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In reply to the discussion: Okay, here's an odd thought [View all]DFW
(54,881 posts)They are both Slavic, of course, but just like Swedish and Dutch are Germanic languages, they are not mutually intelligible either. Also, Yugoslavia was no friend of the Soviet Union, and the Slovenians in particular felt more affinity with Austria than they did with their pre-independence Serbian masters in Beograd. Plus, since Tito split from the Warsaw Pact in 1948, most Yugoslav schools no longer taught Russian as a mandatory language in their schools. In Slovenia and northern Croatia, the first foreign language was German or Italian, depending on what was closest. Anyway, before World War I, coastal Croatia was part of Italy, and most of the rest of the rest of the future Yugoslavia was part of the Hapsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire. It sure saved my sorry ass when I first visited there in the 1970s, because although my Slovenian was non-existent, I could get along fine in German and Italian. Russian would have been fine for me, too, but they didn't understand it.
Bit of Yugoslav tivia: though Tito ruled from Beograd and fought with the Partisans against the Ustashe during World War II, he was actually half Croatian, half Slovene.
Melania would have had to undergo some thorough, years-long training for this gig if she was a KGB/FSB plant, and her CV doesn't have, as far as I know, long enough a gap to have allowed for it.