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Kronika: časopis za slovensko krajevno zgodovino

This work by Vanja Kočevar is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
The discussion addresses theoretical approaches to studying the history of Slovenian collective identity by critically assessing the “strictly modernist approach”, which a priori denies any connection between premodern ethnic communities and modern nations. Although opposing an arbitrary rejection of objective criteria for identifying ethnic affiliation, the article embraces the constructivist challenge of modernism and studies premodern self-determination with 1) the ethnonym ‘Slovenian’, 2) the Slovenian ethnic community, and 3) the Slovenian ethnic territory. The examples of selfidentification discussed demonstrate that, apart from other collective identities, the inhabitants of Slovenian territory also felt an affiliation with the Slovenian ethnic community, which is thus rooted in the Middle Ages rather than the period of Protestantism or even nationalism.