After years of painstaking efforts of the most prominent Slovene intellectuals to establish a scientific and cultural institution of the highest rank, the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana was finally established in 1938. In the first decade of its existence it was confronted with four different forms of government, each of which appraised the role of the Academy according to its own political agenda. The article explores the attitude of the authorities toward the Academy and their attempts to interfere with the institution’s operation. During the period of the so-called First Yugoslavia (1929-1945), the Academy was not allowed to include the adjective “Slovene” in its name, which was rectified in the period of the so-called Second Yugoslavia (1945-1992). During the Second World War, the Academy started to experience censorship and political pressure on its members. The article focuses on the political break of 1945 when the Communists came into power. Two members were expelled from the Academy, which was largely the result of autonomous decisions of the Academy. Starting to imitate the Soviet Union, their new role model, the new Communist authorities exerted pressure to copy the Soviet scientific policy as well. As a result, the new President of the Academy went on his first visit abroad to the Soviet Union, afterwards reporting on its organization of scientific work. Disagreement between the Academy and the authorities escalated during the preparation of the new Academy of Sciences and Arts Act. The resolution that the Academy be renamed the Slovenian academy of Sciences and Arts was one of the few major common points shared by both the Academy and the ruling authorities in reference to necessary changes. In May 1948 the Slovene Assembly passed the law which allowed for legal interference of the government with the Academy’s activities and decisions that had previously been autonomous, thus considerably hindering its operation. The government could, and did, oversee appointments of Academy members. As a result, two of its distinguished members were later expelled from the ranks of full members because they, each for a different reason, incurred displeasure of the authorities. Furthermore, leading state politicians and political ideologists were soon appointed full or honorary members. After its final dispute with the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav regime no longer faithfully imitated the Soviet scientific policy. However, it still controlled, although to a smaller degree than during the first years after the Second World War, the operation of cultural and scientific institutions by means of legislation. Like other similar institutions, the Academy had to reconcile itself to the fact that it operated in a country whose leadership did not recognize the autonomy of such institutions.