slovenia national symbols through time

8/6/2019 SLOVENIA national symbols through time

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SLOVENIAN SYMBOLS

SONGS OF FREEDOM



NATIONAL SYMBOLS THROUGH TIME02/03

Te year that white, blue, and red were adopted as the national colors o Slovenia.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

As a country in the heart o the old continent, Slovenia has arich story to tell and great symbols attached to its chest. It hasbeen a proud part o several multinational empires, kingdoms,and countries that all inuenced the national insignia o to-day’s Republic o Slovenia.

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HAVE YOU HEARD?

Te basis or the coat o armso the Socialist Republic o Slovenia was the SlovenianLiberation Front emblem,designed during the SecondWorld War by the architectEdvard Ravnikar.

HE ONE

Te image o Mount riglav with its t hree peaks is the most p ersistent symbolin Slovenian heritage.

CARANANIACOA OF ARMS

Carantania, one o the rst Slavicstates, covered the territorieso present-day Slovenia and Austria in the second hal o theseventh century. Although theblack panther has great charisma,its eatures nevertheless didnot inuence contemporarySlovenia’s national symbols.

HE PRINCE’SSONE

Tis ancient symbol o Slovenian identity can also beound on the two-cent eurocoin. Te Prince’s Stone wasused as a ceremonial thronewhen authority was given to

the newly elected duke and itis a visual remainder o oneo earliest known democraticpractices held in Slovenian.

COA OF ARMSOF HE COUNS OF CELJE

COA OF ARMSOF CARNIOLA

ROYAL COA OF ARMS OF HEKINGDOM OF YUGOSLAVIA

COA OF ARMS OF HE SOCIALISREPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA

Te medieval aristocraticamily o the Counts o Celjewas the last native noble houseto rule the Slovenian lands.Te three golden six-pointedstars have a special place inthe today’s coat o arms o Slovenia.

Under the Habsburgmonarchy, the Duchy o Carniola was the mainSlovenian-populated crownland, with its capital inLjubljana. Te white, blue,and red in its coat o arms andag had a major inuence onSlovenia’s uture symbols.

Initially known as the Kingdomo Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,the Kingdom o Yugoslaviaextended rom the westernBalkans to Central Europerom 1918 until 1941. Slovenia

merely had the status o anadministrative unit in thekingdom and thereore did nothave ofcial symbols o its own.

Slovenia was one o six republicswithin the Federal Republico Yugoslavia or much o thetwentieth century, rom 1943until independence in 1991. Eventhen its coat o arms incorporated

Mount riglav and the Adriatic Sea,as well as the linden leaves thathave been a symbol o Sloveniasince the nineteenth century.



LANGUAGE04/05

Te number o Slovenian dialects spoken in Slovenia.

THE SOUND OF PEOPLE

Slovenian is an Indo-European languageand belongs to the Slavic language am-ily. Tis means that its roots reach backto the rst ever Slavic language – the so

called Old Church Slavonic, rom theninth century. Te rst book, rst gram-mar, and rst translation o the Bible intoSlovenian all happened in the second hal o the sixteenth century during the Prot-estant Reormation by Primož rubar,

Adam Bohorič, and Jurij Dalmatin.

Slovenians may not be known or being aschatty as their Italian neighbors, but theydo love their native language and havebeen very diligent in translating worldliterature and keeping it sae rom the

inuences o oreign languages. AlthoughSlovenia has always been surrounded andsometimes even invaded by large, loud

languages, its people have always ounda way to communicate in their own lan-guage: Slovenian.

oday about 2.5 million people speak,write, and understand Slovenian. It canalso be oten heard in Croatia, Hungary,Italy, Austria, Argentina, Australia, Can-ada, and the United States. It is one o the twenty-three ofcial and working lan-guages o the European Union.

Slovenian uses the Latin alphabet, con-sisting o 25 letters with a ew nice touch-es such as the letters č, š, and ž. Tere are5 vowels and 20 consonants. Nouns, ad-

jectives, and pronouns in Slovenian have

3 numbers, 3 genders, and 6 cases. Verbsare conjugated or 3 persons and 3 num-bers. Verbs can express 4 times, 3 moods,and 2 voices.

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HAVE YOU HEARD?

