to the Balkans – Vojvodina and Bosnia and
Herzegovina after annexation in 1908). That is the so-called Mitteleuropa. In the Anglo-Saxon and
Francophone world there is only one term for both (Central Europe, L’ Europe Centrale).
Despite the first signs of the later Central European political concepts, Central Europe was at that time
not yet used as a self-evident and universally accepted geographical and political term. The first to
define Central Europe more precisely was Friedrich Naumann in 1915 with his famous work
Mitteleuropa. Naumann’s book reflected the plans for Greater Germany before and after World War
I, and the German goal of geopolitical control over Eastern and Central Europe and the Balkans (the
slogan Drang nach Osten). If this plan were realised, it would have turned Germany into a world power;
it also served as the basis for subsequent Nazi plans of conquest, as has been proved by the German
historian Fritz Fischer in his book Griff nach der Weltmacht. Following the initial success at the onset
of World War I, the Germans also counted on a portion of French territory (especially on the Port of
Calais), and, of course, on Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In his book, Naumann advocated
the formation of a large confederation, which would be based on a connection between Germany and
Austria-Hungary, and would extend from France and Italy on one side to Russia on the other. In this
entity, the author – as opposed to subsequent concepts of Greater Germany – nevertheless
acknowledged non-Germanic nations the right to live – hence, Germans should not strive towards
forced political, linguistic and national unification, and the community should not have a German
nature, but a supranational one. This idea later appeared among the Austrian Social Democrats, but in
altered form. German nationalists greatly opposed this notion, even though, like them, Naumann
primarily wished to consolidate the position of Germany between the European East and West; the
only difference being that he assessed that it could not be realised without reaching an agreement
with the Central European nations. In addition to the aforementioned territories in the West and
Switzerland, Naumann’s concept of Mitteleuropa also encompassed the territory of Scandinavian
countries (except for Finland) in the north, and Romania and the Balkan countries (Serbia, Bulgaria,
Greece and Albania) in the south. According to his calculations, which were based on a census of 1910,
that territory was inhabited by 166.4 million people; a total of 116.3 million in Austria-Hungary alone.
(These figures are important because at the time of imperialist expansion, it was estimated that a
country with less than forty million people – including colonies and certain other factors, in particular
a large territory and natural riches – was unable to exist independently). During the war, Naumann’s
plan was the most widely discussed, however, it was not the only one; plans for the post-war
organisation of the world, especially in the inter-war period, included plans for a Greater Germany and
other proposals for various federations and confederations, which also included the nations and
countries of Central Europe. Broadly speaking, some of these ideas – especially in the case of nonGermanic nations in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy – were influenced towards the end of the war by
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the Fourteen Points on international relations written by the American President Woodrow Wilson,
particularly Point 10 on the freest opportunity to autonomous development for these nations (and
consequently establishing voluntary connections with other nations); the left-wing political parties
were also somewhat influenced by the anticipation of a universal revolution in European countries (it
was believed that a social revolution would also eliminate any national conflicts).
Another concept of political integration, in addition to Naumann’s, is the concept of the integration of
Central European nations on an equal footing. Such plans were already being prepared during AustriaHungary (the Czech historian, F. Palacky, and others wrote about them); the basic idea was to divide
Austria-Hungary by nationalities (the federalistic concept). One such plan was the Slovene trialistic
concept, which appeared at the turn of the century and proposed the division of Austria-Hungary into
three equal parts (a German, Hungarian and South Slavic one).
