Südosteuropa 68 (2020), no. 2, pp. 148–175

VOLUNTEERING AND VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS

ANA KLADNIK

A Nation of Joiners. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below

Abstract. Challenging the received view that the Western world is the authentic cradle of associations, with the United States often epitomised as the ‘nation of joiners’, this article interprets voluntary associations in East Central Europe (ECE) as variations from the West‑ ern model. New studies on associational life in ECE suggest that well-established theoretical dichotomies like state-non-state or governmental-civil need to be overcome and argue that voluntary associations always actively interacted with the political context and contributed to shaping it. The article revisits these theses by focusing on the role of volunteer fire de‑ partments, which in ECE have existed almost uninterruptedly since the mid-19th century. It focuses on the period of double transition in Slovenia around 1990—to a democratic system and to an independent Slovenian state—and argues that the volunteer firefighters were able to negotiate the inevitable changes also because they were recognised as associations of Slo‑ vene national substance.

Ana Kladnik is a Research Associate at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana.

Introduction

In 2018, during a research stay in Slovenia, I met with a volunteer firefighter from a small municipality in the eastern part of the country. In the mid-1970s, as a young boy, he had joined the volunteer firefighting department (VFD) in his village. This VFD was founded in 1951, based on the idea and experience of a man from a neighbouring village which already had a four-decade-old VFD, and with the help of a group of men, among them my interlocutor’s father and uncle. His VFD remains very active to this day: my interlocutor’s wife has been a member since her childhood, and they were joined in recent years by their two sons. During our meeting, I asked him about the development of volunteer firefighting during the political transition: ‘“Transition?”, he asked, “This is the period around ’91, right? Hard years, yes. In any case, this was progress for the firefighting department in my opinion. The transition in Slovenia was, thank God, in the right direction. So, to keep volunteering […] we solved the firefighting story, precisely because of that.” Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 149

“I wonder, if there are not too many [volunteer firefighting] departments?”, I re‑ plied. “Well”, he said, “if I looked at the rules, both commercially and economically, I would agree that there are municipalities where there are too many of them. I speak for my own municipality […] of 3,600 people, and five departments. It’s too many, yes. But there is no one with the courage to say ‘we are going to close one’. Who would say such a thing? The mayor? No. This is his electorate, right? What can you do—just leave it. You buy another fire truck, and have no worries for the next hun‑ dred years.”’1 This is a glimpse into my conversation with a member of one of the oldest and most popular organisations in Slovenia, the Firefighting Association of Slovenia (Gasilska Zveza Slovenije, GZS), which in 2018 had 120 regional asso‑ ciations, 1,299 VFDs, and more than 162,500 members. Today, membership in Slovenia’s volunteer fire departments amounts to around 7.7 % of the pop‑ ulation, compared to around 4 % in Austria and the Czech Republic, around 3 % in Croatia, and 1.7 % in Germany. These numbers represent operative fire‑ fighters between 18 years of age and around 63 for men and 50 for women, children and youth aged 7 to 18, as well as firefighting veterans, i. e. long-time members of a VFD older than 63 years (men) or 50 (women). The figures also include supporting members, who for example help to raise funds, to organise firefighting events, or to maintain museum collections. The percentage is cal‑ culated on the basis of the number of volunteer firefighters registered by the national firefighting associations and in national statistics, and the population of the country according to the country’s Bureau of Statistics.2 According to information published on its website, the GZS defines itself as ‘independent, nonprofit, humanitarian, non-political and connecting voluntary fire departments and their [regional, A. K.] associations at the highest level. It operates on the basis of the Associations Act and the Firefighting Act. […] It was founded in 1949 in Ljubljana as the successor to all previous firefighting organisations.’3

I am extremely grateful to both anonymous reviewers and Sabine Rutar for their criticism and suggestions that considerably improved my arguments in this paper. My sincere thanks go to Karin Taylor for language editing. 1 Interview with G. Z., 27 July 2018. 2 Poročilo Upravnega odbora XVII. kongresa GZS, Ptuj, 18-19 May 2018, http://www. gasilec.net/uploads/datoteke/Priloga%20porocilo%20Janko%20Cerkvenik.pdf, 4. The mem‑ bership data also includes the volunteer firefighters in the so-called volunteer industrial fire departments (VIFD), a total of forty-two. Although the VIFDs deserve detailed research, in this study I concentrate on territorial, local VFDs. All internet references were accessed on 26 June 2020. 3 Gasilska zveza Slovenije, Portal slovenskih prostovoljnih gasilcev, http://www.gasilec. net/organizacija/kongresi-plenumi. On the local level, the VFDs operate as a local public firefighting service, whose functioning is ensured by the municipality and the state. The exact rights and duties of the members are defined in the statute of each VFD separately. 150 Ana Kladnik

My conversation with the volunteer firefighter, firstly, points to the ever-pres‑ ent intention of volunteer firefighters to expand their association and, secondly, illustrates the relationship between the volunteer firefighters and (local) au‑ thorities. It thereby alludes to the focus of this article: in the following, I demon‑ strate to what extent firefighters and their association took part in pro-demo‑ cratic and national mobilisation at the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s in Slovenia, and how they managed to preserve, or even extend, their autonomy vis à vis the state. Firstly, the article contributes to scholarship which views the relationship be‑ tween civil society and the state not as separate from one another, but as more flexible and multifaceted.4 Thus, it challenges the historiography of civil society in Eastern Europe and specifically of its role in the transition to a democratic system—in the case of Slovenia, also the transition to an independent nation state—which usually focuses on the anticommunist, oppositional movements or the ‘new alternative’ movements of the 1980s.5 This article, instead, investi‑ gates associations with a century-old tradition and which in the local environ­ ment by and large remained spaces of typically conventional values, while cultivating local autonomy and devotion to unpaid public service. The study is structured in five parts. First, I give a short overview of the first century of volunteer firefighting in Slovenia, underlining especially its importance for Slovene national aspirations. In the second part, I introduce the changes that affected firefighters after 1968, as for example in 1974 the new Yu‑ goslav constitution included policies based on the idea of the withering away of the state. Thirdly, I concentrate on transition to a democratic system, includ‑ ing the position of firefighters in the first democratic elections and their rapid integration into the new national structures. Fourthly, I discuss the transition

4 Fabio Giomi / Stefano Petrungaro, eds, Voluntary Associations in Yugosla‑ via (1918–1941), special issue, European Review of History 26, no. 1 (2019), 1–18, DOI: 10.1080/13507486.2018.1474178; Nicole Kramer / Christine G. Krüger, eds, Freiwilligenar‑ beit und gemeinnützige Organisationen im Wandel. Neue Perspektiven auf das 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin, Boston 2019; Čarna Brković, Ambiguous Nations of ‘National Self’ in Montenegro, in: Ulf Brunnbauer / Hannes Grandits, eds, The Ambiguous Nation. Case Studies from Southeastern Europe in the 20th Century, Munich 2013, 113–149. Cf. also Oli‑ ver Zunz, Philanthropy in America. A History, Princeton 2011; Pat Thane, The Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture 2011: The ‘Big Society’ and the ‘Big State’. Creative Tension or Crowding Out?, Twentieth Century British History 23, no. 3 (2012), 408–429, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/ hws009; Bernard Harris / Paul Bridgen, Introduction. The ‘Mixed Economy of Welfare’ and the Historiography of Welfare Provision, in: Bernard Harris / Paul Bridgen, eds, Charity and Mutual Aid in Europe and North America since 1800, New York, London 2007, 1–18. 5 For Slovenia, cf. Žiga Vodovnik, Demokratizacija in nova družbena gibanja, Teorija in praksa 51, no. 2–3 (2014), 415–433; and Marko Zajc, When the Slovenian Spring Turned into a Hot Summer, in: Joachim von Puttkamer / Włodzimierz Borodziej / Stanislav Holubec, eds, From Revolution to Uncertainty. The Year 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe, New York 2020, 142–163. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 151 to a nation state and recognition of the firefighters’ association as a patriotic organisation in the process of achieving Slovenian independence. I conclude by discussing more generally the heterogeneity of civil society during late socialist Slovenia and the subsequent postsocialist transitions.

