Ljubljana

Slovenian: Ljubljana

Latin: Labacum; Italian: Lubiana

The German name ‘Leibach’ was first recorded between 1112 and 1125. The name is thought to derive from the Old Bavarian word ‘Labach’ (= marshland). The Slavic or Romance name ‘Luwigana’ was first mentioned in 1146.

Ljubljana is situated at^46° 03' north latitude,^14° 30' east longitude, at an altitude of 298 metres above sea level, approximately 90 km north-east of Trieste and 390 km south-west of Vienna.

Carniola

Ljubljana has been the capital of the Republic of Slovenia since 1991. The city is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, the Orthodox Church and the Islamic community of Slovenia.

The town’s coat of arms depicts a silver town wall with a watchtower on a red background, atop which sits a green dragon. The dragon may refer to St George, the town’s patron saint.

Archaeological finds date back to the Palaeolithic period. Permanent settlement began around 2000 BC. The Roman settlement of Emona/Aemona (Colonia Iulia Aemona) already had a fortified city wall by 14 AD and was razed by the Huns in 452. Archaeological finds provide evidence of Slavic settlement from the 6th to the 9th century.

As the settlements and manors between the River Ljubljana, the fortified hill on which the castle stands, and the remains of the Roman settlement of Emona grew together, the city of Ljubljana began to develop from 1230 onwards. Its early development was significantly aided by two factors: firstly, by the Spanheim family, who, as Dukes of Carinthia, assumed control of the region in the 11th century; and secondly, by the trade routes that crossed here: The Pannonian–Adriatic trade route ran north–south, whilst the trade route to Croatia and Bosnia ran west–east. Between 1270 and 1276, the Bohemian King Otokar Přemysl took possession of Carniola, including Ljubljana. In 1278, the city fell to the Habsburgs, who handed it over to the Count of Gorizia (1279–1335). In 1335, Carniola and Ljubljana came definitively under Habsburg rule. From then on, Ljubljana served as a base for the expansion of Habsburg rule towards the Adriatic and Trieste. Following the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and the deterioration of relations between the Habsburgs and the Republic of Venice, the city’s strategic importance grew in the 15th century.

With the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, Ljubljana became the capital of Yugoslav Slovenia. Owing to the centralised constitution, the country was divided into two districts, which is why Ljubljana was administratively responsible for only half of the Slovenian territory. However, with the establishment of the royal dictatorship in 1929, the city regained its status as the administrative capital when it became the capital of the Drava Banovina (Dravska banovina), which encompassed the entire Slovenian territory of Yugoslavia.

In 1941, Ljubljana was occupied by the Italian army and became the seat of the High Commissioner for the Provincia di Lubiana, which comprised the majority of Lower and Inner Carniola. After the German Nazi leadership had decided to resettle Germans from the territories occupied by Italy, in January 1942 – just as the Gottscheer Germans had been resettled to the area along the Sava and Sotla rivers – 1,055 Germans from Ljubljana and other parts of the Provincia di Lubiana were resettled to Upper Carniola (several hundred resettled later).^[1]

As the traditional Slovenian parties sought a modus vivendi with Italy, a small group of communists within the resistance movement took the initiative and founded the ‘Liberation Front’. Various political groups were represented within it, but the Communists soon declared the struggle for settlement with their political opponents a ‘socialist revolution’. Following Italy’s surrender in 1943, the Province of Ljubljana became part of the German operational zone ‘Adriatic Coastal Region’. The provincial administration was headed by a Slovenian president, who reported to the German High Commissioner in Trieste. On 9 May 1945, Ljubljana was occupied by partisan troops and the whole of Slovenia was incorporated into the new communist Yugoslavia. After the war, the German-speaking population was expelled from Ljubljana, as was the case in other parts of Yugoslavia and Slovenia. According to figures from the Yugoslav secret state police, 447 German-speaking residents from Ljubljana and 89 from the surrounding area were resettled to Austria in 1945–46 (though the actual figure is certainly higher).^[2]

In 1945, Ljubljana became the capital of the Republic of Slovenia. It played a significant role in the Slovenian conflicts with the communist leadership in Belgrade from 1945 onwards. In the 1980s, Ljubljana became the centre of resistance against the pressure exerted by the Yugoslav and Serbian communist elites.

In the 14th century, Ljubljana had a population of around 4,000; in the 18th century, over 9,000; and in 1846, 18,583.^[3] In the 17th and 18th centuries, the upper classes spoke German and Italian, whilst the working classes used a mixture of Slovenian and German words. Language practices changed markedly in the final decades of the 19th century; in the 1880 census, out of 24,511 inhabitants, only 5,719 people (23.3 per cent) stated German as their everyday language. Subsequent censuses recorded the following figures:^[4]

The rise in population prior to the First World War was due not only to new residents moving in but also to the expansion of the town’s boundaries.

The Jewish community had only a few members: following the expulsion of the Jews from Inner Austria in 1515, it was not until the period of French rule in 1811 that a Jewish family settled in the city again. In the second half of the 19th century, just over 100 Jews lived in Ljubljana.

