HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF SHOOTING IN SLOVENIA

The bourgeois voluntary shooting clubs developed from various forms of general shooting exercises, weapons training, which in the beginning almost all male bourgeois citizens with any aptitude for weapons had to take part in. The main purpose of this training, which became more and more systematic over the years and was governed by various, often very strict, rules, was: the constant maintenance of law and order in the towns themselves, as well as defence against attacks by external enemies, of which there were not a few in those turbulent centuries of European history. Hence, perhaps, the great preference of the populace for all forms of riflemen's associations, which were able to protect their property and their lives in times of danger; it was also from the ranks of the riflemen that reliable and good soldiers could be recruited at a moment's notice.

But that's not all; the first well-known shooting clubs, in addition to their regular shooting exercises, which took place mainly in the summer season, also cultivated various other, more entertaining forms of social life. They organised various shooting parties with fun prize shooting, communal feasts, drinking parties and dances, most often in the upper “club” rooms of the shooting range building, where sometimes there were boisterous disputes and riots, in which even the authorities had to intervene to calm down the hot-blooded people.

Initially, shooting associations were truly democratic associations of free citizens and all members of the shooting association had to contribute an equal share to the basic needs of the association, and therefore, of course, all had equal rights. From the very beginning, the membership fee for the shooting association, as well as individual other fees such as, for example, the “shooting fee”, was rather “salutary”, so that the poorer townspeople were usually not to be seen at the shooting range, and this kind of entertainment was, so to speak, “reserved” only for the richer class of townspeople, for various rich merchants, craftsmen, officers, nobles and similar bourgeois “cream’.

However, when the danger from external enemies, especially the Turks, subsided, especially after the introduction of the regular army, the defensive purpose and the importance of the Rifle Association as a form of “city protection” remained only symbolic attributes, privileges that the riflemen used to show off at all major city ceremonies, not only shooting ones, but in general. Over time, the shooting associations “evolved” into associations of a rather closed type, semi-private associations, which later split into several branches, most often determined, as we have already noted, by the social status of the members, the use of certain types of firearms and, last but not least, by the basic purpose of the association itself.

Over the centuries, a considerable amount of documentary material has been preserved about the rich, varied and sometimes turbulent history of shooting clubs, whether in the form of written sources, cultural and historical artefacts, badges and emblems, or shooting banners, firearms, or a rich artistic heritage, such as portraits of shooters and a particular artistic and cultural-historical attraction - painted wooden and paper shooting targets, the oldest known English ones dating back as far as the 14th century. The oldest English ones date back to the 14th and 15th centuries.

The Ljubljana Snipers“ Association considered the year 1562 as the year of its foundation and celebrated its jubilees on the basis of this year for more than three hundred years; for a long time it was believed that a fragment of the manuscript of the Klagenfurt Chronicle from 1562, which reports that on 14 July of that year there was a large ”free" shooting in Ljubljana, is the first known written source about the Ljubljana Snipers' Association and the Ljubljana bourgeois shooting range. However, this is certainly not the case and the association is even older, because in a court record from 1551, more than ten years before the so-called Chronicle of Klagenfurt, we can read that the Ljubljana marksmen asked the magistrate to give them a cloth for their trousers, which was a common reward for good shooting at that time.

The first Ljubljana shooting range is believed to have been a wooden building erected at the foot of Castle Hill, on the site of today's People's Kitchen (hence the name Streliška Street). The shooting ranges built later were also mainly wooden, the last of which was a new shooting range built in 1876 under Rožnik, on the site of today's Faculty of Biotechnology, and it is understandable that these ranges had to provide at least minimum safety conditions (earthen trenches for bullets, a high wooden or brick fence around the range to prevent passers-by from entering the danger zone, etc.); the implementation of these safety measures was always strictly monitored by the City Council. There has always been a great deal of criticism from the townspeople in this respect, and in particular there has been a great deal of opposition to the construction of this last shooting range under Rožnik. Thus, in a newspaper of the time, we can read a complaint from a reader who writes that, as he was returning home, a bullet from the town's firing range came whizzing over his head.

Janez Vajkard Valvasor writes in his Slava vojvodina Kranjske (1689) about Ljubljana's shooting ranges and archers in his detailed inventory of the capital of Kranj: “Here, in front of the city, there is a dancing ground and a riding hall for the exercise of noble youth, and in the garden of the turnpike there is also a shooting range for noblemen. In Ljubljana, the provincial officials also have their own special shooting range, and the townspeople have their own. They shoot every Sunday in summer and all newly admitted townsmen are obliged to come here for two years and practise shooting. To this end, the town pays a lieutenant to train and instruct the townspeople in all kinds of weapons...’. However, the noble and civil marksmen's association was much younger than that of the Ljubljana snipers.

