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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.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Edvard Ravnikar. Upon the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia has designated 2023 as the Year of Edvard Ravnikar, in celebration of his extensive architectural opus. Experts in the field of architecture and art history rank Ravnikar among the most important architects in Slovenia, and his creations have become an indispensable part of the Slovenian cultural heritage. One of his first post-war commissions was the making of the plans for the blocks of flats in Nova Gorica. Presented here as this month's archivalia are the floor plans and details on windows and doors of such a block of flats in Nova Gorica.

In 1783, Alois Kappus von Pichelstein began his work as the archivist at the Carniolan Provincial Estates' archive, the first employee ever to hold this title, and remained at his post until 1788. In the summer of 1785, when Inner Austrian Gubernium in Graz sent for the founding charter of the Flachenfeld's canonry, the Estates' archive was just allocated its first suitable space, and its archival documents were due to numerous moving around in considerable state of disarray. Kappus set about arranging the collection of archival documents and was only able to find the missing charter at the start of December 1785. He immmediately sent it to Graz, and, apologizing for the delay, described his efforts in arranging and processing the Estates' archive.

Between February 21 and March 5, 2023, Planica was hosting FIS Nordic World Ski Championship, and in the first days of April, the valley below the Ponce mountain range was also the venue for the closing competitions of this year's Ski Jumping World Cup.
Ski competitions in Planica near Rateče have a very long tradition. This is clearly reflected in the film Ski Race for the Yugoslav Championship in Planica near Rateče, which was shot by a photographer and Slovenian film pioneer Veličan Bešter (1891-1938) on February 26, 1922. In addition to being of extraordinary importance both for the history of the Slovenian cinematography as well as for the history of the Slovenian sport, this Bešter's film debut is also the first preserved documentary reportage film by a Slovenian filmmaker and was produced by his newly founded film company.
In 2021, the film was digitally restored and in the process of doing so, we discovered certain details that are very interesting in the broader context of the history of the Slovenian film. During this year's World Nordic Ski Championship, the Slovenian Film Archives donated a digital copy of the film to the museum of the Planica Nordic Centre, where it will be on display for the visitors.Smučarska tekmovanja v Planici imajo zelo dolgo tradicijo. To dokazuje tudi film Smučarska tekma za prvenstvo Jugoslavije v Planici pri Ratečah, ki ga je Veličan Bešter posnel 26. februarja 1922. Film je izjemnega pomena tako za zgodovino slovenske kinematografije kot tudi za zgodovino slovenskega športa. Je prvi ohranjeni dokumentarno reportažni film slovenskega avtorja in hkrati Beštrov prvenec, ki ga je posnel pod okriljem svojega filmskega podjetja.
Film smo leta 2021 digitalno restavrirali, pri tem pa odkrili nekaj za zgodovino slovenskega filma zelo zanimivih podrobnosti. Digitalno kopijo filma je Arhiv RS v času letošnjega svetovnega prvenstva v nordijskem smučanju (prav na 101. obletnico nastanka filma) podaril muzeju Nordijskega centra v Planici, kjer bo na ogled obiskovalcem.

A community of free inhabitants of the town of Brežice, through their elected representatives, exercised jurisdiction of the administrative and judicial authority on the territory of the town and its surroundings. However, it is solely thanks to the intelligence and soundness of judgement of one particular female resident of the town that the minutes of the town's council between 1585 and 1651, which are in fact the earliest records on the implementation of the town's autonomy, managed to escape from being destroyed forever. Presented here are some details from among the preserved records.

The two-page report of the commander of the village guard in Borovnica covers a period of just two weeks at the end of 1942 and the start of 1943. Although the famous Borovnica viaduct was still standing at that time, the inhabitants of the valley below still seemed to find themselves on different sides. However, the situation and relations were not as black and white as it may appear. This month's archivalia reveals the complexity of the events taking place eighty years ago, which we nowadays often tend to overloook.

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 2023.

Power that is running out of breath sees enemies everywhere. This was most certainly experienced by Rasto Pustoslemšek, the editor of the newspaper Slovenski narod, whose reports from Belgrade during the annexation crisis in 1908 and 1909 attracted the attention of the Austrian diplomats and spies. Although the police surveillance of the journalist did not produce any tanglible or conclusive evidence, Pustoslemšek's memoirs make it obvious that his anti-Austrian cooperation with the Serbian government was not completely far fetched.