Carniola

Carniola

a region of N Slovenia: a former duchy and crownland of Austria (1335--1919); divided between Yugoslavia and Italy in 1919; part of Yugoslavia (1947--92)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Carniola

 

(in Slovene, Kranjska; in German, Krain), a historical region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula.

The nucleus of Carniola was lands in the basin of the Sava River. In antiquity Carniola was populated by tribes of Celts and Illyrians, and in the late sixth century it was settled by Slavs (Slovenes). From the sixth to eighth centuries it was ruled by the Avars. In the late eighth century it was incorporated into the Frankish state. From the second half of the tenth to the early 11th century, part of Carniola belonged to the duchy of Greater Carinthia, the remainder being part of the Slovene march. Until the second half of the 13th century, various German feudal families ruled Carniola; in 1335 it came under the Hapsburgs. Carniola became a duchy in 1364, later becoming one of the Hapsburgs’ crown lands. In the 16th century it was a center of large-scale peasant uprisings (1515 and 1573) and of the Reformation; the Slovene national movement sprang up there in the 19th century. In 1920 much of Carniola was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (since 1929, Yugoslavia), the rest going to Italy. Under the 1947 peace treaty with Italy, all of Carniola, as part of Slovenia, was reunified with Yugoslavia.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.