By: Jože Biščak
Slovenians have a beautiful homeland. We can be proud of it, and justifiably so, and we can only remember our ancestors with gratitude for recognising the natural resources in these places as their home. We have been denied for a long time, even Milan Kučan, the first President of independent Slovenia, stated that there is no Slovenian identity, that we have the identity of the Balkans. For a hard-line communist who never cared about the nation, this is not even a little bit strange. And care causes that the academic circles continued to bury their heads in the sand after the independence, and allowed the artificially created Venetic theory of the arrival of the southern Slavs in the 6th century, whose descendants are Slovenes, to still prevail (and be taught in schools) in Slovenia. Nothing could be more false.
This year’s 30th anniversary of independence, when Slovenians got their country after many centuries, is a great opportunity to fully expose the charlatanry and humiliation of historians, ethnologists and others who are adorned with the titles of scientists and academics. Throughout the year, we will have a special section Slovenes and Slovenism in the Demokracija magazine, we will publish several books and publications in which we will reveal the hidden truths about our origins layer by layer. We know that we will receive ridicule, maybe even outrage, but we will be happy if we convince someone with a multidisciplinary explanation of the numerous proofs of the first beginnings of the Slovene nation, and above all help to clash arguments and open debate in closed academic circles. We will go even further. We plan to publish a children’s picture book for the youngest, and a booklet about the true origin of Slovenes for primary and secondary school students, which will be a teaching aid so that they can compare it with the “truth” they hear in educational institutions. Then they will decide for themselves who to trust. And no one, no one at all, will stop us from doing this, even though we know in advance that we will be labelled as staunch and extreme nationalists. That’s okay. But what about those who have deliberately and intentionally erased between 20,000 and 30,000 originally Slovene words from the vocabulary in the last 150 years.
Old Germanic and Romanesque books tell of a large, ancient people who lived in these places, but they are neither the ancestors of the Germans, nor the Romans, nor the Celts. What were they then? Aliens? No, they were Slovenes. This indigenous population is older than the Romans, before their invasion they retreated to the hard-to-reach alpine valleys. Let’s ask ourselves, how in 382 BC a beautiful “Schiavina” – a Slovene, “daughter of a priest” in the sanctuary of the God Mars, could get into the history of the city of Asti in Piedmont? It was then that the Gauls came across the Alps with General Brennus at the helm. He was so enchanted by the beauty of the native inhabitant that he took her as his wife and built a castle, which was given the name “Rocca Schiavina”. The name of the hamlet and road is still on the city map.
This is also evidenced by the genetic records. These, along the paternal line (haplogroup on the male Y-chromosome, which are transmitted only from father to sons) clearly show that we Slovenes are not South Slavs at all. Haplogroup N, which men behind Carpathians have, is also not present among Slovenes. This is direct proof that Slovenians did not come from behind the Carpathians. Even more obvious are traces of female mitochondrial DNA, which is only transmitted from mother to children and supports the existence of our ancestors in these places more than 30,000 years ago. But it is not just about genetic records. Evidence of autochthony is found in the cultures of mountain pastures, pastoralism, mining, and agriculture. Also in the language, namely in the multitude of old field names, myths and legends (Slovenes do not have any South Slavic myth), and pre-Christian customs, traditions, and beliefs.
We will write about all this and reveal the hidden truth about Slovenes as an ancient people. Finally, just a few questions that will get many off track: Why does Brač (island of Brač) chakavian have so many Slovene words? Why do even German historians admit that the name of the Pasterze glacier is of Slovenian origin? And how many Slovenian words are still used by Germans? What does the millennium-old substrate language indicate?
Jože Biščak, editor-in-chief of Democracija magazine and president of the Slovenian Association of Patriotic Journalists. He is the author of three books: Stories from the Hayek Cafe, Notes from a Conservative Liberal and Journey with Orwell.