Retrospektive, letnik IX, številka 1

Occupation Borders as High-Intensity Border-Making: Slovenia, 1941–1945

Kornelija Ajlec and Božo Repe

DOI 10.64651/retrospektive.2026.9.1.2 📋

Prejeto: 15. oktobra 2025 | Sprejeto: 17. aprila 2026 | Objavljeno: 15. junija 2026

Occupation Borders as High-Intensity Border-Making: Slovenia, 1941–1945 [ PDF ] Odpri PDF Occupation Borders as High-Intensity Border-Making: Slovenia, 1941–1945 [ PDF ] Prenesi PDF Retrospektive_IXx1-02_AjlecRepe_OccupationBordersSlovenia

Povzetek članka

Aprila 1941 so nacistična Nemčija, fašistična Italija, Madžarska in Neodvisna država Hrvaška razdelile slovensko etnično ozemlje. Vsak od štirih okupatorjev je aneksijo utemeljeval z lastnimi zgodovinskimi, etničnimi ali civilizacijskimi argumenti, a pri tem posegal po strukturno enakih potezah: zasedbo je prikazoval kot restitucijo ali popravo zgodovinske krivice, ne kot osvajanje. Nemčija je govorila o vrnitvi zgodovinsko nemških dežel, Italija o rimskih in beneških precedensih, Madžarska o restituciji ozemlja, odtrganega s Trianonsko pogodbo, NDH pa je Slovence razglašala za „alpske Hrvate“.

Iz primerjalne analize štirih okupacijskih con izhaja štiristopenjski model trajnih učinkov kratkotrajnih, a zelo prisilnih meja: intenziteta prisile, demografski pretresi, zamenjava upravnih struktur ter prekinitev uveljavljenih prostorskih rutin. Primerjava med nemško cono, kjer so vse štiri sestavine delovale z maksimalno intenzivnostjo, in madžarsko, kjer sta bili intenziteta prisile in demografska destabilizacija bistveno nižji, ponuja notranjo primerjalno evidenco za ta model.

Članek predlaga tipološko razlikovanje med klasičnimi fantomskimi mejami, ki nastajajo z dolgotrajnim institucionalnim ponotranjenjem in postopoma slabijo, ter prisilnimi okupacijskimi mejami, ki povzročajo vztrajanje travm kot ostanek preloma, ne kot preostanek normalizacije. Ključno je tudi razlikovanje med prostorskimi ponotranjenji, ki so pretežno lokalna in postopoma slabijo z obnovo materialnega tkiva prostora, ter diskurzivnimi ponotranjenji, torej legitimacijskimi jeziki zgodovinske restitucije in civilizacijske hierarhije, ki so nacionalno in nadnacionalno prenosljiva ter ostajajo politiki na voljo ne glede na formalne ozemeljske dogovore in se v razmerah krize hitro ponovno uporabijo. To razlikovanje pojasnjuje, zakaj ozemeljske ureditve po spopadih v jugovzhodni Evropi tako pogosto ne razrešijo temeljnih političnih napetosti. Slovenija v letih 1941–1945 je metodološki model za razumevanje prisilne teritorializacije v jugovzhodni Evropi in širše.


Viri in literatura

Arhivski viri

  • SI AS 1626, Pooblaščenec državnega komisarja za utrjevanje nemštva, Urad Radovljica, 1942 – 1943[Commissioner of the State Commissioner for the Consolidation of Germandom, Radovljica Office, 1942–1943].

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Kontakti avtorjev

Kornelija Ajlec, dr.
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of History

Kenan Çayır, dr.
İstanbul Bilgi University, Department of Sociology

Zvezdana Kovač
European Fund for the Balkans

Kriton Kuci, dr.
Department of Political Science and International Relations Faculty of Law and Humanities, Mediterranean University of Albania

Angelos Palikidis
Professor of History Didactics
Department of Humanities, School of Humanities, Democritus University of Thrace

Srđan Radović, dr.
Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Božo Repe, dr.
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of History

Vassiliki Sakka, dr.
Association for History Education in Greece


Abstract (Izvleček članka v angleščini)

In April 1941, Slovene-inhabited territory was divided among four Axis powers: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary, and the Independent State of Croatia, each of which claimed that the occupied territory was historically or ethnically its own. This article contributes to phantom border studies on two levels. First, it argues that the key variable in producing the long-term effects of borders is not their duration, but rather the combination of intense coercion, demographic disruption, the replacement of administrative structures, and the violent interruption of established spatial practices. Second, the article distinguishes between classical phantom borders, which emerge through long-term institutional internalization, and coercive occupation borders, which, due to violence and contested sovereignty, produce primarily traumatic and conflictual forms of persistence. Populations often functionally adapted to such borders yet never granted them normative legitimacy. The article further distinguishes between spatial afterlives, which gradually weaken at the local level, and discursive afterlives, that is, legitimizing languages of historical restitution and civilizational hierarchy that remain politically available long after the borders themselves have disappeared. The article thereby refines the existing conceptual framework of phantom borders and proposes a model applicable to other cases of short-lived yet highly coercive border-making in Southeast Europe and beyond.

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