In addition to the term Central Europe, people were beginning to use the term Southeastern Europe,
which is geographically and politically just as undefined, and which encompasses different territories
in various combinations: in addition to Central Europe in the narrower sense and the Balkans, also a
few territories or countries further east. The term Southeastern Europe is most often used by the
Germans and Austrians to define the common Central European and Balkan area, for they have been
showing great political, geostrategic and economic interest in this territory for decades. After the war
in the Balkans in the early 1990s, this term became established in international diplomacy, however,
with different notions of what Southeastern Europe encompasses, politically speaking. It is therefore
almost impossible to reach a more permanent and “pure” demarcation between Central Europe and
the Balkans; even purely geographic designations are defined in various ways. Depending on the
political situation and the writer’s views, various publications, and political plans even more so, “move”
entire territories from one sphere to the other and vice versa, whereas affiliation with one sphere or
the other has a specific ideological and political meaning.
The only Central European concept that existed in practice was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In it, the
advocates of Greater Germany turned a deaf ear to Slovenes, because they were living in the territory
that was blocking the way to the Adriatic Sea and Trieste for the Germans. Yet even the plans of the
political powers that were sympathetic to resolving the national issue of non-Germanic nations in the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy did not extend beyond the reorganisation of the Austrian Empire, which
would allow nations only cultural autonomy (the so-called Austro-Marxism). Consequently, the state
that had in fact united Central European nations, and which spread its territory to the Balkans
(occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 and its annexation in 1908), dissolved because of its
failure to comply with the demands of non-Germanic, particularly Yugoslav nations. Hence the
question remains open as to the extent to which this state would have been able to democratise itself
or which level of compliance with national demands (as the statehood of certain nations – for example
the Czechs – would finally mature) would have satisfied the non-Germanic nations in Austria-Hungary
on the one hand and the demands of the Entente Powers on the other. In the case of Slovenes,
regardless of whether they were personally in favour of a Yugoslav state within Austria-Hungary (and
consequently the predominantly Central European option) or for national integration outside of it (and
consequently the predominantly Balkan option), they did not have much sway over global events that
also concerned their existence as a nation. The question remains open as to what the realisation of the
trialistic concept – if by some miracle they had managed to win over German politicians – would have
meant for Slovenes. Even if it had been realised, they certainly would not have been able to avoid
being divided among four countries: their homeland of Yugoslavia, Austria, Italy and Hungary. They
would almost as certainly not have been able to avoid constant inner tension in the Balkan-Central
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European state within Austria-Hungary, which would most likely had been based in Zagreb or perhaps
even in Sarajevo (if Austria-Hungary were to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina). The existential resistance
to German pressure (which would not have simply disappeared) and dilemmas whether to survive as
a nation or drown in Croatianism or Yugoslavism would have been joined by permanent aspirations of
Austro-Hungarian Serbs to unite with Serbia; a new element introduced into political life would have
been the aspirations of Muslims towards emancipation. The political and cultural ambience of such a
community would probably not have differed much from the one in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, despite
the fact that the final arbitrator in all conflicts would have been located in the Central European Vienna
and not in the Balkan Belgrade. At any rate: speculations are one thing but reality is another, and
Slovenia – as a part of the short-lived and internationally unrecognised state community of AustroHungarian Yugoslavs, that is, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which had been formed at the
end of the war – joined the newly-formed state of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (called
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after 1929) and within this new political (national) framework became a
part of the Balkans for more than seventy years.
In the inter-war period, both notions of Central Europe were encountered: on the one hand, under the
hypothesis on the right to the expansion of living space (the so-called Lebensraum), we encounter the
hypothesis on a German Central Europe, which was further strengthened after 1933 by Nazi racial
ideology (more than half of Slovenia was declared the so-called German cultural territory); and on the
other hand, the nostalgic search for a Central European identity which had disappeared with the
disintegration of Austria-Hungary. In this period, the demarcation and use of this term were again not
very precise. A few writers occasionally used the term Centralna Evropa (even though they actually
meant Mitteleuropa), whereas others wrote about Mitteleuropa, but were actually describing
Centralna Evropa. (Thus, for example, the famous Austrian writer Joseph Roth entitled his lyrical
description of a Sunday in Berlin in 1920 “Sonntag in Mitteleuropa”).
