Slovenia Summary

The northernmost republic of what was once Yugoslavia, * Slovenia* currently appears the most stable, prosperous and welcoming of all Europe’s erstwhile communist countries. It was always the richest and most westernized of the Yugoslav federation, and apart from the Ten-Day War which brought it independence in 1991, it has avoided the strife which has plagued the republics to the south. For centuries, Slovenia was administered by German-speaking overlords and was, until 1918, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Slovenes absorbed the culture of their captors during this period while managing to retain a strong sense of ethnic identity through the Slav-rooted Slovene language, a close relation of Czech, Serbo-Croat and Slovak.