Slovenia – The Land Between – Hard Talk with Vlado Bevc, Book Reviewer, Author and Scientist – 1/2

Book reference: The Land Between, a History of Slovenia (English)
With contributions by Oto Luthar, Igor Grdina, Marjeta Sasel Kos, Petra Svoljsak, Peter Kos, Dusan Kos, Peter Stih, Alja Brglez and Martin Pogacar
Contents: From Prehistory to the End of the Ancient World - The Early Middle Ages - Feudalism - The Early Modern Period - Modernization and National Emancipation - From the Habsburg Monarchy to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia - From a Socialist Republic to an Independent State

Published by Peter Lang Publisher Gmbh Frankfurt, 2008

Q: You have just reviewed the book - The Land Between, a History of Slovenia, - first comprehensive history of Slovenes in English. Would you like to introduce the authors and its content?
Vlado Bevc: There are several authors beside editor Oto Luthar: Igor Grdina, Marjeta Šašel Kos, Petra Svoljšak, Peter Kos, Dušan Kos, Peter Štih, Alja Brglez and Martin Pogačar.

Oto Luthar is a historian and director of the Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SRC SASA), Dean of the Faculty of Arts and a professor of history and theory of historiography at the University of Nova Gorica (UNG). He is the author of the chapters "Divided by the Great War", "The Making of the New State;" The Slovenes and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes", "Dictatorship and the Turmoil of the 1930s", "A nation Torn Apart: World War II in Slovenia",  "Slovenia After the Liberation", "The First Five-Year Period and Self-management" "Liberals' vs. 'Conservatives''.
Obviously he is a creature of the continuity regime which comes across in the style of the above chapters.

Igor Grdina is a historian and Slovenist, and a member of the Institute of Cul¬tural History at the SRC SASA. He is the author of "The Stars of Celje", "The Bloody Fall of the Middle Ages", "From Humanism to Reformation", "From Counter- Reformation Rigor to Baroque Exuberance", and "Scholars, Officials, and Patriots Changing the World". In December 2008 he gave an interview to The Reporter, a Ljubljana weekly journal, arguing the usual Slovenian view of "multiple truths."

Marjeta Sasel Kos is a Senior Research Associate for epigraphy and ancient history at the Institute of Archaeology of the SRC SASA. She is the author of chapters "Prehistory: History Created by Archaeology" and "The Roman Em¬pire:."

Petra Svoljsak is a historian and senior scientific associate at the Milko Kos Historical Institute, a notorious Marxist group at the SRC SASA. She is the author of "French Rule; 'The Pre-¬March Era, the Time of Non-Freedom", "The Year of Freedom, the 1848 Revolu¬tion, and United Slovenia", The Slovenes in the Constitutional Era. "Unity and National Existence", "In the Shackles of Political Parties;' and "The Other Side of History"'

Dusan Kos is a medievalist and research advisor at the Milko Kos Historical Institute, SRC SASA.

Peter Kos is an archeologist, Professor of numismatics at the Department of Archaeology, University of Ljubljana, and Director of the National Museum of Slovenia. He is author of the chapter "From the Marcomannic Wars to the Settlement of the Slavic tribes:'

Peter Stih is a Professor of Medieval History at the Department of History of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, an Associate member of the Slo¬venian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a Corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of "The Slavic Settlement and the Slavic Ethno-Genesis" and "Carolingian Period:"

Alja Brglez is a historical anthropologist and director (and one of the found¬ers) of the Institute for Civilization and Culture in Ljubljana. She is the author of "Reorganization of the Marches and a Shift of Ethnic and Language Borders" and "From Crisis to Conflict and Beyond", 

Martin Pogacar is a doctoral researcher at the SRC SASA/University of Nova Gorica specializing in the history of popular culture, and a research assistant at the SRC SASA's Section for Interdisciplinary Research in Humanities.

Generally, a group of the continuity regime’s  persons presenting the official government line and exclusively Marxist views.

Q: Why the title Land Between and what makes Slovenia land between - in between what?
Vlado Bevc: Luthar says in his Introduction that Slovenia is a region between two different worlds – an extension between Europe and its periphery. The title is appropriate because Slovenia is - and has always been a country with people who are between totalitarian communism which most of the population embraces and the prospects of  Western democracy, free society and the rule of law which Slovenians do not understand, fear and avoid.

Q: Why it seems finding a centre, a way in the world, for Slovenes so challenging?
Vlado Bevc: I suppose they like to feel important!

Q. Which issues are explored in the book and which - according to you - are not sufficiently explored?
Vlado Bevc: (1) The question whether the so-called national liberation struggle was actually such or merely a disguise for a revolution that would otherwise not have popular support.

(2) Whether any part of German withdrawal could be attributed to the activities of communist partisans.

(3) Whether operation of administrative government functions in an occupied country which the Hague convention makes a requirement on the part of any occupying power prior to conclusion of a peace treaty is "collaboration with the enemy" and "treason."