Voluntary Firefighting in Slovenia. A Brief Overview of Its First Century

The Importance of the Slovenian Language. The Late Habsburg and Interwar Periods

In the Slovene-speaking lands of the Habsburg Empire, volunteer fire depart‑ ments (VFDs) started to proliferate from the late 1860s onwards. They grew, for example, out of the enthusiasm of those town residents who had seen such associations elsewhere, or were established on the mayor’s initiative. Despite their links to the municipal administration, VFDs were registered as associa‑ tions and were run according to their individual statutes. The popularity and importance of VFDs lay not just in their role as associations of public safety, but also in their social, and potentially political, roles. Leading local politicians would often build their political careers through extensive activity in various associations. A case in point is the mayor of the South Styrian town of Pettau/ Ptuj who built his early political career as a member of many associations, among them the Ptuj VFD, of which he was honorary commander, while Ptuj’s vice-mayor was its president.6 In the first decades of the 20th century, the existing ideological rifts between liberal and conservative parties as well as the national divisions existing in late imperial Austria and subsequently in the newly-established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929: Kingdom of Yugoslavia) did not go unnoticed among the firefighters.7 In 1908, the Slovenian Firefighting Association was established in Ljubljana, the capital of the overwhelmingly Slovene-speaking Habsburg crown land of Carniola. The association included only those VFDs whose language of command was Slovene. After 1918, the VFDs of the indi‑ vidual former Habsburg provinces were incorporated into the new Yugoslav Firefighting Association Ljubljana, on condition that they accepted Slovenian as the language of command. It was only in 1933, when King Alexander issued

6 Cf. Ana Kladnik, A Smouldering Fire. The National, Political and Gender Adaptations of Volunteer Firefighters in Interwar Yugoslavia, in: Giomi / Petrungaro, eds, Voluntary Associations, 19–40. 7 Mateja Ratej, Drugi jugoslovanski gasilski kongres v Ljubljani – zadnja velika mani‑ festacija katoliške politične misli pred začetkom druge svetovne vojne, Časopis za zgodovino in narodopisje 84, no. 4 (2013), 71–87. 152 Ana Kladnik a National Firefighting Law which declared that all VFDs must adapt to the rule of the Yugoslav Firefighting Association, that all remaining German and Hun‑ garian VFDs in Slovenia accepted Slovenian as their language of command.8 In Ptuj, where the former vice-mayor remained in his position as the VFD’s president, the language of command changed from German to Slovenian. The fact that some of the VFDs were able to retain a language of command other than Slovenian for more than a decade after the end of imperial Austria gives evidence of the resilience and endurance of the VFDs and their ability to keep their inner organisation intact. In the interwar period, the number of VFDs in the Drava Governorate, the ad‑ ministrative unit that in the 1930s encompassed the Slovene-speaking regions within Yugoslavia, tripled and by 1937 amounted to 930 VFDs with 30,000 members.9 During this time, the largest number of VFDs was established in the Prekmurje region which had been a part of imperial Hungary and through the Treaty of Trianon was granted to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slo‑ venes. The local population had to come to terms with new political, social and cultural realities, including the question of language.10 In this regard, the Firefighting Association played an important role in the ‘Slovenification’ of the territory: while before 1918, Prekmurje had twenty-two VFDs, 128 new departments were established before the beginning of the Second World War.11 This legacy of the VFDs and the Firefighting Association, going back to their role in the ‘Slovenification’ efforts at the beginning of Yugoslav statehood, was referred to time and again by politicians during the transition from socialist Yugoslavia to the Slovenian independent state in the early 1990s.

The First Decades in Socialist Slovenia

After the Second World War, the Ministry of the Interior took over responsi‑ bility for the firefighting service, which had previously rested with the Royal Ministry for Physical Education on the basis of the King’s 1933 Firefighting Law. Special firefighting officers were appointed to the People’s Committees, the new local authorities, who were supposed to undertake the reorganisa‑ tion of the firefighting departments. Most of the older staff were replaced by

8 Kladnik, A Smouldering Fire, 28. 9 Branko Božič, Razvoj gasilstva na Slovenskem, Ljubljana 1968, 242. 10 Jernej Kosi, The Imagined Slovene Nation and Local Categories of Identification. ‘Slo‑ venes’ in the Kingdom of Hungary and Postwar Prekmurje, Austrian History Yearbook 49 (2018), 87–102, DOI: 10.1017/S0067237818000103; Jernej Kosi, Srečanje dveh svetov. Prebivalstvo Prek‑ murja in nova ‘jugoslovanska’ oblast po zasedbi in priključitvi pokrajine, in: ­Mojca Smolej, ed, 1919 v slovenskem jeziku, literature in kulturi, 55. seminar ­slovenskega ­jezika, literature in kulture, Ljubljana 2019, 79–86. 11 XII. kongres Gasilske zveze Slovenije, Ljubljana 1993, 388–458. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 153 younger people, while the firefighting departments were forcibly merged. Both measures had a negative impact and many officers abandoned their work. The new Ministry also envisaged renaming the VFD into ‘volunteer firefighting mi‑ litia’, something the firefighters strongly opposed.12 In the first postwar years, VFDs continued to operate according to the regulations of 1933. In 1948, a new Associations Act was adopted by the Assembly of the People’s Republic of Slovenia. Instead of forcibly reorganising the firefighting service and bringing it under direct state control, the Ministry decided to bind the firefighters to the system by re-establishing their traditional organisation. In 1949, the Fire‑ fighting Association of Slovenia (Gasilska zveza Slovenije, GZS) was established, an umbrella association for the regional associations and local VFDs. Its first president was Matevž Hace, an active member of the Communist Party and a long-time volunteer firefighter. He later remembered how he had received a call from the Minister of the Interior of the Slovenian Socialist Republic, Boris Kraigher, who asked him to ‘establish a Firefighting Association which can lead and direct VFDs according to so‑ cialist principles across Slovenia. Under the leadership of the Interior Ministry, VFDs would not achieve the necessary expansion nor flourish. As you know, before the war, VFDs were very important, valued and popular among the Slovenian people.’13 Although the communist regime tended to either abolish pre-existing self-governed civic associations altogether or bring them under tight control, local VFDs showed a remarkable degree of resilience and were able to retain independence. However, in the following years, an increasing number of pro‑ fessional firefighting brigades were established in Slovenia—by 1958, there were already five, with altogether 150 firefighters. The authorities in Slove‑ nia were rethinking their support of volunteer firefighting and leaned towards strengthening a professional firefighting service. However, in particular Stane Kavčič, member of the Executive Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia and its president between 1967 and 1972, strongly supported volun‑ teer firefighting as representing a Slovenian tradition.14 As a politician, Kavčič was an advocate of liberalisation and the economic orientation of Yugosla‑ via towards a market economy and private investment, and even of joining European economic integration. Also, he placed national identity before class/

12 Branko Božič, Po poti 130-letnega razvoja gasilstva na Slovenskem (1869–1999), Lju‑ bljana 1999, 87. 13 Quoted in Branko Božič, Zgodovinski oris razvoja gasilstva, Gasilec 48 (October 1994), 314. 14 Interview with Viljem Tomat, Kranj, 18 June 2018. On Kavčič’s intervention in support of the Slovene Firefighting Association cf. Božič, Po poti 130-letnega razvoja gasilstva na Slo­ venskem, 100–101. 154 Ana Kladnik ideological identity.15 His emphasis on the Slovenian tradition suggests that he might have promoted volunteer firefighters in national rather than communist ideological terms. His support certainly enabled the Slovene Firefighting Asso‑ ciation (GZS) to expand its work throughout Slovenia. From 1949, the GZS held congresses approximately every two to five years, where it evaluated its work since the previous congress and planned activities for the following years. The sixth congress, held in 1968, was the first to take place outside of Ljubljana. The decision to organise GZS congresses in other Slovenian towns was made delib‑ erately with the intention to increase the presence of the GZS in all Slovenian regions.16 In 1969, on the centenary of the founding of the first VFD in Slovenia, a Slovene Firefighting Museum was opened in Metlika in southeast Slovenia. This initiated the systematic collection of firefighting equipment across Slove‑ nia, and, as was underlined at the Firefighting Congress, helped to foster ‘the growth of our Slovenian identity’.17

