^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Slovenian National Party (Political party, Slovenia)

Slovenska nacionalna stranka - SNS

Flag of SNS - Image by Tomislav Todorović & Željko Heimer, 28 October 2006

Presentation of SNS
Flag of SNS
Emblem of SNS
National flag and emblem proposal by SNS

See also:

Slovenia

Presentation of SNS

The Slovenian National Party (SNS) was founded in 1991 and its Statutes, adopted in 1995, were amended in 1998 and 2000.

Tomislav Todorović, 28 October 2006

Flag of SNS

The flag of SNS is described the party's Statutes as follows:

Article 8.
SNS has a flag, which consists of two equally-large rectangular fields of yellow and blue. On the yellow field there is a coat of arms with a Carantanian hat - the coat of arms of the Slovene March. In the event that the above becomes the state flag, the SNS will cease to employ it.

Carantania was the oldest state of the Slovenes, which lasted from 7th to 10th century, having comprised parts of present-day Austria and Slovenia. The Slovene March (Slovene, Slovenska Krajina; German, Windischen Mark), whose coat of arms appears on the flag of SNS, was a medieval estate in present-day Slovenia (the area nowadays known as Dolenjsko) and later became the part of the Duchy of Carniola. Its full achievement of arms can be seen at the Heraldry of the World website.

The only image of the party flag currently available on the Internet can be seen at the party website (page no longer online). It is a yellow and light blue horizontal bicolour, with the coat of arms in the canton: on the yellow field, a Slovene national hat in black and red; the shield is distinguished from the yellow stripe by a black fimbriation. A very similar flag was proposed for the national flag of Slovenia in 1990 in the magazine Prijatelj, the differences being in a much darker shade of blue and silver field of the coat of arms instead of yellow - that is certainly the reason for mentioning the possibility of abandoning the party flag if such design happens to be adopted for the national flag.

Tomislav Todorović, 28 October 2006

Emblem of SNS

Emblem of SNS - Image by Eugene Ipavec, 29 August 2010

The emblem of SNS is described the party's Statutes as follows:

Article 6.
The emblem of the Slovenian National Party (hereinafter referred to as SNS) consists of the coats of arms of Carniola and Styria with Carinthia in the top row, and Gorizia with Gradiška and Istria in the lower row, connected by a leaf of linden. In the background of the emblem is an outline of the map of Slovenian lands after Kozler, which is on the right touching the abbreviation "SNS" in italics. Under the emblem there is a line divided yellow-blue down its parallel, with the yellow on top. Its upper third bears the word "Slovenian", the two-thirds below bear the inscription "National Party". The letters are black.
In the color version the colors of the coats of arms are based on historical grounds, and are connected by a green linden leaf with yellow fruits; the background is a golden field of the current Republic of Slovenia and underneath it the white field of the map of Slovenian lands after Kozler. In black and white version the outlines and contours of the drawings and lettering are highlighted in black.
The emblem of the party in graphic form with precisely specified colors in the color and black and white versions is appended to the party statute.
Article 7.
The emblem can be an integral part of the name of the party.

The emblem does not include the Windisch hat found on the party's flag. The Kozler map mentioned above is very popular in irredentist circles, and dates from 1848. It has since been much abused by nationalists, who brandish it as historic evidence documenting heavy territorial losses in the intervening 150 years. This is to say the least misleading - for one thing, the map listed areas of significant Slovene settlement, not necessarily areas of majority or even plurality. For another, the linguistic division between Slovenia and Croatia was in the mid-1800s much less distinct than presently, with (in areas like Bela Krajina and northwestern Istra) more of a graduated continuum rather than a sharp dividing line.

Eugene Ipavec, 29 August 2010

National flag and emblem proposal by SNS

National flag and emblem proposal by SNS - Image by Eugene Ipavec, 7 October 2010

The magazine Mladina ran in 2004 an article about an aborted contract to design new emblems for the national police awarded to SNS leader Zmago Jelinčič as a sop by the then-center right goverment. Photos in the article include one of him with what must have been (though there is no mention of them in the article, but I can't believe these were meant to represent the police) mockups of his or his party's proposals for a new national flag and coat of arms.

The flag is blue-yellow-blue in "Spanish" layout, with proportions 1:2 - obviously related to the aforementioned party's current passive-agressive proposal for a new national flag. The arms are basically the same as the emblem of the SNS, only more conventionally heraldic and with the linden bough replaced with an inescutcheon of a Windisch hat. The quarterings speak to the party's irredentism: much of Styria and Gorizia are ouside Slovenia's current borders, as are nearly all of Carinthia and Istria.

Eugene Ipavec, 7 October 2010