STA, 19 January 2018 - Celebrations of the centenary of Prekmurje's reunification with Slovenia, to be marked on 17 August, have got under way with the launch of a book about the role the US played at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference for the region to be awarded to Slovenia.
Prekmurje in the Whirlpool of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (Prekmurje v Vrtincu Pariške Mirovne Conference 1919) focuses on the role of the US and Major Douglas W. Johnson in setting the Slovenian or Prekmurje borders after the First World War.
Its author Uroš Lipušček, an acclaimed journalist, said at yesterday's book launch that Johnson had played a very important role which had been overlooked.
"When it comes to Prekmurje, he absolutely played the key role," Lipušček said about Johnson, a university professor and US President Thomas Woodrow Wilson's cartographer.
Johnson, whom Lipušček labelled a very educated man, attended two sessions of the territorial commission, insisting Prekmurje be given to the SHS Kingdom.
"When he saw Wilson will yield to the Italian pressure and give Primorska to the Italians and that due to Wilson's stubbornness we will also lose Koroška, he put pressure on the US delegation and Wilson, saying they have lost everything, so they must not lose Prekmurje."
Lipušček believes Slovenians were lucky to have Johnson at these meetings rather than somebody else from the US delegation, not all of whose members were in favour of Slovenians or Yugoslavians.
The book also speaks about efforts of Catholic intellectuals for Prekmurje to become part of Slovenia. Lipušček said they had convinced the US delegation to back Prekmurje's unification with Slovenia.
Addressing the event, the chair of the board for Prekmurje reunification centenary celebrations, Milan Kučan, said the anniversary should be directed towards the future.
Kučan, Slovenia's former president, who comes from Prekmurje, said it should affirm Prekmurje the way it had been when becoming part of Slovenia - multicultural, multi-religious and multi-civilisational.
The book launch was held in Murska Sobota, the regional capital of Prekmurje, on Friday, 100 years to the day since the Paris Peace Conference opened.
At the peace conference, Slovenia lost the region of Primorska and after the 1920 plebiscite also Koroška, but got part of Primorska back after the Second World War.
The celebrations will culminate with a ceremony on Prekmurje Reunification Day on 17 August, marking the day when military authorities handed power to civilians.
