The A to Z of Slovenia

Leopoldina Plut-Pregelj is assistant professor of didactics at the Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana and a research associate at College of Education, University of Maryland. She has published three books and over 70 articles. Carole Rogel retired from Ohio State University where she taught history. In addition to numerous articles, she has published The Slovenes and Yugoslavism 1890-1914 (1977), The Breakup of Yugoslavia and the War in Bosnia (1998), and The Breakup of Yugoslavia and Its Aftermath (2004).

For more than 1,300 years Slovenes had lived in Eastern Europe without having a separate Slovene state, but in December of 1990, they voted for independence, or, put more appropriately, for "disassociation" from Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, Slovenia had to fight for its independence, which it did not fully achieve until 1995 after its bloody disintegration with Yugoslavia was over. Since independence, however, Slovenia has prospered; its economy is far ahead of other former communist states and in 2004 Slovenia acceded to both NATO and the European Union, the only republic of former Yugoslavia to do so. The A to Z of Slovenia covers the history of Slovenia and its struggle to gain independence from communism. This is done through a detailed chronology, an introduction, appendixes, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on some of the more significant persons, places, and events; institutions and organizations; and political, economic, social, cultural, and religious facets.