Europe Trip 2025 - Ljubljana - History

These photos are from the National Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana.

Pre-WW1

Slovenia was in the Austrian part (yellow), and Croatia mostly in the Hungarian part (gray), but also in the Austrian part (Dalmatia) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A few other parts of the future Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Herzegovina) were administered jointly (red):

The Austro-Hungarian Empire: the first "European Union" - not voluntary, but people liked Franz Josef. Two of my grandparents were born in Austria-Hungary during his reign, specifically in Galicia.

WW1

A Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, which triggered the Great War, as WW1 was called until WW2.

Happy faces mean that these soldiers have not seen war yet.

This is what war is: destruction and suffering. This photo was coloured by AI.

The original.

It's often children who suffer the most. In the beginning of the XX century, in poor regions in Europe, shoes were a luxury, and children often walked barefoot, even in winter.

A scene from Galicia. Soldiers of the 17th Infantry Regiment resting before the battle of Majdan Gologorski, August 26th, 1914.

A mass of dead soldiers on the eastern front.

Demolished fortress XI, Dunkowiczki in Przemyśl (today Poland), 1915.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Many nations gained independence after WW1. Smaller ones joined up and created Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Note: Slovenia had no access to the Adriatic sea.

Map of the international telephone connections of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1933

Travel destinations - in the upper right corner: Warszawa. Notice that Koper is not marked - Trieste was the go to place.

Snow in Ljubljana

Romanian born queen Maria with her children.

The first official visit of Crown Prince and Regent Alexander Karađorđević to Ljubljana occurred on June 26, 1920.

The king becomes a dictator in 1929.

Like many Europeans, Slovenians were also emigrating to America, although it became difficult in the 1930s.

Croatian and Macedonian extremists assassinated king Aleksander in 1934.

Slovenian actress

WW2

WW2 started in Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Yugoslav partisan.

Styrian (Austria) uniform.

The new Europe with Germany where Poland used to be and Croatia where Slovenia used to be.

In 1943-44 when Ljubljana was under German control a German-allied Slovene Home Guard was created by Leon Rupnik and others. 

Communist Yugoslavia

Tito - the man who created communist Yugoslavia.

Arrival of the returned Slovene Home Guards in Kranj, 30 May 1945.

Many of them will be killed by Tito.

People tried to escape the worker's paradise, in this case communist Czechoslovakia.

Students critisizing market reforms? Yugoslavia was not like Poland.

Building a motorway

Building a nuclear power plant

The same thing was going on in other communist countries that allowed citizens to travel abroad, for example Poland.

Tito died in Ljubljana in 1980.

Independent Slovenia

Tito street renamed to Danube street. The same thing was happening in other communist states: renaming of streets, squares, schools, even cities.

Like in other communist countries, many state enterprises went bust when communism ended. This one, Gradis, built, among other things, the 39-stories Intraco I skyscraper in Warsaw, which I passed everyday on the way to school.