United Slovenia
United Slovenia ( Slovenian Zedinjena Slovenija ) was the name and program that came about when the Slovenian Union was formed on April 20, 1848 in Vienna with Franc Miklošič as spokesman. The program was based on the ideas of Matija Majar-Ziljski and a petition in Graz , Austria about a Slovenian kingdom within the Habsburg Empire .
Petitions
United Slovenia demanded the establishment of a Kingdom of Slovenia with its own Reichstag and that this should be part of the Habsburg Monarchy, but not the German Empire . The Slovenian language should be put on an equal footing with the German language and introduced in schools and public administration. The petition was bilingual and was printed in several thousand copies, with the attached leaflet Kaj bomo Slovenci cesarja prosili - What we Slovenes ask the emperor , which was in circulation, to collect signatures. United Slovenia was a radical break with previous Slovenian cultural and political positions. The pamphlet argued that the Habsburg monarchy should be reorganized. The leaders of the Slovenian nationalist movement realized that the Slavs could form the majority in a federal Austria and wanted administrative, political and economic independence. Similar petitions were drawn up by the Slovenian associations during this period in the cities where Slovenes lived: Graz , Vienna , Ljubljana , Klagenfurt and Gorizia . Slovenes in Hungary and Venice were also included in the boundaries proposed by United Slovenia.
result
The demands were not supported by Slovenian citizens or scholars. Although Janez Bleiweis (1808–1881) accepted the program in principle or at least did not reject it, he lacked the “spiritual strength” among the Slovenes to implement it. Bleiweis was the founder and editor of the conservative magazine Kmetijske in rokodelske novice - Agricultural and craft news and he had a realistic picture of the attitude of the Slovenes on the subject. The idea of dividing historically developed areas and the creation of new borders for a Slovenia that did not yet exist were alien to most Slovenes. Although they saw themselves as Slovenes, part of their identity resided in the regions and provinces as their homeland, more so than in the Habsburg Empire.