Population growth after the First World War^[5]

Since the Middle Ages, Ljubljana’s main source of income had been commission-based wholesale trade between Italy and the north (and vice versa). Although industrial enterprises began to emerge in the 19th century, the city did not initially become a significant economic centre. New factories were also built after 1918, but Ljubljana did not develop into a major industrial centre until after 1945. In the final decades of the 20th century, Ljubljana had the largest number of industrial workers in Slovenia. Trade and transport remained important sectors of the economy. Following Slovenia’s independence in 1991, the city underwent a process of deindustrialisation.

Even in the first half of the 19th century, servants, craftsmen, assistants and apprentices made up the majority of the population; only around one-eighth belonged to the nobility, the clergy or the civil service, or lived off an annuity. In the second half of the 19th century, the number of workers, civil servants, self-employed professionals and members of the Slovenian intelligentsia rose. In 1921, less than 26 per cent of the population was employed in industry and the skilled trades. It was not until after 1945 that there was a sharp rise in the number of people employed in industry and the economy: their numbers continued to rise until 1972, before subsequently falling again. This downward trend continued even after 1991.

The Diocese of Ljubljana was founded in 1461 by Emperor Frederick III to curb the influence of Venice and the Patriarch of Aquileia within Habsburg territory. The diocese was placed under the authority of the Holy See. From the early 1540s, the city administration was in Protestant hands. As a result of the recatholisation, the Protestant citizens were forced to leave the city. Joseph II elevated the diocese to a metropolitan see in 1787. From 1807, Ljubljana was once again a simple diocese and was directly subordinate to the Holy See until 1830; from 1830 to 1933 it was subordinate to the Archdiocese of Gorizia; and since 1933 it has once again been subordinate to the Holy See.

In 1851, Ljubljana once again acquired a Protestant church. The number of Protestants remained small (365 in 1910); the majority of them were German-speaking citizens. In 1934, an Orthodox church was built in the city. In 1961, Pope John XXIII elevated the Diocese of Ljubljana to an archdiocese under the Holy See. After 1945, membership of the Evangelical Lutheran community increased, as did that of the Orthodox communities, following the influx of people from Serbia and Montenegro.

The first printing works in Ljubljana was established in 1575. By the end of the 18th century, there were already three printing works in the city. In 1784, Ignatz A. Kleinmayr began printing the *Laibacher Zeitung*, which was published until 1918. In the second half of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, the most important Slovenian newspapers and magazines were published in Ljubljana; between 1869 and 1893, the German community also published its own newspaper ( the *Laibacher Tagblatt* from 1869 to 1880, 1880–1893 *Laibacher Wochenblatt*). Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1918, the majority of Slovenian publishing houses were based in Ljubljana; it was here that most Slovenian newspapers and books were published (and continue to be published today).

• Vasilij Melik, Tone Ferenc, Miro Pak, Martin Horvat, Andreja Žigon: Ljubljana. In: Enciklopedija Slovenije 6. Ljubljana 1992, pp. 218–248.
• Ferdo Gestrin (ed.): Zgodovina Ljubljane. Prispevki za monografijo [The History of Ljubljana. Contributions to a Monograph]. Ljubljana 1984.
• Stefan Karner: The German-speaking ethnic group in Slovenia. Aspects of its development 1939–1997. Klagenfurt et al. 1998, passim.
• Dragan Matić: Nemci v Ljubljani 1861–1918 [The Germans in Ljubljana 1861–1918]. Ljubljana 2002.
• Breda Mihelič: Urbanistični razvoj Ljubljane [The Urban Development of Ljubljana]. Ljubljana 1983.
• Dušan Nećak (ed.): “The Germans” in Slovenia 1941–1955 [“The Germans” in Slovenia 1941–1955]. Ljubljana 1998 (Proceedings of the Faculty of Arts), passim.
• Peter Vodopivec: Ljubljana. The Capital of the Republic of Slovenia. In: Harald Heppner (ed.): Capitals between the Sava, the Bosphorus and the Dnieper. History – Function – National Symbolism. Vienna et al. 1998, pp. 9–29.

[1] Tone Ferenc: *The Germans in Slovenia during the Second World War* [The Germans in Slovenia during the Second World War]. In: Nećak (ed.): *"Nemci" na Slovenskem*, p. 109.

[2] Ibid., pp. 136–139. According to another report from 1952, ‘only’ 262 German-speaking residents were expelled from Ljubljana; however, this figure is far too low.

[3] Sergij Vilfan: Zgodovina Ljubljane do začetka 16. stoletja [The History of Ljubljana up to the Beginning of the 16th Century]. In: Gestrin (ed.): Zgodovina Ljubljane, p. 88; Jože Žontar: Ljubljana in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. In: Gestrin (ed.): Zgodovina Ljubljane, p. 172.

[4] Matić: Germans in Ljubljana, p. 433.

[5] Melik, Ferenc, Pak, Horvat, Žigon: Ljubljana, pp. 232–235.

Peter Vodopivec: Laibach/Ljubljana. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2013. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/54297.html (as at 18 May 2017).