SLOVENIA

It’s time to unite dear Slovenia enthusiasts. To be Slovene means to love in a special kind of way – Slovene style.

Slovenes are people whose parents taught them to love their home country. No matter the roots, no matter the background, no mater the status.

No matter if they moved abroad for work temporarily or emigrated decades ago.

Slovenes are people of different origin living in Slovenia – a strip of diverse land, a small but lovely country in Southcentral Europe, right at the crossroads, where nations have been mingling for thousands of years, either traversing or settling to stay.

This is where the Celts, Romans, and early Slavs came together to rally.

A few centuries on it bordered to the Kingdom of the Langobards, the home country of the Friulan people, present day Italians.

Numerous other nations have crossed swords in this area.

Germanic peoples raided from the North, Tyrolians from the Northwest. Magyars charged from the East while the warriors from the Ottoman Empire steamed up from the Southeast.

Uskos, irregular solders retreating from the Balkan battlefields and the restless Ottoman Empire, settled in the Southeast.

While the recent past saw newcomers from the former Yugoslav Republic, fellow citizens of a once strongly connected Republic, who found a new home on the territory of present-day Slovenia.

I probably left out numerous other nations, but I think you get the hang of it. The idea of this corner of the earth safely nested under of Mt Triglav’s watchful eye brought together a colourful mix of cultures, temperament and values.

This over time – about two thousand years and more – started forming the demographic basis of the present-day Slovene. Luckily. If our ancestors would have been nuzzling only amongst each other there would have been nothing here to see.

I personally think that a true Slovene is someone who feels Slovene at heart, no matter the roots – a true citizen of the Republic of Slovenia displays respect for his/her home country, its beautiful nature, cultural heritage, history and all its peculiarities. Even the not-so-great ones.

I see a friend of Slovenia in someone who regards and can relate to these values, despite being deep down Japanese, Egyptian, Albanian, German, Serbian, Italian, Croatian, etc. These are the kind of people I can relate to, respect and call friends.

Now it’s time to unite dear Slovenes and friends of Slovenia, join forces and display true kinship to show the big, wide world that this small country and its kin have a beautiful place in the sun and on the world stage of places worth discovering.