One of the more interesting projects for integrating Central Europe and the Balkans in the inter-war
period is the idea that was being developed by one of the most prominent Communist theoreticians
of the time, Dragotin Gustinčič. Gustinčič was convinced that the situation in the Balkans (to which he
added Romania) prevented the people from carrying out a revolution because of poverty and a lack of
the industrial proletariat. Even if a revolution had occurred, they would not have been able to defend
a socialist federation on their own. Hence they would need help from Central European countries (from
their industrial proletariat). Together, they were to have established a Danubian-Balkan Federation (an
economic unit comprising the territory between the Krkonoše and Carpathian mountains and the
Black, Aegean and Adriatic Sea. “Some have called this territory Central Europe, others call it the
Danubian-Balkan Federation, whereas I call it “Sudoba” (Sudetes - Danube - Balkans) for short. In the
end, it does not matter what we call it, as long as we do not understand Central Europe as the concept
created during the war by the famous German imperialist, Naumann, and that we correctly imagine it
as a single workers’ and peasants’ state, comprising the present-day Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary,
Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania, the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, and perhaps
later on also Istanbul.”
At the time of the great ideologies in the inter-war period, not only were the chances for a democratic
regime decreasing, but so were the chances for the survival of the relatively small countries which had
been formed after World War I ended and which had been let down by the new world order with the
powerless League of Nations. From the national perspective, many failed to resolve the national issue,
or only resolved it partially. Despite the formation of new states or precisely because of that, tens of
millions of people were stranded outside of their mother country and many of them could not even
obtain minority status. The Slovene nation went from one national framework to as many as four of
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them, in the process losing a few important cultural centres (Trieste above all); due to the political
situation, the cultural, economic and other ties between the motherland and the newly-created
minorities were being established slowly and painfully and were virtually non-existent in many places
(Raba Valley), or were weak and even illegal (Italy after the rise of Fascism, and Austria after the
Anschluss).
Alliances and connections between the newly-formed states were also weak and most often
subordinate to the interests of the Great Powers, as well as ideologically conditioned (the creation of
the so-called cordon sanitaire towards the Soviet Union, which in many ways influenced the decision
of the Great Powers to, for instance, even agree to the formation of the Kingdom of SCS). In the new
political reorganisation, the Central European – Danubian – Balkan connections between
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Greece and Yugoslavia were to have ensured peace. Some of these
connections were created from the aspirations to defend against other Central European and Balkan
countries, which had not been satisfied by the peace treaties after World War I (Hungary, Bulgaria)
and which had indirectly or directly expressed territorial claims to their neighbouring countries in the
inter-war period. One such connection was e.g. the Little Entente between Czechoslovakia, Romania
and the Kingdom of SCS from 1920 and 1921, which had been intended for defence against Hungary.
According to some, this union at first contradicted French policy (France namely supported Hungary
and promised it territorial concessions in relation to the neighbouring Soviet Union), but after the
signing of the Treaty of Alliance and Friendship between France and Czechoslovakia in 1924, it became
a factor in the French policy of protecting the “Versaille system”. The French Foreign Minister Tardieu
was especially endeavouring to establish connections with Central Europe and the Balkans. The socalled Tardieu Plan was to realise a “French regime” in Central Europe and in the Balkans, and connect
the Danubian countries (Austria, Hungary and members of the Little Entente) into an economic (and
partly political) community. France allegedly “never” had any ambitions to expand its territory to the
Balkans (as was written in the 1920s by the writer of the popular book on the Balkans, Jacques Ancel),
but only cultural and economic ambitions.
Under Nazi pressure at the end of the thirties (at the time of the Anschluss, the Sudeten crisis, the
occupation of the Czech Republic and Moravia, and the aggressive penetration of Italy into the
Balkans), the French Balkan policy failed completely.
In the years prior to World War II, the term “Intermediate Europe” (Zwischeneuropa) appeared, which
did resemble Naumann’s concept, but was supposedly based on the equality of nations and countries.
