Slovenian Partisans

Slovenian Partisans

The Slovene Partisans were the Slovene part of the Communist-led Yugoslav World War II resistance movement, the Yugoslav Partisans. The objective of the movement was the establishment of a socialist Yugoslav federation in the post-War period. Formally, the movement was named National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia for most of its existence, and was the armed wing of the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation, a resistance political organization and party coalition for what the Partisans referred to as the Slovene Lands. These were occupied during World War II by Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent, by Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia. The Liberation Front was founded and directed by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), more specifically its Slovene branch: the Communist Party of Slovenia.

The Slovene Partisans were the first Slovene military force. They fought in the beginning as a guerilla and later as an army. Their opponents were the occupants and since summer 1942 also the anti-Communist Slovene forces. As the very existence of the Slovene nation was threatened, the Slovene support for the Partisan movement was much more solid than in Croatia or Serbia. An emphasis on the defence of ethnic identity was shown by naming the troops after important Slovene poets and writers, following the example of the Ivan Cankar battalion.

The Slovene Partisans were mostly ethnically homogenous and primarily communicated in Slovene. These two features have been considered vital for their success. Their most characteristic symbol was a triglavka. They were subordinated to the civil resistance authority. The Partisan movement in Slovenia, though a part of the wider Yugoslav Partisans, was operationally autonomous from the rest of the movement, being geographically separated, and full contact with the remainder of the Partisan army occurred after the breakthrough of Tito's forces through to Slovenia in 1944.