Socialist Self-Management and the Beginning of a Protracted Transition Process

After the adoption of the self-management law in 1950, concerning work‑ ers’ councils within companies, the new ‘communal system’ established in 1955 brought self-management into the municipalities, which were handed wide-ranging powers in all spheres of social life and performed duties on be‑ half of the central government.18 The reorganisation resulted in large munici‑ palities, and the communal system envisioned that the local government and enterprises in the municipality would form a self-sufficient unit. Below the mu‑ nicipal level were the so-called ‘local communities’ (krajevna skupnost). Instead of workers´ self-management, the 1963 constitution of both the Federal Repub‑ lic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Republic of Slovenia introduced so-called ‘societal self-management’ (družbeno samoupravljanje),19 while the 1974 constitu‑ tion contained further provisions concerning the implementation of self-man‑

15 Božo Repe / Jože Prinčič, Pred časom. Portret Staneta Kavčiča, Ljubljana 2009, 216; Bo‑ gomir Kovač, Kavčič, Mladina 49, 10 December 2009, https://www.mladina.si/49123/kavcic/. 16 Branko Božič, Predkongresna razmišljanja, Gasilski vestnik 42, no. 2 (February 1988), 34–35, 34. 17 Zgodovina požarnega varstva, X. kongres Gasilske zveze Slovenije, Ljubljana 1984, 311–318, 311. 18 Božo Grafenauer, Lokalna samouprava na Slovenskem. Teritorialno-organizacijske strukture, Maribor 2000, 336–337. 19 Yugoslav leaders encouraged the withering away of the state by transforming state ownership of the means of production into ‘general people’s ownership’, which over time became known as ‘social ownership’—neither individual private ownership nor state owner­ ship. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 155 agement, defining it as ‘socialist self-management’. Both constitutions of 1963 and 1974 gave extended powers to these local communities. By the late 1980s, there were only sixty-two municipalities in Slovenia and 1,170 local commu‑ nities with on average around two thousand inhabitants.20 The reorganisation of local self-governance gave municipalities and local communities more deci‑ sion-making powers and enabled the participatory practices of citizens at the local level.21 With the new Associations Act issued in 1974, as Tatjana Rakar and Zinka Kolarič note in their contribution to this special issue, a new space was created for the founding of civil society organisations from the bottom-up.22 From the mid-1970s onwards, the number of VFDs and volunteer firefighters increased. While there were around 52,000 volunteer firefighters in 1972, by 1976 the number had risen to just over 65,000, and by 1987 there were around 96,000 volunteer firefighters in the 1,275 territorial VFDs (the number roughly matches the number of local communities).23 The Primorska region in western Slovenia most conspicuously reveals this development, as after the First World War it was annexed by the Italian King‑ dom and became part of Yugoslavia only after the Second World War. In fascist Italy, most of the VFDs had not been in operation, and therefore the num‑ ber of VFDs here was low compared to other parts of Slovenia. Throughout the socialist period, around sixty-five new VFDs were established here—two thirds of them during the final socialist decades. A closer look at the whole of Slovenia shows that almost 30,000 children and youth were involved in the VFDs (8,000 girls and 22,300 boys); around 60,000 operative members between 18 and 60 years of age (8,500 women and 51,500 men) actively participated in firefighting; and around 6,000 members were over 60 years old and described as the veterans. All active members of a VFD had to fulfil certain obligations and received rights according to the Associations Act. The exact nature of these obligations and rights depended on the individual VFD and its statute. The former involved the payment of membership fees and a duty to improve fire‑ fighting skills, while the latter included subscription to the GZS media outlets, participation in the association’s assemblies, as well as trips and events. Beside the high number of active members, there were an additional 61,000 supporting

20 Grafenauer, Lokalna samouprava, 340. 21 Ana Kladnik, Local Self-Governance in (Post-)Socialist Slovenia, paper given on the panel ‘Yugoslav Self-Management in a Municipality. Political, Economic, and Social Insights’, at the 51st Annual Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Stud‑ ies, San Francisco, 24 November 2019. 22 Cf. the contribution by Tatjana Rakar and Zinka Kolarič to this issue. 23 An additional 11,000 volunteer firefighters were active in the 192 volunteer industrial firefighting departments. 156 Ana Kladnik members who paid membership fees and joined in the social activities of the VFD, but did not actively participate when it came to firefighting.24 In pursuit of the programmatic withering away of the state, so-called ‘self-governing communities of interest’ (samoupravne interesne skupnosti, SIS) were introduced across Yugoslavia.25 They took over a number of tasks from the state bodies in regard to planning, coordination, financing and the carry‑ ing out of social activities. Amongst the many SIS was one for fire protection. It was this reorganisation that allowed the municipal firefighting associations to receive a steady influx of funds which they distributed among members. Besides the funds from the SIS, the VFDs received income from their local com‑ munities, as well as collected around 50 % of their financial base themselves by organising firefighting balls, selling calendars, and voluntarily working on the construction of new fire stations.26 The SIS were among the first organisations of local administration to be abolished with the systemic changes in 1990 and replaced by the state.

Volunteer Firefighters as Part of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People

According to the 1974 constitution of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, the League of Communists, the Socialist Alliance of the Working People, the Fed‑ eration of Socialist Youth, the trade unions, and the League of Associations of the Veterans of the National Liberation War represented an integral part of the Yugoslav, and thereby the Slovenian, sociopolitical system. These were the so-called sociopolitical organisations (družbenopolitične organizacije), which were specific forms of citizens’ interest organisations. Each of them had its own function: the League of Communists was the main political force which, according to the constitution, played the leading ‘ideological-political’ role; the Federation of Socialist Youth was its offspring and the ‘hatchery’ of future cadres; the trade unions took care of strengthening the position of workers,27 and the Associations of Veterans of the interests of partisan veterans and the preservation of partisan traditions.28

24 Članstvo, XI. kongres Gasilske zveze Slovenije, Ljubljana 1988, 49–60. 25 Dejan Jović, Yugoslavia. A State that Withered Away, West Lafayette/IN 2009. 26 For a more detailed account of the financing of volunteer firefighters during late so‑ cialism and the transition period in Slovenia cf. Ana Kladnik / Thomas Lindenberger, Tra‑ ditionen der Freiwilligkeit im Transformationsregime. Das Beispiel der Freiwilligen Feuer‑ wehr, in: Nicole Kramer / Christine G. Krüger, eds, Freiwilligenarbeit und gemeinnützige Organisationen im Wandel, Berlin, Boston 2019, 249–273. 27 Pavle Vrhovec / Staša Pernat Lesjak, Sindikalno gibanje skozi čas, Ljubljana 2015, http:// sindeks.si/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/sindikalno_gibanje_skozi_cas.pdf, 15–21. 28 Stane Kranjc, Družbenopolitične organizacije, in: Enciklopedija Slovenije, ­Ljubljana 1988, 380; Božo Repe, SZDL Slovenije danes? Dnevnik, 17 January 2009, https://www.dnevnik. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 157

The Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia (Socialistič- na zveza delovnega ljudstva Jugoslavije, SZDL) played a special role in this sys‑ tem. The SZDL of Slovenia was founded during the Second World War as the Liberation Front (in other parts of Yugoslavia: the People’s Front) and renamed in 1953. With its numerous committees and sections—for sports, for children, for temporary workers abroad, and so on—the SZDL took care of the appoint‑ ment of officials for all public functions. The volunteer firefighters were initially able to join if they so chose. In 1958, the president of the GZS, Matevž Hace, with regret reported that ‘many firefighters were not members of the SZDL, for example in Ptuj, every third firefighter’. He continued: ‘Firefighting events, especially in the countryside, are well visited, which proves that the fire organisation is well anchored in our nation. […] all firefighters should be members of the Socialist Alliance. […] But the SZDL […] is obliged to take care of the development of the fire organisation. SZDL municipal committee officials should be more diligent in attending […] various firefighting events.’29 Hace, a former party functionary, certainly knew the importance of the Fire‑ fighting Association’s cooperation and adherence to government guidelines. At the same time, he was aware that in the local voluntary firefighting de‑ partments the new guidelines could not be simply imposed. This explains his appeal to officials to participate more actively in firefighting events. As mentioned above, in the 1950s the authorities in Slovenia were rethink‑ ing their support of volunteer firefighting. The SZDL, for example, wanted to reduce the budget of the Firefighting Association, which was the main reason for Hace’s eventual resignation.30 After Kavčič’s aforementioned intervention in 1963, the continuation of voluntary firefighting was essentially maintained, but in return more VFDs were expected to join the SZDL. At the Firefighting Congress of 1964, the new president, Metod Rotar, praised the SZDL and un‑ derlined that ‘despite the fact that we have to leave internal associational life to local circumstances, integration into the local SZDL should be considered’.31 In order to encourage the mass politicisation of the population, Yugoslav so‑ cialist self-management also adopted the so-called ‘delegate system’, according to which the republican assemblies, including the Slovenian National Assem‑ bly, became tricameral, consisting of the Chamber of Associated Labour, the

si/1042237126; Marjetka Rangus, Parlamentarne prakse socialistične Jugoslavije, Ljublja‑ na 2016. 29 Matevž Hace, O družbeni vlogi gasilske organizacije, in: Prvi, drugi in tretji kongres Gasilske zveze Slovenije, Ljubljana 1984, 155–162, 157. 30 Božič, Po poti 130-letnega razvoja gasilstva na Slovenskem, 136. 31 Metod Rotar, Usklajevanje gasilske dejavnosti s splošnim družbeno-ekonomskim raz‑ vojem, in: V. kongres Gasilske zveze SR Slovenije, Ljubljana 1963, 88–116. 158 Ana Kladnik