There were otherwise many ideas for establishing a union of countries “from the Baltic to the Aegean
Sea” in various combinations. One version reflected Polish imperialism, which foresaw a union of
northeastern countries – that is, Poland and the Baltic countries of Finland, Latvia, Estonia and
Lithuania. One of those who advocated it and partly tried to realise it was the Polish autocratic
president of Lithuanian descent, Pilsudski. The various ideas for Central European integration were
discussed at several peace and other conferences in the inter-war period. After Nazis assumed power,
a few of these proposals were aimed towards excluding Germany from such integrations and create a
sort of line of defence against it or prevent closer integration between Germany and Austria, which
had originated in the desire to establish a customs union between both countries.
In the inter-war period, Slovene intellectuals of various political orientations contemplated the
smallness and dividedness of the Slovene nation. The majority of Slovene cultural magazines and
newspapers were engrossed in the national issue; views on “the contents of Slovenism” and on Slovene
fate differed and often gave rise to “grave political dissension.”
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Alongside the growing ideological polarisation and mutual opposition, not just between the Great
Powers but also between the countries formed after World War I, the “search” for Central Europe or
broader integrations among the small nations in the intermediate area between Eastern and Western
Europe, from Greece to the Scandinavian countries, was primarily the domain of journalists; even
when it grew into more tangible political programmes, these were no less utopian than the views of
individual writers.
World War II completely shattered any illusion of a multicultural and equal community of nations in
the Central European area and the concept of Greater Germany was realised in its most brutal (Nazi)
version. Even those Central European countries which had preserved their own statehood in limited
form (Hungary) or even acquired it in a twisted, marionette form (Slovakia, Croatia), were completely
subordinate to the German policy of creating “a new European order”. In Slovenia, which had been
carved up among three occupying forces, the most important inter-war political programme,
supported by the real military and political power (the Liberation Front programme), aimed towards
liberation and towards the rebuilding of Yugoslavia, but on an equal (federal) footing. The leading
bourgeois programme (the so-called London Programme) also advocated the rebuilding of Yugoslavia
up until the end of the war (also demanding a federation, but under the Karadjorđjević dynasty). Even
before the invasion of Yugoslavia, the leading Slovene politicians from the Slovene People’s Party
proposed to the Germans that they occupy all of Slovenia and award it a similar status as they awarded
Slovakia, after Western countries had given Czechoslovakia to Germany in 1938 with the Munich
Agreement. But because the Germans wanted to turn Slovene territory into the southern border of
the German Reich and obliterate Slovenes as a nation, none of the above took place. Despite servile
politics and the same requests continuing immediately after occupation, the Germans would not even
allow collaboration in the occupied territories. Afterwards, Slovene politicians turned to Italian
occupiers with the same requests. Mussolini, pleased that Slovene politicians were giving themselves
up to him, at first promised a protectorate, but afterwards, in fear that the Germans would take away
what they had given him, incorporated the Italian occupation zone into Italy and awarded it the status
of a province.
Among the less important political groups, ideas for different types of federations and confederations
appeared during the war. Some of these ideas are reminiscent of the pre-war thoughts on integrations
in the Central European area. Marginal writers and politicians saw hope in a corporatist Central
European federation. These programmes were merely the expression of powerlessness under the
existing circumstances and the verbal search for an alternative to a successful liberation programme.
They were far from an idea for a genuine democratic community in the area in question and had
practically no influence over events in Slovenia during the war. Some of them were based on the
assumption that Hitler’s Nazi-Fascist “new Europe” would survive, whereas others – especially after
the turn of events on the major battlefields – counted on the victory of the anti-Fascist coalition. The
most perfected plan was that of the Catholic theologian and ardent opponent of the Liberation Front,
dr. Lambert Ehrlich. Ehrlich saw the future of Slovenia in a Central European-Balkan union, which would
comprise Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary,
Romania, Greece and Albania. Ehrlich considered Slovenia “a nation in the centre of Europe”, on whose
territory “a European railway station” had developed during contemporary history; after the war and
the victory of the Allies, United Slovenia with Trieste would be a sort of “Adriatic Switzerland” and
become either a sovereign state or an equal state – a member of a contractual confederation of
Yugoslav nations or a member of a broader European union of countries.
