Easter, the biggest Christian feast, by tradition brings families together. Long lost children return back home alone, or with their own families from capitals and foreign countries, to visit their parents along with other relatives, who never dared to leave the homeland. A week before and after Easter, roads become extremely busy. As reminders of peoples’ migrations, which were occurring over the Slovenian geo-strategic position also in the history: from North to South, from East to West. These patterns are still recorded in our genes. They are shown out in DNA analysis results and matching.
A celebration of spring starts at the beginning of Holy Week when bunches of spring greenery are brought to churches for the blessing. They differ in forms, size and species of greenery, flowers, and ornamentals, as well as by their names in different parts of Slovenia. The Christian custom of plaiting bundles dates to the 9th century and probably derives from a custom known throughout pagan medieval Europe. Easter has in Slovenia many colourful traditions and customs dating centuries into the past. Due to lack of food during the winter time, it was practical to introduce a long fast, which started on Ash Wednesday and ended on Easter Friday. On Easter Saturday a cooked ham, horseradish, potica, and pirhi are blessed in churches, to be later put on the table on Sunday morning. A special Slovenian cake, potica, is still made at homes in Slovenia. Also colourful decorated eggs, in Slovenia called pirhi, pisanice, pisanke, remenice or remenke, make the feast special.
Slovenians, who can come for the Easter visit, are settled in other EU countries, as well as in Switzerland and Balkan countries. The largest part of the Slovenian diaspora lives in Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, and Switzerland. The reasons for leaving home were of an economic nature. Similarly, emigration occurred in republics of the former Yugoslavia. Slovenians live in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.
Primarily for the economic reasons, the first compatriots left the homeland already in the last quarter of the 19th century, followed by departures in the 1930s, after World War II, and then in the 1950s and 1960s. Significant communities of Slovenian emigration is located in countries across the oceans in the USA, Canada, Argentina and other countries of Latin America, and Australia. Today, in these countries, we already meet with a third, and sometimes with the fourth generation of Slovenians. Many of them have been mixed with other nationalities, but for quite some, we can still find donors of DNA samples, which could be proved by documents to be of Slovenian origin.
Exactly for those we need to devote the most efforts that older generations are not the last Slovenians abroad. Slovenian Genealogy Society supports in organised and professional manner realisation of wishes of new generations to discover their roots and explore places of origin of their ancestors. In successful stories, Slovenes in the motherland and Slovenes around the world find their connections and become increasingly linked to Slovenia by the bond with the motherland, Slovenian language and culture.
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