Chamber of Municipality, and the Sociopolitical Chamber.32 In the late 1970s, more than 15 % of Slovenia’s inhabitants (300,000) performed at least one func‑ tion in the framework of this system.33 As a delegate, by the early 1980s the Firefighting Association had consolidated its role within the SZDL, as well as within the Federation of Socialist Youth (as said, more than 20 % of its members were children and youth).34 The following two examples show that especially on the local level the interrelation between the organisations remained weak. When the readers of the firefighting magazineGasilski vestnik were asked about the relationship of firefighters to the SZDL, they generally responded that rela‑ tions were good, but thought that the GZS was a rather closed-off organisation and did not sufficiently represent its work at the SZDL or at the League of Communists.35 Why would they think so? Was this observation valid the other way around? In 1984, a representative of the Ptuj municipal committee of the Socialist Youth, responsible also for associations, reported to the municipal committee of the League of Communists that lately, ‘many citizens join various associations, from firefighting, hunting, mountaineering, and scouts to the Red Cross and cultural associations. Unfortunately, we do not know what role the members of the League of Communists play in these associations. Many are members [of the League, A. K.] only on paper.’36 Such ambiguities in relations between the VFDs, the GZS, and the sociopolitical organisations, including the party itself, were the basis on which the Slovene Firefighting Association’s path continued in the late 1980s and beyond the first democratic elections of 1990.

Volunteer Firefighters as Part of the Civil Protection Units

Due to the fears that arose after the intervention of the Warsaw Pact forces in Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the Yugoslav political leadership adopted a new defence system regulated by the General People’s Defence Act (Zakon o Splošni ljudski obrambi, SLO).37 In each Yugoslav republic, a Territorial Defence force (Teritorialna obramba, TO) was established. Within the organisation of the

32 Zajc, When the Slovenian Spring Turned into a Hot Summer, 146. 33 Jure Gašparič, Slovenian Socialist Parliament on the Eve of the Dissolution of the Yugo‑ slav Federation: A Feeble ‘Ratification Body’ or Important Political Decision Maker?,Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino 55, no. 3 (2015), 41–59, 46. 34 Branko Božič, Ob naših jubilejih, Gasilski vestnik 43, no. 6 (June 1989), 179–180, 180. 35 Cf. Branko Božič, O vodstvih Gasilske zveze Slovenije, Gasilski vestnik 42, no. 2 (Febru‑ ary 1988), 24–25; Anton Škof, Dobra zamisel, Gasilski vestnik 42, no. 3 (March 1988), 69–70. 36 Zgodovinski Arhiv na Ptuju (Historical Archive Ptuj), Občinski komite ZKS Ptuj, box 96, Zapisnik 18. redne (volilne) seje OK ZKS Ptuj, 21 March 1984. 37 Milovan Zorc, Splošna ljudska obramba, in: Enciklopedija Slovenije, vol. 12, Ljublja‑ na 1998, 200; Ivo Samec, Civilna zaščita, in: Enciklopedija Slovenije, vol. 2, Ljubljana 1988, 74. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 159 armed forces, the TO played the role of an auxiliary force of the Yugoslav Peo‑ ple’s Army. In Slovenia, the language of command in the TO was Slovenian, and as is noted later in this text, the force formed the basis for the development of the Slovenian army.38 Given the programmatic goal of the withering away of the state, the SLO incorporated all residents and all political, social and working organisations, ultimately causing the intense militarisation of society.39 The SLO also included the Civil Protection organisation (Civilna zaščita, CZ), which would organise the protection and rescue of the population and material goods in the case of war, natural disasters and emergencies. The Civil Protection units operated on the republican and municipal level, in the local communities, and in the working organisations. All associations, firefighting included, whose regular activities were crucial for the protection and rescue of the population, had to conduct activities in line with the new Civil Protection units. Civil Protection and the Slovene Firefighting Association cooperated on all territorial levels by organising special civil protection firefighting units and by participating in various training courses—often together with members of the Yugoslav People’s Army—designed to educate on how to act in the case of nat‑ ural disasters or war, and nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. One of the most widespread campaigns in local communities was called ‘Nothing Should Surprise Us’ (Nič nas ne sme presenetiti, NNNP). There were, however, problems in the relationship between both organisations. The firefighters were proud of their organisation with its over a century-old tradition and saw themselves as the more popular and effective actor in local communities compared to Civil Protection in regard to dealing with natural disasters. As associations that de‑ pended on volunteers and who took care of their members, their training, their development and a good part of the financing, the VFDs were significantly troubled by the fact that the firefighting organisation had been subordinated to Civil Protection. The aforementioned Socialist Youth representative high‑ lighted this: ‘We all know that the members of the associations joined voluntarily according to their interests, pay the membership fee, and sacrifice a lot of free time for this activ‑ ity. And what do they get for it—almost nothing. Most of the time not even suitable premises, as they have no financial support. All activities, transport, equipment are financed from their own pockets. […] These are also members of the Red Cross and

38 The Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia, Slovenian Army, History, http:// www.slovenskavojska.si/o-slovenski-vojski/zgodovina/. 39 Cf. Tomaž Kladnik, Nastanek TO Slovenije, Obramba, November 2008, 4; Jović, Yugoslavia, 77; Damijan Guštin, Vloga oboroženih sil, in: Jasna Fischer et al., eds, ­Slovenska ­novejša zgodo­ vina. Od programa Zedinjena Slovenija do ­mednarodnega ­priznanja Republike Slovenije 1848–1991, Ljubljana 2005, 1074–1078; Samec, Civilna zaščita; Zorc, Splošna ljudska obramba. 160 Ana Kladnik

firefighting departments, who are included in Civil Protection. How should success‑ ful firefighting departments operate with only buckets? Firefighting departments help themselves by organising festivities, for which it is necessary to sacrifice a lot of free time additionally.’40 With relations complicated all the way through, it was after the December 1990 referendum in favour of independence and the ten-day war of June/July 1991, in which Civil Protection forces fought against the Yugoslav People’s Army, that the firefighters reinforced their efforts to obtain a more autonomous posi‑ tion with regard to the civil protection organisation.

Firefighters as a Political, Civil or Defence Organisation. The Transition toward Democracy

Become a Member of a Political Party, or Go Your Own Way?