(4) How can "treason", for example, be attributed to persons and politicians who never supported communism and communist dominated organizations? How is "treason" defined in Slovenia?

(5) What was and what should be the ethnic territory of the Republic Slovenia? If it is the territory "where Slovenians live", what geographical regions does it encompass?

Q. Even Ivan Cankar, Slovenia's greatest writer did not escape your criticism. In the context of Slovene history, what do you hold against him?
Vlado Bevc: A. I did not criticize Ivan Cankar in my review as such. I merely point out that Cankar had a talk during World War I in Ljubljana in which he stated his view that Slovenians – as well as Croats – have the right to belong to a  Slavic state and not to German dominated  Austria. This brought about his summary arrest and imprisonment. I support Cankar’s statement. Being persecuted by Austrians is in my opinion an indication that the man was a good Slovenian patriot.

Q. You say all over again that changes are slow in Slovenia and that hardly anything ever changes, why?
Vlado Bevc: This is a fact - as I see it. Slovenians are this way. Possibly it is their way to survive physically.

Q. Lets move to the issue of Slovenes in Austria - who as late as 1979 numbered  70.000,¬ but were suddenly reduced to 20.000,- Where are the missing 50.000 Slovenes and what should be done?
Vlado Bevc:  The "missing" Slovenes were assimilated because if they asserted their Slovenian identity they would be discriminated and would have problems in the still Nazi Carinthia in Austria. At the "census" which was conducted for the purpose of evading Article 7 of the Austrian State Treaty, Slovenians were reluctant and afraid to declare themselves Slovenians because they would face economic consequences, such as – loss of jobs, promotions, licenses to practice various professions, etc.

Article 7 of the Austrian State Treaty provides bilingualism in administrative districts of Austria "where Slovenes live."

The incompetent observer from Yugoslavia at the State Treaty conference communist "diplomat" Ales Bebler allowed that vague and unenforceable phrase into the Treaty instead of demanding that places where bilingualism was to be in force – should be specified by the name of the locations, schools, courts and administrative offices.

There was no problem to be specific in the Austrian State Treaty in so far as the items the Soviets were to haul away as "German Reich Property."

In fact that part of the Treaty reads as "bill of lading". But Slovenes  were dismissed with the phrase "where Slovenes live" – and Austria quickly "established" that hardly any lived there.

In a sense it is still better for Slovenes as individuals to remain in Austria where there is - at least some rule of law - while there is none in Slovenia. In Slovenia it is still the communist party and communists who run everything. And the communist party has been found by the Congress of the United States to be an international criminal conspiracy whose objective is seizing the power by any means possible.

Q. Which are the shortcomings of narrated First World War events in the book and the role of Slovenes?
Vlado Bevc: That chapter is totally ridiculous. Most of the Slovenians realized that World War I would mean the end of Austria and that they would have some chance to build their own state on its ruins. Instead the book paints a picture of Slovenians as loyal supporters of the Austrian Emperor, a tyrant.

First and foremost of all – Slovenians wanted to go home from the front, some of them went to hide in the woods (they were called "Green Detachments" – interesting name, eh?). But they were only hiding – there was nothing like the Serb Chetniks in this regard – or as Slovenians would prefer to be called: "partisans."

Q. Why is Yugoslav King Alexander in this book demonized?
Vlado Bevc: The communists, of course, did not like King Alexander because he was after them. In the first place they murdered Alexander’s fiancée, Princess Anastasia.

Alexander also granted Yugoslav citizenship to all Russian émigrés who escaped communism and came to Yugoslavia. Further, he did not recognize the Soviet Union, an evil empire.
That was at the time when Bernard Shaw and other fools were calling the Soviet Union "A future which works."

Because the Parliament acted irresponsibly, Alexander had to step in temporarily, to save the country from chaos. In any democracy such conduct or failure of the Parliament would require that the Parliament be dissolved and a new election held. Alexander basically acted in this way.

Dictatorship? There were none of the traits we know such as the Mussolini brand, Schikelgruber brand and, above all, the Djugashvili--Stalin brand (listed in the increasing order of mass murders(. There were no mass arrests, no mass extrajudicial executions, no concentration camps, no shooting of people who wanted to live the country under Alexander’s rule. 

But there were such things under Josip Broz, alias Tito, agent of the Komintern, whom the authors of the book are even promoting.

Q. Which other events are - according to you - distorted in the book and are not sufficiently explored, documented, told, narrated?
Vlado Bevc: The entire presentation of the situation during World War II is simply a statement of the communist propaganda, vernacular in all. That members of the former Yugoslav government and establishment "collaborated with the enemy" is a gross distortion.

The most absurd contention is the prattle about the National Liberation led by the Communists. The Germans held all the Slovenian territory under total control during the War. When the German surrender was imminent and it became apparent that the Germans would soon leave Yugoslavia, the German general in charge of Slovenia,, Erwin Roesener, an Austrian by the way, began looking for representatives of former Yugoslav government to transfer the civilian authority back to them.

No partisan bandits drove any Germans out of Slovenia. Everyone knows that, yet those events are totally ignored.

