Page "History of Slovenia" Paragraph 27

In August 1813, Austria declared war on France.

Austrian troops led by General Franz Tomassich invaded the Illyrian Provinces.

After this short French interim all Slovene Lands were, once again, included in the Austrian Empire.

Slowly, a distinct Slovene national consciousness developed, and the quest for a political unification of all Slovenes became widespread.

In the 1820s and 1840s, the interest in Slovene language and folklore grew enormously, with numerous philologists collecting folk songs and advancing the first steps towards a standardization of the language.

A small number of Slovene activist, mostly from Styria and Carinthia, embraced the Illyrian movement that started in neighboring Croatia and aimed at uniting all South Slavic peoples.

Pan-Slavic and Austro-Slavic ideas also gained importance.

However, the intellectual circle around the philologist Matija Čop and the Romantic poet France Prešeren was influential in affirming the idea of Slovene linguistic and cultural individuality, refusing the idea of merging the Slovenes into a wider Slavic nation.