At the end of the 1980s, the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Slove‑ nia (SZDL) changed its constitutional position and statutes, allowing the for‑ mation of other alliances which became the predecessors of the new political parties. It had become an ‘umbrella organisation’ for new social movements, such as the ecological movement, the gay/lesbian movement, and the peace movement.41 These entered political life with different programmes, some highlighting the question of democracy, while others focused on the issue of the nation or on building their political image by taking an anticommunist stance.42 In February 1989, the authorities and the opposition made a joint pub‑ lic appearance at a rally in Ljubljana, after which both began to participate in the so-called Smole Coordination, named after the president of the Slovenian SZDL, Jože Smole. By spring of 1989, two separate views regarding Yugosla‑ via and Slovene statehood had formed. Opposing viewpoints were expressed in the ‘May Declaration’ (Majniška deklaracija)—in an interesting twist, this took its name from a declaration issued in May 1917, in which Slovenes had spoken out in favour of the Habsburg Monarchy—which placed the sovereign state of the Slovenian nation outside Yugoslavia, while the Republican SZDL accepted the ‘Basic Charter of Slovenia 1989’ (Temeljna listina Slovenije 1989), which in‑ stead looked for solutions within the Yugoslav federation.43

40 Zgodovinski Arhiv na Ptuju, Občinski komite ZKS Ptuj, box 96, Zapisnik 18. redne (volilne) seje OK ZKS Ptuj, 21 March 1984. 41 Zajc, When the Slovenian Spring Turned into a Hot Summer, 150. 42 Božo Repe / Darja Kerec, Slovenija, moja dežela. Družbena revolucija v osemdesetih letih, Ljubljana 2017, 167. 43 Zdenko Čepič, Dialog med oblastjo in opozicijo, in: Fischer et al., eds, Slovenska no­ vejša zgodovina, 1200–1201; Repe / Kerec, Slovenija, moja dežela, 185–192. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 161

The competition between the adherents of each national political programme was manifested when signatures started to be collected. The celebration of the 120th anniversary of the founding of the first VFD, organised by the GZS and attended by high-ranking political representatives including the vice-president of the Republican SZDL, Geza Bačič, proved a good opportunity to encourage all firefighters to sign the Basic Charter of Slovenia and emphasised that: ‘The citizens of Slovenia should make clear if they want to live in a socialist state of the sovereign Slovenian nation with all citizens of Slovenia, in which the renewal of socialist self-management, respect for human rights, political pluralism and demo‑ cratic elections will be ensured’.44 The SZDL was initially well organised and led in the number of signatures collected. But over the summer, several organisations and associations as well as individuals signed both declarations. The May Declaration laid the founda‑ tions for the political programme of the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia, or DEMOS, a coalition of centre-right political parties that emerged in Decem‑ ber 1989. With its programme, DEMOS campaigned in the first democratic elections since the Second World War, called for April 1990. The SZDL also designed a new programme and renamed itself the Socialist Party of Slove‑ nia (Socialistična stranka Slovenije, SSS), while its statutes allowed its members to also be delegates of social organisations and associations.45 In the months and weeks before the April elections, the GZS and regional firefighting associations discussed what the position of the Firefighting Associ‑ ation towards different political parties, and to the elections in general, should be. In December 1989, the GZS decided that the Association would remain a collective member of the SZDL. The Slovenian daily Delo highlighted how the firefighters had remained loyal to the Socialist Alliance.46 The GZS also suggest‑ ed that municipal firefighting associations and local VFDs should join the SZDL in their municipalities or local communities as collective members. However, regional firefighter associations, such as those in Novo Mesto, resolved that because volunteer firefighting was a humanitarian activity, indispensable in helping people, it must take the form of a distinctly non-political institution.

44 120 let prvega gasilskega društva na Slovenskem, Gasilski vestnik 43, no. 8–9 (1989), 244–249, 248. 45 Gasilska organizacija v političnem pluralizmu, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 3 (1990), 50. Marko Zajc points out that after the April elections in 1990, although modified, the political structure of Slovenia remained basically the same. The tricameral assembly of the Republic of Slove‑ nia was made up of elected delegates and not members of parliament. The most obvious novelty was the free, multiparty election of the delegates. Zajc, When the Slovenian Spring Turned into a Hot Summer, 142. Cf. Zdenko Čepič, Demos prevzame oblast, in: Fischer et al., eds, Slovenska novejša zgodovina, 1290–1294; Blaž Babič, Od delegata do poslanca, in: Aleš Gabrič, Slovenska pot iz enopartijskega v demokratični sistem, Ljubljana 2012, 89–101. 46 Gasilci zvesti socialistični zvezi, Delo, 27 January 1990. 162 Ana Kladnik

Fig. 1: Dušan Šinigoj, President of the Executive Council of the Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, speaks at the celebration of the 120th anniversary of firefighting in Metlika, Slovenia, 1989. (Source: Gasilski vestnik, 43, no. 8–9 (August / September 1989), 252)

According to a long-time member of the Novo Mesto firefighters, Rudi Nanger, the changed role of the SZDL, which had become a political party, also changed the relationship of the firefighting organisation towards it: ‘Our organisation does not want to be part of the Socialist Alliance. Identification with the programmes of political parties should be free for each member of the volunteer firefighting department, as a citizen and as a voter. Our association and its members will cooperate with individual political parties and organisations only in matters regarding volunteer firefighting.’47 Nanger had been present at the aforementioned meeting in 1963, after which the SZDL got more involved in the functioning of the GZS, at least on the Re‑ publican level. In retrospect, his stance in 1989 seems to confirm the assumption that compulsory inclusion in the SZDL back then had been met with disapprov‑ al by firefighters in higher positions. However, in February 1990, the Presidency of the GZS decided to join the Socialist Alliance as a collective member.48 But just before the elections in April,

47 Rudi Nanger, Pluralizem in stališče OGZ Novo Mesto, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 3 (March 1990), 85. 48 Stališča in sklepi, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 4 (April 1990), 115–116. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 163 the former SZDL changed its position and decided that associations could not be collective members of a political party.49 Finally, the firefighters and their organisation declared themselves as non-partisan and announced that they would cooperate with members of those political parties that included fire pro‑ tection interests in their programmes.50 In the April elections, the DEMOS coalition won 54 % of the vote. However, the Party of Democratic Renewal (the former League of Communists) achieved 17 % as a single party, whilst second place was taken by the former Socialist Youth with 14 %, now renamed the Liberal Party. The Socialist Party of Slove‑ nia (the former SZDL), which before the elections had considered itself to be the strongest organisation and had not wanted to unite with other important sociopolitical organisations, received only around 5 % of the vote.51 It is impos‑ sible to assess if the results would have been more favourable for the Socialist Party had they allowed associations to become collective members. The party existed until 1994, when it merged with some other parties into the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (Liberalna demokracija Slovenije, LDS). Thus, the Slovene Firefighting Association pragmatically managed the tran‑ sition to a democratic system. On the one hand, the GZS tried to secure its position by remaining a member of the SZDL, now turned political party. On the other hand, the Association listened to those members who advocated an independent, non-partisan position—which eventually prevailed—also be‑ cause of the new political party’s decision not to accept collective members. The organisation of the GZS on all levels (national, regional and local) was no longer under the umbrella of any other organisation. It now addressed its wishes, demands, and recommendations directly to the government.52

The Failed Attempt to Leave the Defence System

For the Firefighting Association, the democratic transition was not just about breaking with the SZDL, but also represented an opportunity to reorganise its position in relation to Civil Protection. The general social climate tended towards reducing militarisation. Since the late 1980s, the newly formed parties had been in favour of reducing defence spending; most of them had supported demilitarisation and had even envisioned Slovenia (Yugoslavia) as a neutral state with no army.53 However, quite the opposite happened to the firefight‑

