When is Resistance Day?
This state holiday is always celebrated on April 27th. It may also be known as 'Day of uprising against Occupation' and in Slovenian, it is known as 'Dan upora proti okupatorju'.
This holiday commemorates the establishment of the Slovenian Liberation Front in 1941.
History of Resistance Day
During the second world war, Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia) was first partly annexed by Nazi Germany on April 6th 1941 and the remainder was annexed by Italy and Hungary on April 11th 1941.
A few weeks later, the Yugoslav government had surrendered to the axis forces.
The Liberation Front was established in the house of writer Josip Vidmar in Ljubljana in the evening of April 26th 1941. The front became the main resistance movement against the invaders, with its military wing, the Slovene Partisans, first fighting as a guerilla force, then becoming a more organised armed force.
Despite being formed on April 26th, for over twenty years it had been wrongly assumed that the front was created on April 27th, by which time the date of April 27th had become established and there seemed little point in changing the date.
After the end of the war, the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Slovenia was formed on the basis of the Liberation Front.
The holiday was initially called the Day of the Liberation Front and was renamed to 'Resistance Day' following Slovenia's independence in 1991.