The plans of Western Allies, in particular that of Winston Churchill, were more realistic. Both Balkan
coasts – the Adriatic and the Aegean Sea – were crucial in the imperial policy of Great Britain and
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Churchill tried to secure that influence for the post-war times by proposing that the Allies land on the
Adriatic coast and with a "fifty - fifty” agreement. His efforts include contemplating the forming of a
Central European Federation (Churchill often regretted the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy), which
would presumably include Slovenia, Croatia, Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bavaria. A similar thought was his proposal at the Tehran Conference
in late November 1943 that after the war Prussia should be excluded from Germany, and that the
southern part of the German state and Austria would be transformed into a sort of Danubian state.
This state was to become an antipode to the emerging Balkan federation or confederation, which was
also being contemplated at that time on several levels. According to some writers, a Catholic Central
Europe, headed by Otto von Habsburg, was mainly the post-war objective of the Vatican, which was
trying to save the remains of the quisling state of Cardinal Tiso in Slovakia, Horty in Hungary and Pavelić
in Croatia. In that regard, the Vatican’s and Churchill’s aims were at least partially similar in wanting to
paralyse revolutionary movements and limit the influence of the Soviet Union. The Vatican was also
concerned with the preservation of the role of the Catholic Church and it would not have opposed the
restoration of the Habsburg dynasty. The aftermath of such plans would have been, among other
things, the sacrificing of Yugoslavia in its pre-war size or dividing it up. Due to the situation at the end
of the war and after it (the penetration of the Soviet Union, the autonomy of the Yugoslav resistance
movement and other reasons), but mostly because of the division into blocs, such efforts died away.
In the second half of the 1970s, there were various “substitute” versions of Central European
integration, which were based on cultural and economic cooperation. The most powerful and most
formal one was the Alps – Adriatic Community. Its origins date back to the sixties, when Yugoslavia’s
borders were already open to the West. In March 1967, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Carinthia and the then
Socialist Republic of Slovenia agreed on a comprehensive cultural exchange programme; this
collaboration was later joined by the Socialist Republic of Croatia. In October 1969, a four-countrycommission was founded in Udine for cooperation between Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Carinthia, Croatia
and Slovenia in the field of regional planning and tourism. Thus the so-called Quadrigon was created,
which later merged with the Alps – Adriatic Working Community. Styria gave the initiative for this
community in September 1974; at first, it was called the Working Community of Eastern Alpine Regions
and was later renamed Alps – Adriatic. It was given impetus by the Helsinki Conference on Security and
Cooperation in 1975. The Working Community was founded in 1978 in Venice, Italy. In a Europe divided
by ideology and into blocs, it used the regional to overcome the barriers that were artificially
separating the neighbouring countries. As regards the former Yugoslavia, it included Slovenia and
Croatia, and the regions of individual countries: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and
Veneto from Italy, and Carinthia and Styria from Austria. Active observers included Bavaria, the
Austrian federal province of Salzburg and the Italian province of Lombardy, which were already
members of a similar body called Arge-Alp (founded in 1972), whose statute at that time did not permit
simultaneous membership in a similar working community. In December 1986, the Hungarian counties
of Györ-Sopron and Vas joined as active observers; in May 1987, the Austrian federal province of
Burgenland became a member; in 1988, the working community accepted Bavaria, Lombardy, Vas and
the Györ-Sopron County as full members, and the counties of Somogy and Zala as active observers;
later on, in November 1989, these two became full members, whereas the community was also joined
by the Baranja County and the Swiss Canton of Ticino. This Working Community directly supported
Slovene and Croatian efforts to attain independence. In July 1991, its representatives adopted a
resolution at a special session in Klagenfurt, which appealed to all countries to recognise the right of
the republics of Slovenia and Croatia to self-determination and sovereignty. After the establishment
of the sovereign states of Slovenia and Croatia, they remained full members of the Working
Community as independent republics. This community was preserved even after the fall of the Berlin
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Wall; it unites cantons, provinces, counties, regions and republics of the Eastern Alpine region and has
17 members in total. However, it no longer has the political role it held during the division into blocs.
