About

In terms of methodology and contents, the staff of the Institute of Contemporary History – the central and largest specialised research organisation in the field of contemporary history in the Republic of Slovenia – will open new chapters in the national history and the humanities. By means of interdisciplinary networking, multidisciplinary approach, development of technologically advanced information and communication systems that will enable the generation of new research data, and based on new insights, we will integrate the top-level Slovenian historiographical research into transnational and universal phenomena. This will strengthen our self-confidence, promote active citizenship, and contribute to trends in the international social sciences and humanities as well as to general social progress in the global arena.

In accordance with its long-term work programme, the Institute, as an independent public research institute, conducts systematic and continuous research into the Slovenian and general history of the recent period, while at the same time developing an online system of national historiography, which, based on the collections of digital and digitised materials, enables the creation of research data and their use in the research environment. The results are presented to the professional, scientific, and other audiences in various forms, while the acquired knowledge is disseminated in higher and university education. The Institute also engages in publishing activities for the purposes of dissemination and promotion: it issues the scientific magazine Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino/Contributions to Contemporary History, the collections Razpoznavanja/Recognitiones and Vpogledi/Perspicacités, as well as other scientific and expert publications. As a public research institution, the Institute has a visible presence in the Slovenian public sphere, as it participates in the assessment and research of important societal questions in its field of expertise, which are raised by the state authorities and institutions as well as by the civil society.

The Institute of Contemporary History is the central scientific institution in the Republic of Slovenia that studies the contemporary or modern history of Slovenians since the 19th century.

The Institute of Contemporary History was established in the summer of 1959. Initially it was called the Institute for the History of the Workers’ Movement, in line with the political understanding of contemporary history at the time. At the time of its establishment, a question was raised whether the Institute should study the whole of the national history during the period that counts as the modern era, or whether it should only focus on one of the ideologically and politically defined segments: the history of the workers’ movement. Initially, the Institute was tasked with conducting scientific research predominantly in the field of the workers’ movement since its beginnings in the Slovenian territory in the second half of the 19th century and its development after World War II. However, due to the nature of the research, the focus gradually extended to studying the whole of the Slovenian history since the 19th century. Already after the first ten years of activities, the research topics started expanding from the rather narrowly-specialised history of the workers’ movement to the rest of the Slovenian national history. However, the Institute’s name would only reflect this as late as in 1989, when its name was changed to the Institute of Contemporary History. Until 1992, an archive also operated under the auspices of the Institute. It mostly kept materials from the time of World War II. The Institute’s Archive, which used to be among the most extensive archives of the World War II period in Europe, kept the materials produced by the occupation authorities as well as by the Slovenian resistance movement (the Partisans). These materials have later been moved to the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia. As an expression of the harmony between its research and archival efforts, the Institute would also publish historical sources and documents about the political efforts and military operations of the Slovenian resistance movement during World War II, complete with explanations.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the Institute’s researchers prepared – after a decade of development – research projects to explore three historical periods: the period before World War I; the interwar period and the time of World War II (the period of the First Yugoslavia); and the time after World War II (the period of the Second Yugoslavia). The Institute undertook a systematic analysis of all the aspects of the recent Slovenian history, from the political to economic and social history. By conducting research in the context of these three periods, the Institute became a scientific or research institution with a well-developed archive department. The researchers would systematically and independently select the topics of their research. Most of the research (and published works) focused on the period of World War II. The research was organised in this manner until the organisational change of the research activities in Slovenia at the turn of the millennium, when the principle of two research programmes, separate in terms of contents and yet supplementing each other, was implemented instead of the chronological research emphasis: one of the programmes focuses on the political and ideational history, while the other explores the economic and social history. The Institute also includes an infrastructure group, leading the Slovenian efforts in the field of digital humanities.

More about the history of the Institute of Contemporary History can be found in volumes published to mark its anniversaries:

• Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino: 60 let mislimo preteklost
• Zgodovinopisje v zrcalu zgodovine: 50 let Inštituta za novejšo zgodovino
• Inštitut za zgodovino delavskega gibanja. Ob dvajsetletnici