The present debate deals with the Slovene national emancipation arc (in the nationalist sense) spanning from the formation of the first Slovene national programme of United Slovenia (Združena Slovenija) in 1848 (the uniting of all Slovene provinces into one administrational unit with its own parliament and Slovene as the official language) to the formation of an independent country - the Republic of Slovenia in 1991. The authors have established that the programme of united Slovenia was never realised within the framework of the Habsburg Monarchy, however, the national movement, emerging from this programme did enable the Slovenes in the 19th century to develop into a modern national community. Regarding the Slovene development after the formation of the first Yugoslav State in 1918, they claim that in it the Slovene national policy was by far in favour of the autonomistic-federahst national concept World War II resulted also in the formation of Slovene statehood, supported by both opposing military-political blocs in the that time Slovene society. The National Liberation Movement gave rise to the concept of nationality already during the war, and after the war Slovene statehood was determined by the Constitution of the People's Republic of Slovenia In addition to this the authors present the phases of the continuous 'battles' regarding this question, which ended with the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation and Slovene's gaining of independence in 1991.