On view: from July 1 to October 20, 2020, lobby of the Knights’ Hall
Exhibition Curator:: dr. Marko Štepec
Looking at the chronology of events of 1920 is a reminder that this year marks the centenary of the Carinthian Plebiscite and the Treaty of Rapallo. One hundred years have passed since the Trianon Peace Treaty, by which Prekmurje became part of the territory of the Kingdom of SHS. The great expectations of national self-determination, with echoes of the idea of a United Slovenia of 1848 and the May Declaration of 1917, were not materialized, since the new borders divided Slovenes between four countries. This year also marks the centenary of the burning of the building of the Slovene Narodni dom in Trieste, together with a hotel and the Trieste loan and savings bank. The many events reveal how the daily lives of Europeans changed and how profound were the effects left by the First World War. General living conditions only slowly improved and traditional values were losing their influence. We entered the “crazy” twenties, marked by the artistic pursuits of the “lost generation”, political extremes and social instability. It is no coincidence that the early twenties remained in the collective memory as dancing and jazz in metropolitan centers, attempts at female emancipation and outbreaks of “modernity,” as life sought new ways to defeat death and ruin. The exhibited photographs are mostly from the collection of the Slovenec newspaper, which is kept by the National Museum of Contemporary History.