Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies
Slovenia implements partial measures in the field of cultural and education policies that
could be considered to be a contribution to the preservation of culture and language
among these communities. In certain places, on the initiative of cultural associations,
supplemental lectures (that were not part of school curricula) in Serbian, Macedonian
and Albanian were organized in elementary schools or outside schools. Accordingly, for
several years now, a course in Croatian has been available in certain elementary schools
in Slovenia as an optional subject. Serbian and Macedonian were later accorded the same
status and the syllabuses for all three languages confirmed by the school authorities, so
it has been possible to include them in elementary school curricula as optional subjects
since the beginning of the school year 2008/2009. 8
The Ministry of Culture provides finances for the funding of cultural activities of
associations that bring together the members of the nations of the former Yugoslavia.
Although the funds earmarked for cultural activities of the associations of the former
Yugoslav nations in Slovenia have been increasing recently, there is still a large gap
between the budget resources dedicated to these groups and those dedicated to the
cultural activities of the recognized minority groups – the Italian and Hungarian
minorities, as well as the Roma community.
A look at the resources set apart in 2008 by the Ministry of Culture to finance cultural
activities of minority communities shows that, in 2008, the Italian minority received
around 100 euros per member; the Hungarian minority received around 55 euros per
member, and the Roma community 8 euros per member. The communities of nations of
the former Yugoslavia received only around 1 euro per member. 9 If we add to this the
funds provided by the Government Office for National Minorities to only the Italian
and Hungarian minorities and the Roma community, the difference between the funds
intended for the cultural needs (including language preservation) of the recognized
minorities and those intended for unrecognized minorities becomes even bigger.
Demands for dialogue on policy changes
The nations of the former Yugoslavia in Slovenia are organized into many associations
and unions, including the Union of the Associations and Societies of the Nations of the
Former Yugoslavia. In October 2003, the Coordination of the Unions of Associations,
as this union was called in the past, submitted an application to the National Assembly
8
There are 488 elementary schools in Slovenia. In 2008/2009, the course in Croatian was
held in five schools, with 70 pupils enrolling in the classes. Although classes in Serbian and
Macedonian were also available, not one group of pupils interested in attending these classes
could be formed (Kržišnik-Bukić, 2008: 141).
9
Information on the amount of subsidies is available in the report by the Ministry of Culture on
the (co-)financing of cultural programmes and projects in 2008, pp. 74-80. For a more detailed
analysis of this data for 2006, see the author’s MA thesis “Javna govorica, družbeno izključevanje
in stigmatizacija” (Public Speech, Social Exclusion and Stigmatization) (Petković, 2009: 87–88).
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