Programs of the democratic parties in Slovenia are totally ignored. In fact,  authors do not even state what was the program of the Communist party.

Many uninformed people, including most American journalists – who by and large are total ignoramuses -  think that "communism" is some sort of  socialist reform which will make use of private property for common good.

The book – which in view of the Slovenian experience - should put that myth to rest, certainly does not do that. It also does not make clear that communism is not a political party or movement but a criminal conspiracy for seizing the power and exploiting the population for the benefit of the communists (who never numbered more than 2 to 5% of the population).

Q. What was the role of Slovenian democratic political parties during WW2, who are they, their role and most prominent members?
Vlado Bevc: The major Slovenian democratic parties in Slovenia were: the Liberal Party which in the old Yugoslavia was part of JNS (Yugoslav Nationalist Party), the Clerical or Conservative Party which in the old Yugoslavia were part of the JRZ (Yugoslav Radical Community) and the Social Democratic Party.

You certainly will not find this facts in the mentioned book.

Q. Which events are not properly documented or told at the time of German withdrawal from Slovenia following WW2 events?
Vlado Bevc: The National Declaration of the Slovenian political parties and agreement among them in October 29, 1944 states their goals and the demand that all Slovenians should be united in one United Slovenian state, which would include the Slovenian Littoral occupied by Italy and Carinthia occupied by Austria.

The liberal party also had an extensive social and reformist agenda. This is published in Liberal Forces in 20th Century Yugoslavia by Ladislav Bevc, Peter Lang Publishing, New York 2007.

Misrepresented is also the objective of the Slovenian Democratic Parliament assembled on May 3, 1945 which called for cessation of the civil war and concentration on uniting all Slovenians in one State.

Instead, Luthar hallucinates that the communist "government" of Slovenia was declared around the same time (early May 1945) in Ajdovscina, The ignoramus does not know that the Slovenian National Committee formed in August 1918 was in fact the first Slovenia de facto government which took over control previous exercised by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Land government.

Q. What are the reasons that the questions of national territory is not of paramount interest to the nation as small as Slovenia?
Vlado Bevc: It is pretty clear that this is so, The communists are hostile towards democracies and that the communist authors do not like to analyze or give it much publicity.

Q. You say in your review that the WW2 also presented a unique opportunity for Slovenia to unite its national territory and recover the parts held by Italy and Austria. Why it did not happen, were there any attempts in this respect, was the re-making of Austria after WW2 the reason, who had the upper hand, who was playing "destiny"?
Vlado Bevc: In 1941 Yugoslavia did not yet enter the war field, tried to placate the Germans as well as it could.  No real allies that could help to defend it existed – the degenerate British and effete French could not be considered a match to Germany at that time - and they never would be - if America was not forced to come to their help and rescue.

Yet Yugoslavia choose to repudiate the deal Germany was offering, thus forcing Hitler’s hand to annihilate it. This was supposedly an act which brought Yugoslavia into alliance with the British and French. Before Yugoslavia repudiated Hitler and his offers of a pact it should certainly make sure – as did Italy prior to World War I – that at the victorious end of the war it would be rewarded with sizeable portion of what was then Italian and Austrian territory but - which was in fact Slovenian territory. 

Even prior end of World War II, the Slovenians still had a chance to recover that territory, for the West would support their demands, at least to some extent, if Yugoslavia gave an indication that it would prevent the Soviets from accessing the Mediterranean through the Yugoslav coast.

During the war the Yugoslav government in exile in London, or later – to be sent safely away so as not to annoy the British too much – to Cairo or to Palestine – should have concentrated on the territorial recoveries following the victory over the Axis instead of planning a vendetta against the Croat Ustashe and engage in other internecine and irresolvable disputes.

Q. On the occasion of recent discovery of a new post – war killing site at Huda Jama, a writer proposes erection of a monument commemorating all victims of WW2, regardless of their persuasion. He says "only then will Slovenians be ready to tackle the problems of the future head on". It this sufficient, would that do justice?
Vlado Bevc: I think it would take considerably more than a piece of stone to achieve a reconciliation – if it is really wanted or needed. The French, of course, have their Place de la Concorde in Paris where heads used to be chopped off to the opponents or suspected opponents of the revolutionary regime of the Egalite, Liberte, Fraternite and – to be politically correct – Sororite.

That presumably symbolizes "their reconciliation" but it would be interesting to see, what relatives of murdered victins by  the "revolutionaries" will have to say.

To be continued.

ABOUT SLOVENIA Area: 20,273 km2
Population: 2,001,114 (30.6.2005) Capital city: Ljubljana
Language: Slovene; also Italian and Hungarian in nationally mixed areas
Currency: Euro

Important dates:
Independence - 25 June 1991
Member of ED - 1 May 2004

The Republic of Slovenia lies at the heart of Europe, where the Alps face the Pannonian plains and the Mediterranean meets the mysterious Karst. To the north is Austria; Hungary is to the east; Croatia to the south and Italy to the west.