The start of the shooting season was usually determined by the shooting management and, according to the custom of the time, had to be approved by the magistrate himself. Shooting took place on fine sunny and festive days, from the end of April or the beginning of May until the end of August, usually in the afternoon from 13.00 or 14.00 until 19.00 or 20.00, but in general the target could not be taken down before 19.00. Shooting took place when at least three shooters were present. All shooting had to be authorised by the Shooting Directorate, which also ruled on whether or not the pictured targets presented were suitable for shooting. During the shooting, all shooters had to obey the instructions of the Senior Range Master, who also judged the prize hits. Each shooter had to predict his shot before he fired. Nor was a shooter allowed to leave his shooting position until the scorer had shown him his hit. Most often, when the shooter had finished shooting, he signalled to the range-keeper by ringing a bell, and only then did the latter show him his hit with a special measuring stick. If the shooter hit the centre, i.e. the round black plate, the range-keeper had to take it off, number it and replace it; the shot plate was then put in a special box, which was inspected by the committee in the evening. If the shooter missed, he could repeat his shot, but only once. If the rifle failed three times, the shooter had to leave his shooting position, straightened up and running; he could shoot again only when the rifle had been repaired. In this case, he had the advantage over the others. As already mentioned, there were often quarrels and sharp disputes between shooters; it was for this reason, as well as for the honourable irregularities in the shooting method itself, that in 1711 the provincial vice-confessor, Franz Anton Count Lanthieri, drew up and wrote down the first officially valid and recognised Shooting Order. It contained all the basic rules of marksmanship training and competitions, as well as all other regulations and precautions. A rich source of information about Ljubljana's shooters and shooting ranges, the Shooting Order underwent a series of revisions and additions over the course of the last century and a half, in line with the rules and regulations of the time. In addition to this shooting order, the shooters also kept detailed shooting books, in which they recorded, for each individual shooting, the names of the shooters, the value of the hits and other necessary information. There were also cash books for membership fees and shooting fees, and periodic printed lists of all the members of the Snipers' Association with the most important information; thus, from a printed list of all the members of the Ljubljana Snipers' Association from 1848, we learn that the Association had at that time as many as 390 members, including 14 women shooters, who had not yet been seen before the 19th century.

In addition to the above, the legacy of the Association of Ljubljana Snipers also preserves some other cultural, historical and artistic material, such as a valuable, richly decorated shooting banner, which was carried by the members of the shooting association in ceremonial processions, and a prize shooting trophy, which was created as a commemoration of a festive event when the Emperor Franz Joseph himself visited the Ljubljana shooting range in 1856.It is also worth mentioning that the banner is a part of the Association's legacy, a series of shooting badges worn by shooters at shooting sessions and on various other occasions, pinned to their shooting uniforms, and the most valuable document is the gold shooting chain worn around the neck by the senior shooting master on ceremonial occasions, the links of which were contributed by individual members of the shooting club; each link of this necklace is engraved with the name of the donor and the date.

Shooting life in Ljubljana was particularly lively in the 18th and 19th centuries, with shootings taking place one after another, even in large numbers in a single season. The frequent shooting is also evidenced by the considerable number of relatively well-preserved shooting targets. Shooters from other shooting ranges, for example from Kranj, Škofja Loka, Trieste, Vienna and elsewhere, also attended the shootings at the Ljubljana shooting range as guests, as did shooters from Ljubljana, Trieste, Vienna and elsewhere, where, as the newspapers of the time, and especially the Laibacher Zeitung, tell us, they often achieved very good results; usually all these visits and mutual meetings were connected with various other festivities, with solemn processions and other ceremonies. At all these events, the Riflemen always appeared as a complete and by far the most attractive group in terms of appearance, displaying their special uniforms, decorations and banners.

From the varied history of the Ljubljana Sniper Association, we should also mention the construction of a new shooting range on the site of the old one, which was demolished in 1737. The new shooting range, which was inaugurated in 1804, was decorated with paintings by Andrej Herrlein, a member of the Rifle Association and for some time the archer's master painter; he painted the facade of the shooting building and contributed 39 portraits of shooters, some of whom he painted from life, others from various models; these portraits, all painted according to the same “form”, adorned, as well as the painted targets, the upper, social rooms of the shooting building, among them portraits of some of the most prominent citizens of Ljubljana, such as Baron Žiga Zois, who was also a member of the Snipers' Association.

