SLOVENSKI SPOMIN NA PRVO SVETOVNO VOJNO IN MESTO FELDMARŠALA SVETOZARJA BOROJEVIĆA PL. BOJNE V NJEM
SLOVENIAN MEMORIES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE PLACE OF FIELD MARSHAL SVETOZAR BOROJEVIĆ IN THEM

Author(s): Petra Svoljšak
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Politics of History/Memory, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: Svetozar Borojević pl. Battalion; First World War; Soča Front (1915-1917); Slovenian historiography;
Summary/Abstract: The First World War, the Great War, undoubtedly constituted a watershed event for the Slovenians as well and for the history of the Slovenian ethnic territory. The Slovenians participated in various stages of the world conflict; they were soldiers and prisoners of war, they were arrested and interned, and they were fugitives, while one of the bloodiest European battlefields, the Isonzo front, extended over Slovenian territory. The war in Slovenian territory manifested itself at two levels: as military operations in the region around the Isonzo (Soča) River, and as a burden to the civilian population, but near the battlefield and in its hinterland. Thus, the First World War imprinted itself into Slovenian historical memory. Slovenian historiography mostly examined the political facts underlying the First World War, while military themes were left to publicists and memoir writers. Until the 1990s, Slovenian historiography did not have a planned and systematic approach to the First World War, primarily due to the role of the Slovenians in this great world conflict and the military objectives intertwined with this conflict. One cannot escape the impression that the Slovenian people, as a component of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces, were the initiators and losers of this “great” war. And the periods following both World Wars were not kind to the losers. Treatment of the First World War depended on changes in society and on the needs of day-to-day political interests to confirm their developmental orientation. It should be stressed that Slovenian memories of World War I are almost entirely dominated by publicist literature, while Slovenian historiography began to deal with it systematically only in the mid-1980s. To be sure, in dealing with the Isonzo front, Field Marshal Svetozar Borojević von Bojna occupies a special place, for he provokes contradictory assessments in Slovenian recollection, although his role and significance to Slovenian territory have not be adequately examined. This work presents all previous literature on Borojević and assessments by various authors, as well as memoirs of Slovenian post-war politicians, on the role and significance of Borojević in Slovenian history.

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