Twenty years on, the largest EU enlargement presents an opportunity to draw lessons from past communication efforts and to prepare for the upcoming EU enlargement, which is once again high on the EU political agenda. For this reason, together with the Club of Venice, we decided to organise a conference in Slovenia, 26 April 2024, and invited Government representatives and communication experts to discuss and share knowledge and experiences on the subject, with a special focus on disinformation.

From 12 to 19 April 2024, the European Youth Week (EYW) will be organised by the European Commission. This event is organised biannually with aim to promote youth engagement, participation and active citizenship of young people all over Europe and beyond. Many activities will take place within this week and a lot of them will focus also on opportunities and achievements of the implementation of the European programmes in the field of youth.

The Government of the Republic of Slovenia adopted a decision of declaring the year 2024 as the Year of General Rudolf Maister, since it marks the 150th anniversary of his birth and the 90th anniversary of his death. The Archives of the Republic of Slovenia is paying its respect to this great Slovenian man by presenting to the audience a short documentary film that was written and directed by Milan Ljubić. By using documents, photographs and film shots of places where Maister resided, the author of the film portrays a narrative of Maister’s life and work.

Twenty years ago, Slovenians convincingly decided to join the European Union. The referendum took place on March 23, 2003, with nearly 90 percent of voters in favor of accession. Voter turnout was just under 60 percent, and the outcome of the referendum was binding and irrevocable for the national parliament.

If we know the rights and options that we have when shopping or travelling within the EU, we can better utilise the advantages of the European single market while avoiding various problems, risks and unnecessary expenses. Even more – with our awareness, we contribute to a higher quality of goods and services offered and to limiting unfair providers on the domestic or foreign market.

Since independence in 1991, Slovenia's key foreign policy objective was to become a member of the European Union. The National Assembly played an important role in achieving this goal. At the time of accession, its most important "European" tasks were to adapt the Slovenian legal order to European legislation and to approve Slovenia's negotiating positions for the negotiations with the European Commission.

This is the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). It was established in March 2011 by the Third Energy Package legislation and is one of the EU decentralised agencies.

This month's archivalia is a letter from the commander of the Reserve Police Troop »Wien« to the District Councillor in Celje Anton Dorfmeister, in which the German Captain asks for a written praise for his work in Celje or a written recommendation. In addition to having a direct effect on the fates of many inhabitants of Lower Styria, Mechels's wartime activities also left an indelible mark in the Dutch village of Trimunt, where in May 1943 he was responsible for the death of sixteen people.

This May, we are not only celebrating the 20th anniversary of Slovenia's accession to the EU, but also 20 years since the largest EU enlargement. Therefore Belgium, the current Presidency of the Council of the EU, has invited all ten countries that joined the EU at that time to illuminate the European path of the BRIGHT festival in Brussels with light installations.

Twenty years ago, the European Union consisted of 15 member states. In 2004, ten more countries were expected to join them. The enlargement posed a significant challenge in terms of ensuring the continued effectiveness and legitimacy of EU institutions. For example, only two of the candidate countries had a population larger than the average of the existing member states, which would mean that the political power of smaller countries would disproportionately increase after the enlargement.

The family of the famous diplomat Sigmund Herberstein is first recorded in Styria at the end of the 13th century. From the beginning of the 15th century, one of the family’s feudal estates was also the seigniory of Lupoglav. In 1525, however, the family decided to exchange their estates in Istria and in the Karst for the Neuberg Castle and two villages near Hrastovec. In February 1524, Sigmund wrote an interesting letter to his Estates's colleagues, informing them about this exchange of his family’s estates and stressing that the Herbersteins had no intention of continuing to pay taxes into the treasury of the Carniolan Estates.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia was among the first national parliaments of the European Union (EU) to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. The law for its ratification was adopted on January 29, 2008, at the beginning of Slovenia's first presidency of the Council of the EU and concurrently the European Council. The presidency itself was one of the reasons for the expedited process, as it aimed to demonstrate Slovenia's commitment to the European integration project.

The online column Archivalia of the Month has been published since January 2011. Its purpose is to promote the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia and its archival holdings. Presented in the column are archival documents that are interesting visually and content-wise, as well as newly acquired documents or the ones that have so far been overlooked. Also published are documents relating to various anniversaries, current events and many more.

Below you will find the Archivalias of the Month of 2024.

In 1937, the Union of the Savings Banks of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia printed a brochure consisting of articles, written by three housewives from Zagreb, Belgrade and Kranj. Saving was not only relevant during the world wars or around October 31, but has, in a way, been a constant in our lives. "Saving" brochure, preserved among the archival records of the Drava Banovina Savings Bank, is presented here as the archivalia for the month of January.

December 2023 marks the 60th anniversity of the opening of the Ljubljana airport at Brnik. Presented here as this month's archivalia are some of the "protocol" documents (invitation, guest list, programme of and report on the opening), which take us back to the time when the first stage of the construction of the new airport was completed and the airport was the scene of its first passenger plane landing.

This month's archivalia is a letter written by the Montenegrin partisan and national hero Komnen Cerović (1916-2000) and sent at the end of 1966 to the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In his letter he is asking why Milovan Đilas (1911-1995) was still in prison. The archivalia describes how Đilas went from being a member of the Party's innermost circle to being a first-class persona non-grata virtually overnight.

Among the preserved records of the Carniolan Provincial Estates in the registrature fascicle 54 one can also find letters written by Primož Trubar and several other Protestants of the province of Carniola. The majority of these letters were in their original form and in the Slovenian translation published by Jože Rajhman, but he included mostly letters written by the prominent Carniolan Protestants and omitted the correspondence of foreign Protestants. One of such unpublished letters is presented here as this month’s archivalia.

Although the underground waters of Hermann's Cave are now a home to seven olms, which today are considered to be the cave's main attraction, these aquatic salamanders actually originate from Postojna Cave and were only introduced to their new habitat in Hermann's Cave artificially. At the end of 1956, the removal of thirteen olms from Postojna Cave caused a major scandal that reverberated across the former Yugoslavia and the East and West Germany. Some of the preserved archival records on this story is presented here as this month's archivalia.

In the new Yugoslav state of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the so-called oblasts (administrative regions), which were to operate as the largest administrative and self-governing units in their respective territories, were established with the Vidovdan Constitution of June 1921. The constitution also stipulated the elections for the assemblies of each oblast. Assemblies of the Ljubljana and Maribor Oblasts had 107 representatives elected from 30 Slovenian districts and towns. Presented here as this month’s archivalia is a photograph of the members of the Oblast of Ljubljana assembly, which was taken after the assembly’s first session on February 23, 1927.

Commemorating the Year of Karel Destovnik – Kajuh, this month's archivalia presents a memoir record of Stane Semič about the meeting of Karel Destovnik and France Balantič during the time the Home Guard post in Grahovo was attacked and destroyed in November 1943. The document offers some intriguing information, which upon close critical inspection appears to be highly improbable. Instead, the document demonstrates the importance of critical study of archival sources and the lack of reliability of memoirs as a source of historical studies.