The most important historical, cultural-historical and, last but not least, artistic document of the existence and the rich, continuous development of the Association of Ljubljana Snipers over the centuries are certainly the painted wooden or paper plates of shooting targets. These are most often round or square, or more rarely in other shapes, and contain an invaluable source of information about the life, events, customs and habits not only of the members of the Rifle Association, but also of society at that time in general. The oldest surviving painted target of the Ljubljana Snipers“ Association dates from 1719, while the last target, painted by the Ljubljana painter Edo Deržaj on the occasion of the 375th anniversary of the Ljubljana Snipers” Association, bears the year 1940. Shortly afterwards, the Society was also dissolved due to the outbreak of the Second World War. All the material of the Ljubljana Snipers' Association, which was not carried away by the storm of the Second World War, or was not saved by the shooters of the time, is today in the collections of the City Museum of Ljubljana, which in 1980 also prepared a large, attractive exhibition entitled Painted Targets, with a professionally prepared and comprehensive accompanying catalogue.

As one of the oldest such associations in Europe, the Ljubljana Snipers' Association has played an important role in the cultural history of the city of Ljubljana, being one of the strongest centres of social and sports and recreational life in the city from its early days, not to mention its covert defensive purpose, especially at the beginning.

The Shooting Federation of Slovenia - how did we become a national shooting federation?

/ Your STRMOLE/

 

 

I decided to write about these events based on the insights I gained while preparing the proceedings for the 50th anniversary of the SZS. At that time, I had great difficulty in collecting written documents from this period. At the time of our independence, the entire archive of the SZS was stored in the JNA barracks in Šentvid near Ljubljana, due to the renovation of the firing range on Dolenjska cesta. When the Yugoslav army left, all the written documents, including our archive, were burned in the yard of the barracks. In order to prevent what happened to me from happening to our descendants, I decided to write down the events in which I was an active participant, in the hope that they would not be covered by the dust of history.

After long complications concerning the selection of a new Secretary of the Federation, I was appointed Secretary of the Federation on 1 June 1991, after the retirement of Edward Progar. After only twenty days of my work at the Federation, the JNA attack on Slovenia took place. At that time, the national team of the former Yugoslavia was at the Mediterranean Games in Athens. There were many Slovenian athletes who, when they heard about the attack by the JNA, decided not to compete in the Games. After an agreement with the then President of the Sports Federation of Slovenia (hereinafter referred to as the SFS), Dr Rajko Šugman, we organised their return to Slovenia. Among the leading Slovenian athletes who decided to leave Athens was Rajmond Debevec. The Shooting Sport Association of Yugoslavia (hereinafter SSJ) wanted to punish him with a six-month suspension, thus preventing him from competing at the European Championships with MK weapons in Bologna.

A joint meeting of the SSJ Presidency and the SSJ Expert-Technical Commission was convened for 11 July 1991 in Sarajevo. As the fighting in Knin and the surroundings of Karlovac had already started in May, the road was extremely dangerous, and the air service to Sarajevo was interrupted, none of the members of the Bureau at that time wanted to attend the meeting. I decided to attend and to try to avoid suspension.

Slovenian shooters blocked after leaving the common country

Prior to the meeting, intensive discussions were held in the SJC and the individual republican federations on the development of a strategy for the temporary participation of athletes in the national teams of the former Yugoslavia. In line with these positions, I have also developed a strategy for my appearance at the SSJ Presidency. For help and gathering information from the past, I have turned to Tomislav Šepec, Milivoj Stanojević - Šilja and Miro Šipek, who have helped me a lot in this process. I went to Sarajevo by train because it was the only safe means of transport. Dautovic, Šipek, Schmid, Stanojević, Simič, Filipovič, Pejovič, Lončar, Vitez, Matič, the Secretary of the SSJ, Tomič, I don't remember the names of the representatives of Kosovo and Macedonia, and myself were present at the meeting. When the report from the Mediterranean Games in Athens, presented by Secretary Tomič, who was also the head of the Yugoslav delegation in Athens, came up, he demanded the most severe punishment for Raymond Debevec as the instigator of the departure of the Slovene athletes from Athens. This was followed by emotional outpourings of Yugoslavism. Branko Lončar and other delegates who were influenced by the Serbian politics of the day were particularly vocal. By agreement with Stanojevic, Shipko, Dautovic and Vitez, I did not take part in the debate at all during the first three hours. Instead, they tried to argue against the arguments of the other debaters, and I only joined in the debate when the proponents of the suspension had used up all their ammunition. First, I gave them several examples of substantially more serious infringements of the rules by the Yugoslav national team players than the one against Raymond, but the SSJ did not impose any penalties for them. Then I tried to explain to them the situation in which the Slovenian athletes found themselves. After the blockade of information from Slovenia, they did not know what was happening at home and they were in such a mental state that they could not achieve the results that they normally achieve. As the debate had already lasted more than 4 hours and everyone was very exhausted, the proposer proposed to reduce the sanction from a suspension to a verbal warning, which was adopted by a majority of one vote. This saved Raymond's participation in the EP in Bologna and he won four medals in the team competition.

