ABSTRACT
The retrospective must start from the time when Slovenians and German Austrians were still living in a common state, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which committed involuntary suicide as a consequence of its inability to solve the problem of multinationality. During the period from 1918 to 1991, Austro-Slovenian relations therefore have to be carefully distinguished from the interstate relations between Austria and Yugoslavia. Both sides had their own minorities, and reciprocity in policy towards minorities was much talked about, although the mutual reciprocity was actually expressed not in the promotion but in the suppression of those minorities. Austrian interest in cultural exchange with its southern neighbour was probably motivated by a latent conviction of cultural superiority. Cultural contacts started even before the Yugoslavian declaration of early 1951 that the state of war with Austria had come to an end, and during the period when the 1945 model school regulations for minorities were still in force in Carinthia.