49 Primož Hainz, Gasilci niso pozabljeni, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 4 (April 1990), 90. 50 Franc Sever, Zaupanje novim ljudem, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 6 (June 1990), 162–164, 162. 51 Repe / Kerec, Slovenija, moja dežela, 182. 52 Sever, Zaupanje novim ljudem, 162. 53 Demilitarisation became a political option at the end of 1989 when it was adopted as a goal by the Alliance of Socialist Youth of Slovenia at its congress. Ljubica Jelušič, Legitim­ 164 Ana Kladnik ers. After the self-managed groups of interest (SIS) for fire protection were abolished in January 1990, the financing of the GZS was transferred to the state, more specifically the Republic’s Secretariat for People’s Defence (later the Ministry of Defence). This regulation was not warmly accepted by the vol‑ unteer firefighters.54 Throughout the socialist period, the Ministry of Interior had been the corresponding ministry for firefighters.55 The GZS appealed to the new Slovenian government and underlined that the current form of cohesion within the portfolio of the Secretariat for People’s Defence was not suitable. On the other hand, however, there were firefighters who cheered the idea of an autonomous firefighting department within the Republican Executive Coun‑ cil.56 The latter paralleled the primacy of the state over other associational or‑ ganisations during the transition, as identified by Tomaž Pavlin in the case of sports organisations and which provoked criticism about nationalisation and ‘the domination of the state over the civilian sphere of sport’.57 In the case of sports organisations, the tasks of the former SIS were transferred to republican or municipal bodies in 1990, and responsibility for sport policy was transferred to the newly formed Ministry of Education and Sport. The floods that hit Slovenia in 1990 made very visible the difference between the firefighting and civil protection organisations. On 1 November, rivers burst their banks across the country and water spread across the Savinja Valley. The floods claimed two lives, around 200 people were left without a roof over their heads, and more than 5,000 houses were heavily damaged.58 Just under 500 nost sodobnega vojaštva, Ljubljana 1997, 189; cf. Repe / Kerec, Slovenija, moja dežela, 170; and Anton Grizold / Ljubica Jelušič / Tomo Korošec, eds, Demilitarizacija Slovenije in nacion‑ alna varnost, Ljubljana 1991. 54 XII. kongres GZS, Ljubljana 1993, 144; Stališča in sklepi, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 6 (June 1990), 193–196, 195. Cf. Kladnik / Lindenberger, Traditionen der Freiwilligkeit im Transfor‑ mationsregime, 262–266. 55 In the Archives of Slovenia, the records of the Republican Secretariat for Internal Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (SI AS 1931) do not contain much information on the issue of firefighting, especially for the period after 1972. In other Yugoslav successor states, the Ministry of Interior remained the corresponding ministry. Similarly, in Germany and the Czech Republic, the Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the firefighting service. 56 Franc Sever, K razmišljanju o novem zakonu, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 11–12 (November / December 1990), 328–329. 57 Tomaž Pavlin, ‘Športna zgodba stkana iz dejavnosti tisočev’ (osamosvojitev in šport, tranzicija in dileme), in: Jure Gašparič / Mojca Šorn, eds, Četrt stoletja Republike Slovenije. Izzivi, dileme, pričakovanja, Ljubljana 2016, 85–96. The cited comment was made by Rajko Šugman, the president of the Sport Association of Slovenia, cf. Rajko Šugman, Modeli špor‑ ta v svetu in podržavljanje športa pri nas, in: Aleks L. Vest / Rajko Šugman, eds, Stanje, odnosi in vrednote v slovenskem športu, Ljubljana 1999, 9–21, 12. 58 Bojan Učenišnik, Foreword, in: Organisational Concept of the System for Protection and Rescue in the Republic of Slovenia. The Republic of Slovenia Ministry of Defence, Republic Administration for Protection and Rescue, Ljubljana 1993, 1–5, 3. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 165

VFDs with nearly 10,000 firefighters participated in the emergency interven‑ tions, which were generally considered rapid and effective. Although firefight‑ ers were in most cases the first to be involved in the rescue interventions, there was, especially in the early days, no reporting about their work in the media.59 After the floods, the Republican Secretariat of People’s Defence conducted a survey of 502 people from the three most damaged districts, with questions mainly relating to their individual experiences of the floods. In conclusion, the survey showed that the respondents were by far the most satisfied with the work of the firefighters, followed by the members of the civil protection organ‑ isation in their local communities.60 Contrary to this positive assessment of the firefighters amongst the population, the media had reported, at least initially, that the main rescue work had been carried out by members of Civil Protection. This sparked criticism from amongst the firefighters. The commander of the Celje VFD, an area which was badly affected by the floods, began his letter to the firefighters’ magazine by stating that he had been loyal to the firefighting organisation from an early age. On the emergency response to the flooding, he addressed the GZS presidency: ‘How long will we, the firefighters, still be “servants”? I took part in the rescue oper‑ ations in Celje and saw how the firefighters worked all day and night. […] It bothers me that our work and the organisation itself are not appreciated. Others take credit for our work. I am thinking here mainly of the Civil Protection. Why did the GZS commander and president allow Civil Protection’s heroic chest-beating? […] We hear different information, that we are supposed to be involved in civil protection […] or territorial defence. Why are the leaders silent about this? […] If our presidency is not capable of representing our organisation with dignity, of becoming independent and of acting as an independent body, then we must give you a vote of no confidence and demand your resignation.’61 The GZS representatives faced the difficult task of negotiating with the Min‑ istry of Defence whilst struggling to maintain the trust of its members. The new law anticipated reducing the number of civil protection units and instead giving the firefighters a more significant role. In an article for the firefighting magazine, the Minister of Defence pointed out that in the past Civil Protec‑ tion had been conceptualised primarily in terms of military threat, but that the protection and rescue system needed to be adapted in peacetime to deal with natural and other disasters:

59 Anton Sentočnik, Gasilci ob poplavah, ki so bile v Sloveniji 1.11.1990, Gasilski vestnik 45, no. 1–2 (January / February 1991), 12–15. 60 Marko Polič / Slavko Rajh / Bojan Ušeničnik, Dogajanje med poplavami leta 1990 v očeh prizadetih prebivalcev, Ujma 5 (1991), 114–121, 116. 61 Branko Cajnko, Javno vprašanje predsedstvu GZS, Gasilski vestnik 45, no. 1–2 (1991), 47–48. 166 Ana Kladnik

‘Civil Protection will be significantly reduced in the future. […] In no way should the firefighters’ autonomy be restricted, this applies also to volunteer firefighting, which should be further encouraged. One hundred and twenty years of experience and tra‑ dition confirm its virtue among the people. […] Some have suggested that protection and rescue should be organised as an independent ministerial activity. Undoubtedly, developments are going in this direction.’62 These words by the minister were certainly encouraging for the firefighters, but they can be read in two ways.63 On the one hand, the insufficient training and equipment of the civil protection units in local communities had already been revealed in an analysis of the defence and security preparedness of local communities in Slovenia in 1988, and the 1990 floods even prompted civil pro‑ tection units to be abolished due to their inoperability.64 On the other hand, after the 1990 elections, the Ministry of Defence accelerated its preparations for Slovenia’s independence, which was finally accomplished in June 1991. These preparations included the complicated and sensitive process of separating the Territorial Defence of Slovenia from the system of the Yugoslav People’s Army, and re-organising it into an independent Slovenian army.65 In order for Slove‑ nia’s independence to be thoroughly prepared and based on valid legislation, it was necessary to adopt new laws in a timely manner. At meetings with members of the Council of the Presidency for the People’s Defence, attended also by president Milan Kučan, the firefighters repeatedly emphasised that the area of protection and rescue should be separated from defence and dealt with in a separate law, since it constituted a civilian and not military state obligation. Kučan suggested that the new legislation should consider the GZS’s proposals when it came to performing fire protection tasks for the state.66 When in March 1991 the new Defence and Protection Act (Zakon o obrambi in zaščiti, UL RS 15/91) was issued, the result was bitter-sweet for the firefighters. On the one hand, some of their wishes had been implemented fairly well: they were no longer subordinate to civil defence, but had the same rights and duties. On the other hand, however, their organisation failed to

62 Janez Janša, Želimo sodoben sistem za zaščito in reševanje, Gasilski vestnik 45, no. 1–2 (1991), 4–5. 63 The relevant materials in the Ministry of Defence archives, as well as those in the GZS archives, were not available to me during my research in 2018. 64 Archive of the GZS, Bojan Učenišnik, Civilna zaščita v krajevni skupnosti (uncata‑ logued). 65 Cf. Tomaž Kladnik, Slovenska vojska v službi domovine, Ljubljana 2007; Kladnik, Nas‑ tanek TO Slovenije, 4; Damijan Guštin, Varnost in obramba Republike Slovenije. Dileme in rešitve, in: Gašparič / Šorn, eds, Četrt stoletja Republike Slovenije, 71–83. 66 Bili smo gostje seje Sveta Predsedstva Republike Slovenije za LO, Gasilski vestnik 45, no. 4 (April 1991), 97–98. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 167 receive more autonomy and remained under the direction of the Ministry of Defence.