What makes Slovenian rare and beautiul but a bitharder to learn is the use o t he dual in addition to singu-lar and plural.

HE PIECE OF PAPER HA SARED I ALL

Te Freising Manuscripts are the earliest examples o text written in Slovenian,dating back to AD 972.



FLAG06/07

Te number o national holidays that require fying the national fag.

COLORS IN MOTION

You have probably noticed it blowing in the windat many world cup skiing events or even the Ol-ympics and you’ll denitely see it all over thesouvenir shops. But just in case, here are some

tips on how to spot it. Slovenia’s national aghas three horizontal bands o equal size and di-erent colors: white on top, blue in the middle,and red on the bottom. owards the upper letcorner o the ag is the Slovenian coat o arms,centered between the white and blue bands.

White, blue and red are based on the coat o arms o the historical region o Carniola. Dur-ing the European revolutions (the Spring o Nations), the Slovenians chose their colors andpresented them to the administration o the

Austrian Empire, o which Slovenia was a part.On 23 September 1848 the white, blue, and redofcially became the Slovenian national ag. A

ew months later the new ag cheered the peoplein Ljubljana or the rst time, hanging proudlyon Wolova Street.

Ater the Second World War, the tricolor ag wasthe basis or the one that would represent thenew Socialist Republic o Slovenia. As part o theSocialist Federal Republic o Yugoslavia, the agbore a large red star. Following Slovenia’s inde-pendence on 25 June 1991 the newly designedcoat o arms took the place o the star.

WINDS OF CHANGE

One o the most memorable moments in contemporary Slovenian history was thesight o the huge Slovenian ag blowing in the wind on the square in ront o theParliament ater Slovenia’s independence was announced.

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HAVE YOU HEARD?

Te three equal horizontal bands o white, blue, and redare the same as on the Russian and Slovak ags.



COAT OF ARMS08/09

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Te coat o arms also served as the basis or the newpublic administration visual identity system introducedin 2010. A new ont called Republika was speciallydesigned as well.

Te coat o arms’magic number with three stars, three colors andthree peaks o Mount riglav.

SYMBOL WITHIN A SYMBOL

Te rst thing that will catch your eye on thisblue shield with red borders is the image o three white peaks. Tey stand tall and proudor the highest mountain in Slovenia, Mount

riglav, whose name means “three heads”.Below the mountain, two wavy blue linesrepresent the many rivers in the region andthe Adriatic Sea. Te three six-pointed goldenstars that shine above Mount riglav wereplaced there as an homage to the great medi-eval aristocrats, the Counts o Celje.

Tis coat o arms started to represent Slov-enia in 1991, so it is a relative newcomer inSlovenian lie and heritage. Marko Pogačnik,a sculptor, was chosen to carry out the assign-ment o designing it. His idea was not based

solely on history but also took into account aholistic approach to the territory and energyo Slovenian identity.

wo prominent Slovenians, the poet FrancePrešeren and architect Jože Plečnik, alsohad signicant inuence on the sculptor.Prešeren’s epic poem Krst pri Savici (Baptism

at the Savica) inspired the use o the sceneryo Mount riglav, its golden hue, and Lake Bo-hinj. A pilaster in ront o the par ish church inBled that was designed by Plečnik provided in-spiration with its image o Mount riglav anda six-sided star on the Virgin Mar y’s coat.

Combining the elements o air, re, water,and earth, the coat o arms is meant to con-nect the country with the cosmos around it.However great the descriptions and storiesare, in the beginning not everyone agreedthat the coat o arms gave this new country

o mountains, sea, and resh air all the con-dence it deserved, but now everyone eels aconnection to it.

PLAY OF RIANGLES

Geometrically speaking, the Slovenian shield is composed around two triangles:the celestial and the terrestrial triangles. Teir tips meet at the lowest o the threestars. Mount riglav is also made up o three tri angles.

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NATIONAL ANTHEM10/11

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Each stanza o Zdravljica is a carmen guratum,shaped like a wine glass.

Te year that the well-known rock band Lačni Franz recorded its ownversion o Zdravljica, creating quite a stir, launching a debate on whetherthe national anthem could also be a rock song.

