Fundamental issues of democracy in Slovenia prior to the Second World War and their Central European context

Project Code: Z6-9592

SICRIS

The proposed research will analyse the fundamental issues of democracy and democratic processes in Slovenia prior to the Second World War. The chronological framework of the research will be bounded on the one hand by the imposition of King Aleksander’s dictatorship in 1929, and on the other by the start of the Second World War in Slovenia in 1941, with special attention being devoted to events in the second half of the thirties. In this period, which has thus far been subject to relatively meagre attention from historians, there was a radical change in the political image of Slovenia and Yugoslavia. The research will thus analyse the position and fate of the then main political camps – liberal, Catholic and Marxist – their political outlook, their attitude to democracy and especially their potential establishment of the concept of democracy in the Slovenian political arena. Here special attention will be focused on the Slovenian People’s Party, since this was the strongest political group in Slovenia in the 1920s, and knowledge to date indicates that it also retained its influence later. In the first phase of the research, the researcher will tie the issues of democracy in Slovenia to the conditions in the Yugoslav state framework, to the array of political forces and the role of Slovenian political players within them. The second phase will involve an analysis of conditions in the Drava Banovina [Drava administrative region], with particular attention focused on the situation on the ground, and on the expression and implementation of the democratic process through elections. On the basis of a scientific investigation of the elections, the research will analyse the fact of the political existence of what were termed the old (banned) parties and the functioning of the institution of democratic political choice. The research issue identified in Slovenia must necessarily be placed in the then relevant Central European context. A comparative analysis will therefore examine closely the political situation in Czechoslovakia, where special attention will be focused on the structure of its political space and particularly on the role of the national question during the political and social crisis at the end of the thirties. Carrying out the research will enable an understanding of the significance and weight of democratic discourse prior to the Second World War and its role in the genesis of the political polarisation of the Slovenian population into the “left” and “right”.