Firefighters as a Patriotic Organisation. The Transition to the Slovenian Nation State

In what ways did transition, which not only represented a shift from a specific mono-party system to a pluralist one, but also to an independent Slovenian state—independent for the first time in history—change the status of volunteer firefighters? Did the mentioned rush before the declaration of independence, in the face of this double transition, prevent the preparation of separate laws for defence agendas and protection tasks? At the independence referendum on 23 December 1990, voters were to decide whether Slovenia should become an independent and sovereign state. Both the ruling centre-right coalition and the left-wing opposition supported the referendum and called on voters to support independence.67 Slovenian politi‑ cians attended numerous firefighting events in order to address the firefighters and to promote the idea of Slovenian independence. Such events were usually attended not only by the firefighters, but also their families and other villagers or townspeople. For example, in his speech on the occasion of the celebration of the 140th anniversary of the Firefighter Brass Band in Kapele in southeast Slovenia, President Milan Kučan addressed the importance of the firefighters for the Slovene national awakening in the 19th century and for Slovene national identity. He concentrated, however, on the current political situation: ‘A few days ago, the Slovenian Assembly decided to start the process of drafting and adopting the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. We will adopt this constitution as a sovereign, independent Slovenian state. […] This act is legal, it is democratic and it is civil. […] It is also required by the European democratic tradition to which we belong and which we want to re-establish.’68 Kučan’s speech is in line with historian Marko Zajc’s thesis that in 1990/1991 ‘Slovenian nationalism used the discourse of democracy so extensively that the language of democracy and the language of sovereignty became almost one’.69 The intensive campaign for an independent Slovenian state bore fruit. The re‑ sults of the referendum were convincing: over 93 % of eligible voters took part

67 Repe / Kerec, Slovenija, moja dežela, 215–226. 68 140 let kapelske gasilske pihalne godbe, Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 9 (September 1990), 250–252, 252. 69 Zajc, When the Slovenian Spring Turned into a Hot Summer, 156; cf. Zdenko Čepič, Pred tem. Nastajanje slovenske državnosti pred samostojno državo, in: Gašparič / Šorn, eds, Četrt stoletja Republike Slovenije, 53–64; Adolf Bibič, Nekateri vidiki pluralizacije družbe in države na Slovenskem, Teorija in praksa 29, no. 7–8 (1992), 703–713. 168 Ana Kladnik in the referendum, and over 88 % of these voted for independence.70 In the next six months, it became a matter of urgency to prepare the required legislation, as the declaration of independence was scheduled for 26 June 1991. For this day, the GZS appealed to its members to ‘solemnly, as we firefighters know, celebrate the birth of the state of Slovenia. Let us organise a fire-fighting festivity—a ball […] let us plant a linden tree as a symbol of Slovenian statehood. We invite others to rejoice and dance with us. […] Our sirens will announce the celebration, […] the “fire” of the desire for independence and co‑ existence of all people for whom the state of Slovenia is their homeland.’71 Especially in the light of subsequent events, which would see thousands of individuals originating from other former Yugoslav republics and living in Slovenia ‘erased’ from all administrative registers,72 it is worth noting that the appeal was addressed to all people who lived in Slovenia, regardless of their nationality. The proclamation of Slovene sovereignty took place as planned on 26 June 1991. By 1 a. m. on 27 June, units of the Yugoslav People’s Army were headed towards the border crossings with the intention to occupy them. In order to prevent the army’s advance, firefighters used their vehicles to create blockades against the tanks.73 In preparing for rapid intervention, the GZS partnered with the Republican Civil Protection, with the Red Cross and other republican au‑ thorities. The protection and rescue units in the small town of Domžale, north‑ east of Ljubljana, for example, were made up of civil protection units, local health care, the Red Cross and the Firefighting Association with twenty-nine volunteer fire departments. Altogether, more than 500 people were involved.74 At the GZS headquarters in Ljubljana, emergency duty was organised. In the following days, which would later become known as Slovenia’s ‘ten-day war’, firefighting vehicles were no longer used to form blockades, as people quickly realised that it was much more important for the equipment to be available for actually fighting fires.75 This time, the fast involvement of the firefighters did not go unnoticed. Their intervention turned them into patriots, who con‑ tributed greatly both during the war and in the process of achieving Slovenian independence.76

70 Repe / Kerec, Slovenija, moja dežela, 225. 71 Proslavimo slovensko državnost, Gasilski vestnik, 45, no. 6 (June 1991), 216. 72 Cf. Neža Kogovšek Šalamon, Erased. Citizenship, Residence Rights and the Constitu‑ tion in Slovenia, Frankfurt/M., Bern 2016. 73 Peter Gubanc, Zaščita in reševanje v občini Domžale, 1990–2000, Domžale 2002, 11. 74 Gubanc, Zaščita in reševanje v občini Domžale, 14. 75 Interview with M. K., Ljubljana, 15 April 2015. 76 S. U., Minister Janša izročil priznanje, Gasilec 46, no. 1–2 (January / February 1992), 33; Uvodni referat predsednika Gasilske zveze Slovenije Ernesta Eöryja na kongresu, Gasilec 47, Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 169

Fig. 2: Milan Kučan, President of the Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia, at the cele‑ bration of the 140th anniversary of the Firefighting Brass Band.(Source: Gasilski vestnik 44, no. 9 (September 1990), 250)

Finally on Their Own?

What did the war change in regard to the defence system, and how did this affect the firefighters? While in March 1990 public opinion had still been rather undecided as to whether Slovenia should have an army or not, with surveys showing a high percentage in support of demilitarisation, this changed dras‑ tically with the so-called ‘ten-day war’.77 Now, to the contrary, there was talk of the militarisation of civil society, the main reason being the exposure of the Minister of Defence and his colleagues in the media and their popularity.78 Had the firefighters’ chances increased to successfully separate from the Ministry of Defence? At the Firefighters’ Congress of 1993, the director of the Republic’s Administration for Protection and Rescue reassured the firefighters that his no. 7–8 (July / August 1993), 184. In January 1992 the firefighters’ magazine Gasilski vestnik changed its name to Gasilec. 77 Tomaž Repnik, Odnos civilne družbe do slovenske vojske v obdobju 1991–2006, Ljublja­ na 2006, 23–24. 78 Repnik, Odnos civilne družbe, 43. 170 Ana Kladnik

Fig. 3: Matjaž Kmecl and Dušan Plut, members of the Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia, in discussion with members of the Ribče VFD. (Source: Gasilski vestnik, 45, no. 1–2 (January / February 1991), 16) entity functioned as a relatively independent system, but concluded that ‘it will, at least for now, remain within the Ministry of Defence’.79 Hearing this, the general atmosphere amongst the firefighters was not pos‑ itive. A firefighter, whose words embodied very well the post-independence agenda, commented: ‘It is time […] to tell the state and party leaders that we want to rule our own. We do not require any remuneration for our work, but only that our own place belongs to us. The state and its representatives from the republic and the municipality only command us and give us work and responsibility, but no one is aware that we are doing voluntary work and that everyone exposes their lives at their own risk.’80 The GZS looked for further opportunities to demand changes for its organ‑ isation and for a more important role for the firefighters within the system of protection and rescue. The new National Assembly of ninety deputies had as many as seven VFD members, two of whom were members of the Defence

79 O poteku kongresa (razprava), Gasilski kongres 1993, 202–277, 207. 80 Branko Cajnko, Kdaj bomo gasilci res samo gasilci?, Gasilec 47, no. 2 (February 1993), 51. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 171

Fig. 4: Janez Janša, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia presents the President of the GZS with a large plaque. (Source: Gasilski vestnik, no. 46, 1–2 (January / February 1992), 33)

Committees. Despite their political antagonism—one was a member of the So‑ cial Democratic Party (the successor to the League of Communists), while the other was a member of the Slovene Christian Democratic Party—they worked together and were both good advocates for firefighting issues in parliament. In the framework of the new legislation, the firefighting association demanded the introduction of sufficient freedom for the firefighters.81 According to the president of the GZS, the VFDs—as the organisation’s base—were to remain intact, well-organised, voluntary, expert, apolitical and non-partisan, but to have greater emphasis on operational and educational work.82 The GZS advocated that two laws be enacted: first, the ‘Fire Protection Law’, which was to determine the obligations of the state, organisations and individuals in regard to fire protection, and, second, the ‘Firefighting Law’, which would determine the obligations of the state and municipal adminis‑

81 Franc Polič, Bodoča pravna ureditev gasilstva na Slovenskem, Gasilec 47, no. 2 (February 1993), 33. 82 Ernest Eöry, Temeljite priprave na kongres, Gasilec 47, no. 5 (May 1993), 125; Ernest Eöry, Kongresno leto se izteka, Gasilec 47, no. 12 (December 1993), 293–294, 293; Ernest Eöry, Organiziranost gasilstva v bodoče, Gasilec 48, no. 3 (March 1994), 81–82, 81. 172 Ana Kladnik

