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The second part refers to the continuous identity of the Slovenes from the 6th century
onwards, even though »…the identities of the inhabitants were different at that time«. The
inhabitants north of the Karavanke mountain range considered themselves Carantanians and
were also called thus by their Bavarian and Lombard neighbors, while south of them lived the
Carniolans«, both peoples were Slav, but not Slovene (Peter Štih: 2006 and his other works,
listed in the article). According to the same author, the Carantanians were only »made«
Slovenes from Linhart onwards (the name Slovenes is first mentioned in 1550 in Trubar's
Catechismus, and Slovenia as late as in a poem by Jovan Vesel Koseski in 1844); to speak of
Slovenes in the early Middle Ages »is nothing other than nationalizing history in retrospect;
it means to create an imaginary image of a national history before it was even begun.«
Moreover, in the case of Slovenes regional identity is prevailing until the end of the 19th
century.
It is true, however, that we, Slovenes, can count Carantanians as our ancestors (also in the
linguistic sense), yet they were not the only ones.
The third part refers to Slovenes as oppressed peasants without their own upper classes, who
suffered due to national affiliation (although it played no part in the feudal relations nor in the
colonization of German peasants on Slovene territory, since the owners paid no attention to
nationality; they did not care what color the cat was, as long as it caught mice; the feudal lords
on today's Slovene territory were as autochthonous as the Slovenes themselves, they were
integrated into the environment, they lived with them and contributed to the development of
the environment, they at least partly also spoke the local dialect, which is proved in the works
of Štih, Maja Žvanut and Marko Štuhec, as well as other medievalists).
The fourth part refers to the continuous loss of Slovene territory, which had reached far into
Austria and needs to be regained (it was in fact a Slav territory, and was designated
»Yugoslav« between the wars). The image of Carinthia, as a sort of lost Kosovo, became
fortified in the Slovene consciousness after World War I, when the inhabitants (also a large
portion of Slovenes) opted for Austria instead of the Kingdom of SCS at a plebiscite. The
myth of Carantania and a lost »Slovene« territory has been preserved to this very day. It has
also received support from the most important historians. The leading Slovene medievalist
after World War II Bogo Grafenauer, for instance, published a book in 1952 entitled
Ustoličevanje koroških vojvod in država karantanskih Slovencev [Enthronement of the Dukes
of Carinthia and the State of the Carantanian Slovenes], while in the German title of the
abstract, instead of Slovenes it is correctly written Carantanian Slavs - »Karantanenslawen«.
(Grdina: 1996, Štih: 2006).
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The fifth part refers to the alleged early (and then until 1990 lost) democratic tradition of
Slovenes, connected with the enthronement of dukes – a special feudal ritual, which had its
roots in the older enthronement of the Carantanian princes, and was preserved in a modified
form until 1414 (the last to be merely symbolically enthroned by Slovene peasants was Ernest
Železni). At first authority was granted to the prince by a tribal or people's convention, and
later on this function was taken over by "kosezi" or freemen (a sort of higher, free peasant
class). In the end this was merely a ritual without content, since the prince was actually
enthroned by the Franconian (Germanic) ruler. The ritual was carried out at the Prince's
Stone, a part of a Roman column, which had originally probably stood at Krn Castle (Austrian
Carinthia). The nationally romantic image made the Prince's Stone a cult object, which also
appeared upon the attaining of independence on money vouchers, the predecessors of the
tolar, which caused protests by the nationalistic Carinthian politicians lead by Jörg Haider.
When Slovenia introduced the Euro this year, it printed the Prince's Stone on the coin for two
cents and the story of the protests was repeated (there was perhaps some wisdom in
presuming that the coins for one and two cents will be cancelled in the EU). In 2005 Haider
had the monument moved from the Provincial Museum in Klagenfurt to the Carinthian
Provincial Parliament (most likely to emphasize that the enthroning tradition is connected
with Carinthia and not with the Slovenes and their recently formed state). In 1990, after the
first multi-party election, there was also a tendency to inaugurate the Slovene Presidency and
the President at a place called Vače, the geometrical centre of Slovenia, after the model of the
enthronement at Gosposvetsko polje, which the four members of the Presidency and its
President, Milan Kučan, refused. The ritual of the symbolic passing of authority to the
Carantanian Prince and the Duke of Carinthia by the peasants is said to have directly
influenced the American statesman Thomas Jefferson and the creation of the American
Declaration of Independence, although there is no historical evidence of this. The ritual was
mentioned in 1580 by the French jurist Jean Bodin; in a translation of Bodin's book, owned by
Jefferson, this page was marked and it was sufficient for certain authors (Joseph Felicijan) to
believe that Jefferson saw in the enthronement a confirmation that hereditary monarchies
must have a contractual nature. This viewpoint had already been overthrown as exaggerated
in the seventies by Bogo Grafenauer, and it reached a mythical peak during the visit of Bill
Clinton in Slovenia in June 1999, when the alleged connection was mentioned as a fact in
toasts at Brdo by Milan Kučan and Clinton. Kučan with the statement that already the
President Thomas Jefferson »when forming the American Declaration of Independence had
strongly leaned on the famous ritual of our Slovene ancestors, with which a thousand years
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