Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts - History

History

SAZU was established in 1938 and was initially named Academy of Sciences and Arts (AZU). On 23 January 1943, AZU breached the cultural silence. Due to the efforts of Milan Vidmar, the epithet Slovenian was added to its name in 1943 with a decree by Leon Rupnik, the Ljubljana mayor under Italian occupation of Slovenia. The renaming was disregarded after the war.

In autumn 1945, the National Government of Slovenia led by Boris Kidrič took autonomy from the Academy and again named it Academy of Sciences and Arts. The literary historian France Kidrič was elected its president, and confirmed for the second term in 1948. In 1948, it lost even more autonomy and was renamed to the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts again. The academy lost its members with the new act and 30 days later ceased to exist. In 1949, an amendment to the act was passed that allowed for membership not only of scientists and artists, but also of those the deeds of which had a "special significance". In this manner, Josip Broz - Tito and Edvard Kardelj became its honorary members. Boris Kidrič, Josip Vidmar and Boris Ziherl were elected members, which significantly influenced the development of the Academy.

According to the Soviet scheme of development, the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Chemistry were established in 1946, followed by the Institute of Electrical Economics four years later. Despite this, humanistics, social sciences and classical natural history remained the dominating fields. In 1950, there were ten institutes, one board and one committee, among them the Institute of Slovene language and the Institute of Literatures. In this time, the Academy divided into five classes: a class for historical and social sciences, a class for philological and literary sciences, a class for mathematical-physical and technical sciences, a class for natural history and medicine, and a class for arts. This make its composition similar to the current one.

SAZU joined the European Scientific Foundation in 1995.

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