It discusses and coordinates various issues that concern the interests of its members – from the field
of traffic connections and transport; the generation and transfer of energy; agriculture; forestry; water
management; tourism; environmental protection; regional planning; cultural relations; development
of settlements; and all the way to contacts between scientific institutions.
After 1990, new political and economic integrations began, which were to have united the Central
European area. The most powerful of these is CEFTA - the Central European Free Trade Agreement.
CEFTA is a trade agreement between non-EU countries, members of which are now mostly located in
Southeastern Europe. Founded by representatives of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, CEFTA
expanded to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Macedonia,
Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Kosovo. The first CEFTA agreement
was signed by the Visegrád Group countries, that is, by Poland, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak
republics (at the time parts of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic) on 21 December 1992 in
Kraków, Poland. It came into force in July 1994. Through CEFTA, the participating countries hoped to
mobilise their efforts to integrate into Western European institutions and through this, to join
European political, economic, security and legal systems, thereby consolidating democracy and freemarket economics. Once a participating country joins the European Union, its CEFTA membership
ends. Nowadays, the parties of the CEFTA agreement are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo.
Slovenia began to rediscover its Central European identity in the 1980s, when Yugoslavia had begun to
disintegrate. Until that time, Slovenes were not bothered by being Yugoslavs and Balkans. In the postwar decades, the Balkan countries enjoyed different statuses; as regards international relations, they
were categorised into three groups: Bulgaria and Romania were in the Eastern Bloc, and Greece and
Turkey in the Western Bloc, while Yugoslavia and Albania were not associated with either (after its
conflict with Yugoslavia, Albania began to establish ties with the Soviet Union and China, and
eventually became completely isolated, whereas Yugoslavia opted for a non-aligned foreign policy).
The disintegration processes in Yugoslavia reintroduced the Balkan vocabulary that had been used at
the end of the 19th century and prior to World War I into world media. Journalists usually labelled the
Balkans “a powder keg”, “the Balkans cauldron” and the like. At that time the Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat even declared that he did not wish to “Balkanise” the Palestinian issue. Among Slovenes (and
Croats), these circumstances revived old hypotheses that they did not belong to the Balkan region but
to the Central European one. The Slovene intellectual opposition began pointing out the differences
between them and the remaining (Balkan) parts of the country. An expression of this direction was the
establishment of the Vilenica literary award, which the Slovene PEN Centre devoted to authors from
Central Europe. It was awarded for the first time in September 1986 in the Vilenica karst cave near
Postojna; it was given to the Italian writer Fulvio Tomizza. This award, bestowed by the Slovene
Writers’ Association, was intended to promote the “values” of Central Europe. This search for a new
identity also followed another path: that of denying the historical fact that Slovenes were Slavs and of
developing autochthonistic theories that they were aborigines: the Veneti, Etruscans and so on. In
short, that they have been living in this area “since the dawn of time”. Their enthusiasm was
occasionally thrown a cold shower; one of the worst ones was the statement by the Austrian writer
Peter Handke, then much esteemed in Slovenia (and the winner of the Vilenica award), that to him
Central Europe is nothing more than a meteorological term.
