A Break with the Old and the Beginning of Something New: Slovenian Economic Transition from Socialism to Capitalism (1990–2004)

Opinions on the Slovenian economic transition are divided. While the transition could be described primarily as a success story until its formal conclusion, assessments of a less than positive nature began to prevail after 2004. Some have even labelled Slovenia as having somehow lost out in the transition process. The year 2011 marks 20 years of Slovenian independence and two decades is certainly a sufficient period from which to offer an opinion on the transition process. While the transition was completed at a formal level by joining the EU, it may be valuable to also consider the process from a general historical perspective. Although some express doubts about this, the fact is that historiography has recently taken a step forward in this regard. In Slovenia we are just at the beginning, but in countries such as the Czech Republic and Germany, research of the post 1990-period is not unusual. Fear and scepticism because of the relatively short period of time which has passed and the relevance of the sources are redundant. There are many resources, it is true, however, that classical or archival sources which are generally used in historiography are not available for this period because of legal barriers (at least most of them). From this perspective, a historian who will study the transition thirty or more years from now will definitely have a much easier task, mainly due to the fact that he will have the major processes of the economic transitions inventoried and collected in archives. The question of what and Summary A Break with the Old and the Beginning of Something New: Slovenian Economic Transition from Socialism to Capitalism (1990–2004) 454 how much, which is already available today at different institutions, will be handed over to the archives. In my opinion there is nothing we do not know already which would make a substantial difference to the findings of my dissertation. A key issue in research is the historian’s approach to the latter, by which I mean, in particular, a critical examination of sources and their selection. We often hear from historians who study earlier periods that their research is based exclusively on archival sources, which would appear to be somehow naturally relevant and much more objective, especially when compared with sources for most recent history. I am very sceptical of this approach. I think that a stronger historiographical presence would be more than welcome in Slovene society when it comes to issues and processes of the recent past. There is too much unnecessary politicizing, which is otherwise necessary, but not in places and about problems that must and can be evaluated only by professionals or academics.