Descendants of Slovenian emigrants and the preservation of the Slovenian language in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A number of contemporary studies have looked at immigration to Slovenia from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the second half of the twentieth century and in the twenty-first century, it is a considerably less well known fact that people have also been migrating from Slovenia to Bosnia and Herzegovina since the nineteenth century. The most frequent reason has been economic, in other words employment. Migration for this reason was also significant in the twentieth century, although this is a period in which migration in the opposite direction was a more common phenomenon: more people migrate from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia and the country actually accounts for the largest number of migrants to Slovenia in the twenty-first century. The most common reason is the search for employment, followed by family reunification. 

Some descendants of emigrants from Slovenia to Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to come together in Slovenian associations in the twenty-first century. There are currently ten Slovenian associations active in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with one of the most active being the Triglav Association of Slovenians of the Republic of Srpska in Banja Luka. This association cooperates closely with organisations in Slovenia (e.g. ZRC SAZU, DRPD Novo Mesto). Three teachers with funding from Slovenia teach Slovenina language and culture the descendants of Slovenian emigrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Language courses are also available at universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina – two in Banja Luka and one in Sarajevo – giving university students the opportunity to learn Slovenian. The activities of associations, Slovenian language teachers and university language instructors and the ways they cooperate with each other is our field of research.

Researchers in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia will carry out fieldwork (semi-structured interviews with key figures from the above organisations or other collaborators). We will also review lists held by general and university libraries of printed publications in Slovenian issued in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1995. We will organise two international scholarly meetings (in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021 and in Slovenia in 2022) and prepare two papers.