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After Slovenia’s attainment of independence, its “away from the Balkans” policy became official. While
it was busy brushing aside the notion of being a Balkan state, the USA in particular, and other European
countries as well, were trying to connect it to that region as much as possible. Slovene politicians were
truly shocked in the beginning of 1994 when Madeleine Korbel Albright, a special envoy of the
American President Bill Clinton, ranked Slovenia among “Balkan democracies”, alongside Romania,
Bulgaria and even Albania! The US Ambassador to the United Nations and later the United States
Secretary of State afterwards corrected herself that the adjective “Balkan” had not been meant in a
cultural, historical or spiritual sense, but in a geographical one, and that whether Slovenia
geographically belongs to the Balkans or not should be debated by geographers. Their wounded selfimportance was soon afterwards given a Band-Aid when the Council of Europe decided not to
categorise Slovenia, at least on a symbolic level, among Mediterranean countries (under which
Yugoslavia had been categorised according to one criterion prior to its disintegration), but instead
move it to the group of Central and Eastern European countries.
Slovenes are not the only ones that do not wish to be placed in the Balkans. As early as 1915, the most
famous Western observer of the Russian revolution, John Reed (Ten Days that Shook the World), wrote
as a war correspondent that the easiest way to anger a Romanian (who is, of course, Latin and not a
“wild” Greek or Slav) is by telling him or her that Romania is a Balkan state.
It should be pointed out that similarly to Central European projects, Balkan projects were also being
created throughout contemporary history, as well as real attempts of integrating Balkan countries, and
concepts which were to have integrated both areas. What has been said for Central Europe also applies
to Balkan integrations, namely that after World War II and the Informbiro conflict, which had separated
Yugoslavia from the Eastern European Bloc, these rather strong ideas and concrete plans for Balkan
integration died away. For instance, after the war Yugoslavia and Bulgaria signed a concrete pact on
creating a federal union. Initiatives for reviving their cooperation re-emerged in the early fifties (the
Balkan Pact of 1954).
One of the more earnest initiatives for Balkan integration, which Slovenia had to agree to after
attaining independence in 1991, was SECI (Southeast European Initiative). Eleven Southeastern
European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia,
Moldavia, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey) were to have collaborated on various economic projects. The
initiative for SECI was given by the USA in January 1997; the former Austrian Vice-Chancellor, dr.
Gerhard Busek, otherwise a strong advocate of integration in Southeastern Europe, was appointed
project coordinator. After the war in Kosovo, it was replaced by the Stability Pact for Southeastern
Europe, which was solemnly declared by a multitude of leaders, including the American President Bill
Clinton, at the end of July 1999 in a semi-rebuilt Sarajevo, who promised million dollar sums for it.
Despite this, Slovenia accepted the proposal hesitantly (as did Hungary), for it saw it as a means of
indirectly “shoving” Slovenia back to the Balkans and thus slowing down its entry into the European
Union.
In contrast to this, efforts to establish Central European integration re-emerged in Slovenia, this time
in the political sense and not merely in the cultural one. They originally envisaged integration with
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certain Eastern European countries from the former Socialist Bloc, that is, the Visegrád Group. The
Visegrád Group was established by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary primarily to
coordinate their positions on the retreat of the Red Army from these countries and on economic issues.
(As you know, today they – and the Baltic countries – are connected by an entirely different context,
that is, by right-wing conservatism, nationalism and the refugee crisis). At that time, they wished to
establish mutual economic trade on new grounds and simultaneously strengthen the synergy in their
efforts to join NATO and the EU more quickly. Because Slovenia did not belong to the Southeastern
European Bloc, the government was sceptical about integrating with the Visegrád Group; this
integration was, however, supported by the President, Milan Kučan. He viewed Central Europe as a
sort of natural Slovene hinterland, connected by a common historical, cultural and political tradition;
at the same time, he was the only prominent politician to strive for good cooperation with the former
republics of Yugoslavia. The then Prime Minister, dr. Janez Drnovšek, was particularly opposed to
cooperation with the Visegrád Group. He adopted a conceited stance, as if to say that the countries of
the former Eastern Bloc were light years behind us and that integrating with them will make us regress.
