ABSTRACT
The construction of Slovenes’ modern identity includes the Slovene nation’s affiliation to the cradle of Slovenia in the legendary ancient principality of Carantania or Carinthia, which was some three times larger than Slovenia and also covered parts of present-day Hungary and Austria. The first banknote of the independent Slovenia had an etching of the “prince-stone” used by princes of Carantania during a ceremony of taking their oath from the middle of the eighth to the fifteenth century. After the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, Slovenia was divided between Italy, Germany and Hungary. During the Second World War rulers of the Carinthian and Styrian regions tried to eliminate Slovenes and the war divided the Slovenes. There were military and some other forms of resistance led by the Slovene National Liberation Front, which was constituted on a wide political and social basis and operated primarily in Ljubljana.
