The primary international regulation that governs the conduct of state parties in regard to military cemeteries and gravesites is the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims of August 12, 1949. By signing the convention on February 10, 1950, Yugoslavia took on a commitment to take care of the cemeteries, gravesites and graves of the soldiers, who died within Yugoslav borders. According to Article 17 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, »the dead are honourably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, their graves are respected, grouped if possible according to the nationality of the deceased, properly maintained and marked so that they may always be found«.

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS) adopted the Act on Military Cemeteries and Graves in Yugoslavia and Abroad already in 1920. Among other things, the act also contained provisions on the maintenance of cemeteries for the fallen sailors, prisoners of war and internees from Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, who were buried on the territory of the then Yugoslav state. In general, pre-war Yugoslavia did not really take good care of its gravesites. In 1954, it passed the Act on the Protection of the Graves of Soldiers who Died in the National Liberation Army or Were Victims of Fascist Aggression. In 1961, the Military Cemeteries Act was passed, and in 1973 the Act on Cemeteries and Graves for Soldiers Buried on Foreign Soil. These acts referred to soldiers who died fighting for the Allied forces during WWII, and especially those who died while fighting for the National Liberation Army, internees and other victims of fascist oppression. None of the acts dealt with the graves of soldiers belonging to enemy armies who died on Yugoslav soil while fighting Partisan units and who were buried in military cemeteries. Yugoslav federal legislation on cemeteries did not accept the provisions of international conventions that »graves need to be properly maintained and marked so that they may always be found«. Most of the above-mentioned acts expired in 1972. On July 1973, the Socialist Republic of Slovenia passed the republic act on military cemeteries and graves, which was to regulate issues that federal legislation had up to then failed to regulate. Slovenian act also stated that graves of those who died fighting for foreign armies should be included among the military graves that needed to be »properly maintained«.

This Slovenian document on WWI military cemeteries, gravesites and graves was created in May 1974. It was commissioned by the then Republic Secretariat for Urban Planning and was compiled based on the reports of municipal assemblies. It was an attempt to apply provisions of the Geneva conventions in regard to military cemeteries, gravesites and graves, whose locations were known, but were abandoned and unkept. At the time, locations of WWII gravesites were still not precisely determined. On March 30, 1973, the Republic Secretariat for Urban Planning requested municipal assemblies to provide them with data based on which they could determine the state of military cemeteries, gravesites and graves in Slovenia. Data was imprecise, since there was no documentation because those who fought for the National Liberation Army were rarely buried in the cemeteries and entered into death records. It was only after the war that they were moved to cemeteries and entered into death records. Also, not all soldiers were moved to cemeteries, since the trail of their graves was lost forever, when those who had buried them, died themselves. Incomplete data suggested that in Slovenia there were 64,388 graves of those killed in both world wars. The number of graves from WWI was much higher (50,275) than the number of those from WWII (14,113). Included among the WWII graves were graves of all soldiers, even those belonging to members of enemy troops. In Slovenia there were 59 WWI military cemeteries, containing 42,687 graves. In 1974, Slovenia had nine gravesites, the final resting place for 7566 solders. Understandably, the highest number of military cemeteries can be found in places which in the past had been the locations of some of the most fierce combats: Gorizia region (24), Radovljica and Bohinj region (15), Tolmin region (9),Ajdovščina and surrounding areas (4), and one cemetery in each of the then municipalities of Celje, Dravograd, Kranj, Logatec, Postojna in Ptuj. The largest of such WWI military cemeteries were those located in Ljubljana, Maribor and Dravograd. The cemetery in Ljubljana contains 6309 graves of Austro-Hungarian soldiers.

The data gathered refers to all WWI military cemeteries, gravesites and graves in Slovenia. In 1974, there were only a handful of monuments and commemorative plaques put up in WWI military cemeteries. In total there were six monuments and plaques; ossuary and a monument in the Italian cemetery at Žale Central Cemetery, a monument in Dravograd, Maribor, Postojna and Kobarid. None of the reporting municipal assemblies sent reports about what state the cemeteries were in. The most well-kept were the ossuary in Kobarid, where 8000 Italian soldiers were buried, and a gravesite for Italian soldiers in Ljubljana, which kept 1051 graves, both of which were maintained by the state of Italy through its representative bodies.

Another thing that was recorded in 1974 were military cemeteries where partisans were buried. However, there was a lack of clear definition as to what was a cemetery and what was a gravesite. Combatants were most often buried in mass graves, many were also buried in civilian cemeteries and across different areas in the woods. Although there were many monuments and commemorative plaques scattered all around Slovenia, we still did not have a shared register. Slovenia also kept cemeteries and gravesites where soldiers of enemy armies who had fought against partisan troops were buried.

Within the project on the gathering of data on WWI war victims in Slovenia, which is currently being coordinated by the Institute of Contemporary History, a database of WWI war victims has been compiled since spring 2015. This database is a product of work put in by 16 partner institutions or individuals from all over Slovenia. It consists of various local databases, contributed by project partners, as well as of different previously existing lists. Also added are data from sources that are relevant for the entire territory of present-day Slovenia. Currently, the database includes 26,978 victims.

Žarko Štrumbl