VISION OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

Slovenia’s national anthem uses part o thepoem called Zdravljica, which can be trans-lated as a toast. It was originally a drink-ing song with a strong political undertone

o Slovenia’s unity. Although some peoplebelieve the national anthem uses the entirepoem, ofcially it is just the seventh stanza,the only one everyone knows by heart andsings when the occasion arises.

Zdravljica was written by Slovenia’s greatestpoet, France Prešeren, in the troubled timeso 1844, a ew years beore the outbreak o the March Revolution. His vision was notvery well accepted and was subjected tocensorship. Te poet did not want to pub-lish the edited version o the poem in hisupcoming volume o collected poems titledPoezije (Poetry). So the rst time Zdravljicasaw the light o day was on 26 April 1848 inthe newspaper Kmetijske in rokodelske novice (Farm and rade News).

Te poem was proclaimed the anthem o Slovenia in 1989, when Slovenia was stillpart o Yugoslavia. Tat same year it wasalso proclaimed that the ofcial tune o theanthem would be the choral composition byStanko Premrl, who set Zdravljica to musicor the rst time in 1905. When Sloveniabecame independent, it kept both the wordsand melody o the seventh stanza as its an-them.

God’s blessing on all nations,

Who long and work for that bright day,

When o’er earth’s habitations

No war, no strife shall hold its sway;

Who long to seeTat all men free,

No more shall foes, but neighbors be.

– ranslation by Janko Lavrin

SEARCH FOR PERFECION

Te poet France Prešeren wrote seven versions o the poem that is today knownas the Slovenian national anthem, even crossing out one stanza himsel.

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OFFICIAL TRADEMARK 12/13

Te number o tourists that chose Slovenia as their vacation destinationin 2009.

HIGH ON EMOTION

he secret o the beauty and purenesso the green country at the heart o Eu-rope is out. More and more people nowknow where Slovenia is, what the na-tional pastry potica tastes like, and thatyou just have to see Bled i you’ve madeit this ar. Much o the thanks that it isrecognized by the touristic market andloved by the visitors goes to the strate-gic placement o the brand I Feel Slovenia,your guarantee or an authentic Slov-enian experience.

I Feel Slovenia is the irst overall brandand it gets straight to the point. It isnot enough to just see a breathtakingphoto o Slovenia – you have to eel it,breathe it, and love it to understand itsappeal, and to know how much more

it has to oer. It is an emotional state-ment because it seeks to have an intenseconnection with people, share its goodvibes with cultural, sports, or businesspartnerships, and strengthen relationswith other countries. It wants to makeriends because it eels right, not be-cause it is convenient.

Here the vision o Slovenia as a young,modern country is also connected withthe spirit o its people, who eel a strongconnection to it. Slovenians appreci-ate their local goods, diversity, naturalwealth, products made in Slovenia, andthe successul people that were born andraised right down the street. hey arethe ones that eel Slovenia the most.

AMBASSADORS OF HE SPIRI OF VICORY

Te most successul promoters o the country and also the brand I Feel Sloveniaare its many athletes, skiers, and swimmers, who keep it in the spotlight with theircourage, victories, and sense o air play.

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HAVE YOU HEARD?

Te best-known slogan or the land on the sunny sideo the Alps was Slovenija, moja dežela (Slovenia, mycountry). It came out in the early 1980s and quickly con-quered everyone’s hearts ar beyond the purely tourismpurposes or which it was created.



ICONSSUPERHEROES:: ::

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MARIN KRPAN A man o extraordinary strength,amous or carrying his own horse.

KRALJ MAJAŽhe good king is asleep in the mountainand when his beard grows nine timesaround the stone table he shall awake.

PEER KLEPEChis weak-turned-powerul boy chasedthe invading urkish army back toIstanbul.

ZLAOROG

His golden horns were once the key to atreasure hidden in the mountains.

RIGLAV At 2,864 meters, Mount riglav is thehighest mountain in Slovenia.

BLEDProbably the destination touristslove the most.

PLANICAhe ski-jump capital o the world.

POSOJNA CAVEhis 20,570 m karst cave is thelongest cave system in the country.

LINDEN REE A linden lea is as Slovenian as itgets. All sorts o gatherings weretraditionally held around circulartables beneath a linden tree.

KRALJ MAJAŽ

BLED

POSOJNA CAVEPEER KLEPEC

LINDEN REE

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