PART ONE

THE MIDDLE AGES, SLOVENE HISTORIOGRAPHY, AND THE NATIONAL FORMATION OF THE SLOVENES CHAPTER ONE

ON NATIONALISED HISTORY, MYTHS AND STEREOTYPES

A bronze relief unveiled a little over a decade ago will serve as a useful introduction to the issues that will be addressed below. Th e relief adorns the new door of the main, western portal of the archdiocesan cathedral of Ljubljana. Th e special signifi cance, which the western portal of a church generally has in certain liturgical contexts is enhanced here by the fact that the door has been consecrated by no other than Pope John Paul II on the occasion of his fi rst visit to Slovenia in May 1996. At the symbolic level, the pope not only consecrated the cathedral’s door, but also the Slovenes themselves and their history. Th e door is indeed called the “Slovene door” and it illustrates the fate of the Slovene people in individual scenes and from the viewpoint of ecclesiastical history. What is of particular interest to us is the door’s bottom section, domi- nated in the centre by a mighty linden as the symbol of Slovenehood. Th e scene to its left relates to the baptism of Cacatius and Hotimir, the fi rst two Christian princes of Carantania, from the time they were hos- tages in Bavaria. To the right of the linden stands the Prince’s Stone, described as the “symbol of the fi rst Slovene state” in the accompanying leafl et. Th e Prince’s Stone, surrounded by a large crowd, is the scene of a symbolic act (sacrifi ce?), but it is certainly not connected with the enthronement ceremony of a new prince, the function which this upside-down Ionic column is otherwise supposed to have served. In the background we can see the bell-towers of the church of Maria Saal in Carinthia, and the door’s right border is occupied by the image of a bishop giving blessings. Th is is “Modestus, the bishop of Maria Saal,” worshipped by the Catholic Church in Slovenia as the fi rst apostle of the Slovenes. Th e images on the door thus present the Christianisation of the Slovenes and their state in a way that is familiar from the repertoire of national historical consciousness. Th ey refl ect the collective awareness of the Slovenes of their past, and in this perception the relief refers to one of the most important moments in national history. A historian who is relatively familiar with the history of the Alpine-Adriatic area in