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FIRST EDITION OF ZGODOVINSKI ČASOPIS BRINGS NEW HISTORICAL INSIGHTS

^{A WINDOW TO THE PAST
SLOVENIA—SPRING 1948}

On 12 June 1948, the first edition of the Zgodovinski časopis (“Historical Review”) academic journal was officially published under the editorship of Slovene medieval historian Bogo Grafenauer. Another fruit of the Slovene Renaissance, the journal’s contributors are an esteemed panel of accomplished historians from throughout the Republic, each of whom has apparently rejoiced with a new outlet at last emerging for historical dialogue. Its realms include the history of Slovenia, the history of the Slovenes, and the history of the South Slavs—for these subjects, the journal’s editorial staff already has a publication list backed up for the next two of its biannual editions. Peer-reviewed articles and reviews of recent historical publications will form Zgodovinski časopis’s chief content; the first edition contained the most prestigious of these submitted throughout the journal’s year-long development process.

The opening entry was a comprehensive historical analysis of the medieval Holy Union of Carniola and Carantania, while another would focus on the Union’s end and its evolution into the Duchy of the Wends under Kocelj. Further submissions expanded upon the historical understanding of the context of the Zedinjena Slovenija (“United Slovenia”) movement of the mid-1800s and the House of Koceljič’s patronage of France Prešeren, alleged to have saved the poet from his heavy drinking and contributed to his long life of eighty-three years. Prešeren completed two epic poems considered to be the Slovene national epics: Krst pri Savici (“Baptism on the Sava”) and Tujčeva smrt (“The Death of a Stranger”). The journal also published a modernized and annotated version of Adam Bohorič’s brief biography of Primož Trubar; the two had been contemporaries, with Trubar publishing the first texts in Slovene and Bohorič codifying the first Slovene alphabet. The final entry was a solemn review of the Tolmin Peasant Revolt of 1713, exploring the cruelties and abuses that culminated in the violence.

In the absence of a truly dedicated academic journal for historical study, Zgodovinski časopis fast became the most respected publication in the field; Grafenauer would go on to label it an ‘intellectual lighthouse’ in 1949. It was indeed a source of light in Slovene historical study, but so too was it a prism refracting the light of Slovene academia in a particular way—the journal’s contributors were all united in the view that the study of history was a way to legitimize the Slovene nation, but it gathered their diversity in thought and interest, shining forth a panorama of the Slovene people. The journal’s second edition is due in December, and its release will coincide with an international historical conference entitled “The Medieval Roots of the Slovene Nation.”