Fig. 5: A memorial plaque in Kog reads ‘To the Firefighters, the Veterans of the War for Slovenia, VFD Vitan – Kog, VFD Miklavž, VFD Hermanci, 25 June 2004.’ (Source: courtesy of the author) tration to the firefighting organisations.83 At the end of 1993, both acts were adopted, with an additional ‘Law on Protection’ against other natural disasters being passed the following year.84 The legislation determined that volunteer firefighting was organised in associations, but that the VFDs performed tasks of public importance to the local community as well as to the state.85 By adopting both these new laws, the state laid the foundations for the or‑ ganisation and operation of firefighting in the Republic of Slovenia. The fire‑ fighters’ wish for an autonomous firefighting department outside the Ministry of Defence was not fulfilled. However, within the new system of protection against natural and other disasters, the firefighters received a status equal to

83 Anton Sentočnik, Gasilci in zakonodaja, Gasilec 46, no. 3 (March 1992), 37–39. 84 Zakon o gasilstvu (Firefighting Law) and Zakon o varstvu pred požarom (Fire Protec‑ tion Law), both in Uradni List Republike Slovenije (UL RS), 71/93, 30 December 1993; Zakon o varstvu pred naravnimi in drugimi nesrečami (Natural and Other Disasters Protection Law), UL RS 64/94, 28 September 1994. 85 Tone Sentočnik, Ob sprejemu gasilske zakonodaje, Gasilec 48, no. 1 (January 1994), 1–2. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 173 other organisations, such as Civil Protection or the Red Cross, and it was guar‑ anteed that the state would not interfere in matters of internal organisation.

The Nationalisation of Firefighting

In the first years of Slovenian independent statehood there was an effort by the new government to nationalise firefighting action, and to present the fire‑ fighters as part of the Slovenian national ‘essence’. As pointed out, speeches by high-ranking politicians acknowledged the role of firefighters in the ‘Slovenian national awakening’ of the 19th century. In 1994, at the 125th anniversary of firefighting in Slovenia, the Vice President of the National Assembly, Lev Kreft, emphasised the historical importance of the firefighting organisation, not only in regard to firefighting but also culturally, especially with the introduction of Slovenian as language of command, which had been, according to him, of great importance for ‘Slovenianness’ in general.86 Kreft’s reference to the Slovenian language does not come as a surprise, as the language has always been crucial for Slovenian national identity.87 Kreft also recalled the fact that almost every Slovenian family had at least one firefighter, which, he claimed, confirmed how much Slovenianness was intertwined with the firefighting tradition.88 In 1994, newly elected Slovenian prime minister Janez Drnovšek similarly expressed his pride in the role of firefighters in Slovenia: ‘Firefighting in Slovenia is not only an activity that is urgently needed and useful, but also represents one of the Slovenian traditions; we could say it is probably part of Slovenian culture, of Slovenian history. Firefighting is so ingrained in us that it has long been an integral part of the life of virtually every Slovenian.’89 Such speeches were hardly a novelty: as I have demonstrated above, Slovenian communists had also commonly associated firefighting with Slovenian tradi‑ tion. The attempts to use the firefighters to strengthen national consciousness and make political profit thus continued after the systemic change.

86 Matjaž Klarič, Gasilci v Državnem zboru, Gasilec 48, no. 12 (December 1994), 348–350. 87 Cf. the interview with linguist and literary scholar Kozma Ahačič in the TV series ‘50 kn‑ jig, ki so nas napisale’, RTV SLO / RTV 4, 18 May 2020, 1’35’’-2’, https://4d.rtvslo.si/arhiv/50- knjig-ki-so-nas-napisale/174609203. Ahačič explains the importance of language for Slovene national identity in his discussion of Slavoj Žižek’s Jezik, ideologija, Slovenci (Language, Ideol‑ ogy, Slovenes), Ljubljana 1987. The book was the result of Žižek’s research into unconscious phantasms in identity-building processes among Slovenes. 88 Klarič, Gasilci v Državnem zboru, Gasilec 48, no. 12 (December 1994), 348–350. 89 Marko Pograjc, Dr. Drnovšek podpira dejavnost gasilcev, Gasilec 48, no. 7–8 (July / August 1994), 209–210. 174 Ana Kladnik Conclusion. The Heterogeneity of Civil Societies

How can my case study of volunteer firefighters and their organisation during the time of political ruptures at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s in Slove‑ nia expand our understanding of civil society? In the context of the democra‑ tisation process in Slovenia, authors have distinguished between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ civil societies.90 According to Adolf Bibič, the so-called New Social Movements (NSM) played a pioneering role in launching the idea and practice of civil society.91 The NSM appeared after 1968 as an ‘alternative concept’ or a ‘new paradigm’, and included Radio Študent established in 1969, the journal Mladina (Youth), the student cultural centre ŠKUC established in 1979, various LGBTQ collectives, Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art), the Booklet of Revolutionary Theory, punk and new wave music, the Časopis za kritiko znanosti (Journal for the Critique of Science), the peace, environmental, feminist and spiritual movements—to mention just a few. The NSM posed broader ques‑ tions than class antagonism or political pluralism, questioning hierarchies and domination as such.92 Developments in Slovenia were influenced by vivid, post-Marxist de‑ bates on civil society exchanged with Western social scientists, as well as by the struggles for democracy in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.93 By the mid-1980s, civil society in Slovenia extended outward to groups such as writers, philosophers, and lawyers. Yet the liberal faction within the Slovene League of Communists, which was slowly seizing crucial leadership positions, tried to ‘domesticate civil society, that is, reconcile it with the idea of “Socialist self-management” in a new amalgam called “Socialist civil society”’.94 Here, the sociopolitical organisations, especially the Socialist Alliance of the Working People (SZDL) and the Socialist Youth League of Slovenia (ZSMS) played an important role. According to historian Božo Repe, the SZDL gradually ‘became a kind of a parliament anteroom, a mixture of civil society […] and political

90 Tomaž Mastnak, Vzhodno od raja. Civilna družba pod komunizmom in po njem, Ljubljana 1992; Bibič, Nekateri vidiki pluralizacije, 703–713; Gregor Tomc, The Politics of Punk, in: Jill Benderly / Evan Kraft, eds, Independent Slovenia. Origins, Movements, Pros‑ pects, London 1994, 113–134; Vlasta Jalušič, Ideologija in realnost civilnih družb, in: Dani‑ ca Fink-Hafner / Miro Haček, eds, Demokratični prehodi II, Ljubljana 2001, 173–196; Rudolf Martin Rizman, Uncertain Path. Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Slovenia, Aus‑ tin/TX 2006; Žiga Vodovnik, Demokratizacija in nova družbena gibanja, Teorija in praksa 51, no. 2–3, (January 2014), 415–433. 91 Bibič, Nekateri vidiki pluralizacije družbe, 705. 92 Tomaž Mastnak, From Social Movement to National Sovereignty, in: Benderly / Kraft, eds, Independent Slovenia, 93–111, 94. 93 Cf. Tomaž Mastnak, ed, Socialistična civilna družba, Ljubljana 1985. 94 Rizman, Uncertain Path, 57. Volunteer Firefighters and Slovenian Nation- and State-Building from Below 175 organisations’,95 while the ZSMS welcomed autonomous groups, initiatives, and movements.96 The wave of democratisation was becoming less and less ‘alternative’ and more and more ‘oppositional’, less and less ‘plural’ and more and more ‘goal-oriented’. Gradually, new social movements were marginalised with the consolidation of a ‘new’ civil society.97 Quite a number of civil society groups transformed themselves into political parties or were integrated into the ZSMS, which, together with the SZDL, either became political parties and took power after the first democratic elections or became a part of ‘political society’, as opposed to the civil one. Where can volunteer firefighters and their volunteer fire departments be placed within this debate about civil society? I propose a third form of tran‑ sitional civil society, namely, volunteer firefighters as rudiments of civic en‑ gagement, which achieved, over the years, a degree of adjustment and the maintenance of internal autonomy. Together with their link to ‘Slovenianness’, this long-rehearsed competence enabled the firefighters to remain intact and functional both under communism and emerging from the systemic transition. They functioned as active transmitters and supporters of the new exigencies and imperatives of change conveyed by the state, while they also negotiated the inevitable changes and managed to attenuate their consequences.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Ana Kladnik Alaunstr. 90, 01099 Dresden, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

95 Repe, SZDL Slovenije danes? 96 Rizman, Uncertain Path, 58. 97 Mastnak, From Social Movement to National Sovereignty, 107.