1In historiography, we know only a handful of such clear and precisely defined turning points as the year 1991 represents in Slovenian history. With the declaration of autonomy and independence, Slovenians took our own destiny completely into our own hands for the first time and this period certainly deserves special attention as far as research within historiography is concerned. Due to the so-called historical distance, we must take into account several factors influencing scientific research and presentation of events when studying the mentioned period, from the question of sources and documentation to the influence of politics, which has not been a novelty in numerous countries for a long time. In Slovenia, we are also witnessing changes in this area.

2Not much attention is paid to the importance and role of economic history as a subdiscipline or a specific genre within the historical science. In general, economic historiography was on the fringes of interest of the professional public for many decades. As pointed out by Žarko Lazarević, there are very few active researchers dealing with the economic history of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.³ “The absence of specific economic-historical contents at the academic level” also contributed to the establishment of economic historiography within the Slovenian space and the acquisition of an independent identity within Slovenian historiography for the period of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.⁴ If we analyse and limit the structure of researchers of economic history only to the 20^th century, we discover that the research of this period was predominantly and initially tied to only two authors, namely France Kresal and Jože Šorn. In the 1990s, a restructuring of economic historiography took place, which coincided with the appearance of younger researchers. In fact, only two researchers, Žarko Lazarević and Jože Prinčič, both collaborators of the Institute of Contemporary History, dealt exclusively with economic history in a systematic and active manner.⁵ It was precisely the Institute of Contemporary History that decided a few years ago to begin systematically researching the period after 1990 as well, and to that end, it hired two young researchers. The result of this decision was, among other things, the aforementioned scientific monograph A Break with the Old and the Beginning of Something New. Of course, it should not be forgotten that in their works, other researchers occasionally and sporadically touch on contemporary economic history as well (Dr. Božo Repe, Dr. Peter Vodopivec, etc.).

3As far as methodological approaches are concerned, due to legal restrictions on the access to archival material, research and knowledge are not primarily based on classical historical (archival) sources, but it is clear - given the previous research experience regarding the period after the independence of Slovenia - that the classical method of studying historiography will have to be upgraded with new methodological approaches. One of the reasons is also the information and communication revolution after 1990, which makes it possible to access various sources much faster (e.g. digitization of various documents). At the same time, this revolution triggered the emergence of new industries. The second reason lies in the fact that after 1991, only state bodies and institutions, whose documentation is more or less already accessible today, are obliged by law to hand over their material to the archives within a certain period of time. Furthermore, much of the material is known to have been destroyed either out of negligence or purposefully (e.g. materials from several companies).