Well, this did not turn out to be the case: due to various reasons, Slovenia was not the first to enter
the EU, but entered it together with the Eastern European countries, whereas it joined NATO even
after them. And economically speaking, some of those countries have caught up with it, if not
surpassed it. At that time, Kučan was aiming the integration with Central European countries towards
an informal route and broader. It mostly took place in the form of meetings of the presidents of Austria,
the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary, and later on Slovakia, Poland and eventually a few other
countries, but such cooperation more or less died away after the prominent generation of presidents
departed.
After the end of the division into blocs, Austria continuously strove for a sort of informal leading role,
connected at least culturally, but also economically, with the area of the former Austria-Hungary. After
1990, the French and the English were not particularly excited about the revival of ideas of Central
Europe (that was supposedly one of the reasons why they wanted to preserve Yugoslavia at any cost),
for in their eyes the return of Central Europe also meant the return of German imperialism, as the
French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut (and not only him!) had claimed years ago. Nevertheless, some
had different opinions. The nostalgic “Danubian” Central Europe was also advocated by certain French
intellectuals, who rekindled interest in it in the nineties and even founded a new journal named after
l'Europe Centrale, which had been published in Prague in 1926.
Did the national and political integrations with Central Europe (that is, mostly with Austria-Hungary)
end for Slovenes with World War I, whereas integrations with the Balkans ended after the
disintegration of Yugoslavia? How did they benefit from them and what would have happened had
they not been involved in them? There is no final answer to that question. The end of World War I did
not bring them what they had wanted: they were carved up among four countries, and in the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia they barely attained an informal cultural autonomy and never a political one.
Economically speaking, when Austria-Hungary disintegrated, Slovenes lost a large economic space.
Even though the monarchy was economically lagging behind the developed European Great Powers,
it enabled Slovenes to gradually strengthen their economic power – while competing with German
capital; the economic lag of Austria-Hungary also enabled small nations to shape their own national
identity, which the liberalist and centralist pressure of a modern state would have slowed down or
even deterred. It also enabled them a relatively high level of education; after all, Austria-Hungary
taught them political thinking and political culture; they established parties and became accustomed
to parliamentarism (many nations lost that in the inter-war period and later on for several decades).
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Probably the greatest loss for Slovenes and other Central European nations is the common culture
which they had shaped within the Danubian monarchy. The latter was being given its characteristic
mark from the end of the 19th century until the onset of World War I, drawing on the tradition of the
West and East, intertwining and enriching itself. It was co-shaped by many poets, writers, composers,
painters, philosophers and other intellectuals of Slavic, Romance, Hungarian, German and Jewish
descent. Even though it was a conglomerate of languages and styles, of different hopes and fears,
desires, love and hatred, it carried within it enough recognisable common characteristics to be labelled
a specifically Central European culture. Without a doubt, we can still draw on its tradition today.
For Slovenes, Yugoslavia as a Balkan state denoted a great change in the cultural area, which they had
difficulty understanding and with which, despite the efforts of the central authorities and a segment
of the Slovene political powers, they were never able to fully integrate. Nevertheless, the first (royal)
Yugoslavia enabled Slovenes to obtain all of the main cultural and educational institutions, which the
Central European Austria-Hungary had refused to provide. In the second (socialist) Yugoslavia, they
developed a limited statehood (the status of a federal republic) and grew from a people into a nation,
even though in the end they had to win their own state by themselves – under chaotic circumstances
resulting from the end of bipolarity, the fall of Communism, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union
and of Yugoslavia. In the transitional, post-Bloc period, when Europe and the balance of power in it
and in the world were being reshaped, Slovenia’s main goal was the European Union. It, too, is proving
to be a disappointment, even though it is still the best of all of the supranational entities in which
Slovenes had lived in the past. However, we ought to be asking ourselves in concern: for how much
longer?