crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Tamara Griesser Pečar
The Roman Catholic Church in Slovenia under three
totalitarian regimes
After the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918, the Slovenes experienced three
totalitarian regimes: fascism, national socialism and communism. All three left deep traces, but above
all communism, because it lasted almost five decades. Fascism and national socialism as totalitarian
ideologies and systems are met with disgust everywhere in the world – also in Slovenia – but the crimes
committed in Slovenia by the communists are still regarded as altogether incomparable with the deeds
of the fascists and national socialists.
The Roman Catholic Church had a very strong position in Slovenia because of its large number of
believers. Under the Habsburg Monarchy, the Catholic Church was the state church. Until World War
Two, it still had a strong influence on politics, but that changed completely under German occupation
and during the communist regime. To some extent that was also true under fascism.
1. Between two World Wars
Until the end of the First World War, the Slovenes lived in different crown lands of the Habsburg
Double Monarchy, most in the Cisleithanian part (Carniola, Styria, Carinthia, Trieste, Gorizia, the
Slovene Littoral, Istria), but also in Transleithanian, above the River Mura (Prekmurje). To induce
Italy to enter the war on their side, the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) offered Italy
in the secret Treaty of London on 26 April 1915 certain territories, including Gorizia and Gradiska,
coastal area including the Slovene Littoral with a part of Inner Carniola, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia and
the Adriatic islands. That treaty was never recognized by the United States; President Wilson strongly
opposed Italy’s aspirations. Finally the border between Italy and the new South Slav state, “the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes”, was decided by the Treaty of Rapallo on 12 November 1920.
The compromise that was achieved, however, offered Italy territories with half a million Slovenes and
Croatians – more than a quarter of the territory which Slovenes considered to be their ethnic territory.
The border with Hungary was fixed in the Treaty of Trianon on 4 June 1920. The Treaty of Saint-
Germain with Austria on 10 September 1919 determined that parts of Carinthia – the Meža Valley
(Mießtal), the area around Dravograd (Unterdrauburg) and Jezersko (Seeland) – would go to the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed “Yugoslavia” in 1929), whereas the wider area around
the Klagenfurt basin should be determined by a plebiscite that took place on 20 October 1920. When
59.04 % of the so-called “district A” voted to remain in Austria, and 40.06 % to remain in Yugoslavia,
the Klagenfurt basin became part of Austria. 1
1.1. Fascism in Italy
The Julian March (Venezia Giulia, Julisch Venezien, Julijska Krajina), which included 350
communities with 901,364 inhabitants, 38 % Slovenes and Croatians, was borderland systematically
Italianized after the fascists took power. The fascists imposed the Italian language as the official
language in public life. After educational reforms had been implemented in 1923, the Slovene language
was cancelled in all educational programmes, and by 1928, all Slovene periodical publications were
forbidden, as well as all educational and cultural institutions. Then the Ministry of Education gave orders
that even religious instructions (Sunday schools) should be given only in Italian. In 1933 in the district
of Venice, the use of Slovene was prohibited in churches, and in 1934, Slovene and Croatian monasteries
in Julian March had to close. One after another, Slovene economic institutions also disappeared.
1
For more about the Carinthia question: Tamara Pečar, Die Stellung der slowenischen Landesregirung zum Land Kärnten 1918–1920,
Diss, Wien 1973.
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