Slovenian in U.S. celebrates two Independence Days

  Wednesday, June 29, 2016 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

As Americans prepare to celebrate another Independence Day with backyard cookouts, parades and fireworks, they can only imagine what it may have been like for those patriots who took up arms to form their own nation nearly two-and-a-half centuries ago.

But for Gregor Kalan, the struggle for independence is fresh in his mind. Kalan, director of web marketing at Pittsburg State University, is from Slovenia, which celebrated its 25th independence day on June 25.

“They do similar things to what they do in the U.S. to celebrate independence,” Kalan said. “They have parades and firework displays in the capital of Ljubljana.”

They just haven’t been doing it as long. Slovenia, for many years a part of what was Yugoslavia, became independent in 1991.

“I was about 15 years old,” Kalan recalled. “School had ended for the summer. I remember waking up a day after we declared independence and there were tanks in the streets.”

Kalan said the referendum on independence had been all over the media in the days leading up to the vote, but like many young people, he hadn’t realized how serious the political climate actually was.

“When you’re that young, sometimes you don’t pay attention (to national issues),” Kalan said.

Six months after the vote, Slovenia declared its independence with a big ceremonial celebration in the capital city of Ljubljana. Hostilities broke out the next day and the gravity of the situation hit home for Kalan.

“We knew it was serious when Dad said ‘goodbye’ to us and told us he loved us before going out with the other men from the village.”

The war for independence lasted just 10 days and no shots were fired in Senicno, Kalan’s village.

Kalan came to the U.S. to study in 1999 and graduated from PSU in 2001. He returned to Slovenia but came back to the U.S. in 2005. Gregor and his wife, Jasna, who grew up in southeast Kansas but who he met in Slovenia, have four children: Janko, Matevž, Polona and Anamarija.

Although the children go to school in Pittsburg and are growing up much like most other American kids, Kalan said he makes sure they all speak Slovene and the family makes regular trips back to Slovenia to see Kalan’s extended family.

“I didn’t appreciate it (my heritage) until I went somewhere else,” Kalan said. “But family is very important to us and I am proud to be Slovenian. My grandmother always said ‘Don’t ever forget where you’re from.’”

It’s another place that just celebrated Independence Day.