In September, there was a growing sentiment within the SFS that the republican sports federations should start the process of merging with the Yugoslav state federations. At the same time, we tried to provide at least some competitions for our competitors during this period until their integration into the international federations. We have agreed with the Croatian Rifle Federation to organise two matches each for the national air rifle and shotgun teams. On 12.12.1991 the Presidium of the Shooting Federation of Slovenia adopted a decision to split with the SSJ and to start the process of joining the UIT (International Shooting Federation), the ESC (European Shooting Confederation) and the OKS (Olympic Committee of Slovenia) and thus the IOC. At the same time, it defined the scope of the matches between Slovenia and Croatia and appointed for the first time the selectors of the Slovenian national teams.

Signing of the OKS constitution

The Slovenian Olympic Committee is founded on 15 December 1991. The founding charter was signed on behalf of SZS by the then President Kosta Bizjak. The signing ceremony was also attended by Mimi Kralj and myself.

On 16.12.1991 a meeting of the Sports Federation of Slovenia was held, at which the federations reported on the procedure of each federation for joining international federations and the realistic deadlines for joining. At the same time, the Protocol for the Implementation of National Championships in Slovenia was adopted. The next day we sent an application for the first participation of our national team in an international competition in Munich. 18.12.1991 was the first duel of the national teams between Slovenia and Croatia with air weapons. During the duel there was also a meeting of the SZS presidium. Tomislav Šepec and Milivoje Stanojević from Croatia took part as guests. During the meeting we formulated a common strategy for the Croatian and our federation to join the UIT and the ESC. We prepared applications and sent them to the headquarters of both federations. After a few days, we checked with the UIT Secretary, Mr Schreiber, and the ESC President, Mr Schulstrom, whether they had received the applications and arranged an interview. Tomič and I had an interview at the UIT headquarters in Munich on 26.1.1992 during the international competition in Munich. We were given a provisional decision to be admitted to the UIT and an assurance that we would become full members by a decision of the General Assembly to be held in Barcelona in April. On the second point, Tomič and I raised the issue of the quotas won by our athletes for the Barcelona Olympics. This part of the discussion was much more difficult because Schreiber did not want to decide before the status of the newly declared countries was decided by international politics. We found a compromise solution whereby we got three quotas, which Rajmond Debevec got in the Yugoslav national team, and two of these three were returned to the UIT. We were able to do this because Rajmond was able to compete in all three rifle disciplines with one quota, but we did not have another Slovenian shooter who met the IOC criteria for the MQS (minimum qualification score). After returning to Ljubljana, we handed over the UIT membership document to the OKS. The OKS had to collect four certificates from IOC member international sports federations before Slovenia could compete at the Winter Olympic Games in Albertville. By 2 February 1992, four national federations had submitted these certificates to the OKS and Slovenia competed for the first time at the Olympic Games in Albertville in early February. In order to be admitted to the ESC, Šepec had a preliminary interview with Shulström, who informed us that our admission to membership would be decided by the ESC Bureau at a meeting to be held before the Air Weapons European Championships in Budapest. We decided to enter the Slovenian team in the EP and to get the support of the ESC Bureau members before the Championships. I travelled to Budapest with the national team led by Lojze Mikolič. After great difficulties we managed to borrow tracksuits for the national team and after the competition we returned them to the Slovenian Swimming Federation.

First appearance under the flag of independent Slovenia

The competitors did not know about our uncertain fate for the EP. Mikolič and I were aware that we might not be allowed to compete. The Croatians were in the same situation. When we arrived in Budapest, Šepec and I visited all the members of the Presidency, and we were especially helped by Mr László Hammerli, then Secretary of the Hungarian Federation and Chairman of the EP Organising Committee. At the Bureau meeting we were welcomed into the ESC and our competitors were allowed to compete at the EP the next day. At this competition we also got our first shooting medal at a major competition, namely the junior air pistol team of Ksenija Maček, Irena Toroš and Barbara Dolenc - Fuks, who achieved 3rd place.

The formal decision was taken at the UIT's General Assembly in Barcelona in April this year, which was attended by the then President, Kosta Bizjak. Raymond had the honour of carrying the Slovenian flag at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona.