The roots lie in Sokol
The roots of ‘recreation’ and/or ‘sport for all’ and the Sports Union of Slovenia go back to the development of telovadba, a system of physical exercise and training that appeared in the second half of the 19th century with the establishment of the gymnastics organization Sokol. Physical exercise is, and was, an urban physical/cultural innovation, which was attached to the physical practices of the Late Middle Ages, tradition of tournaments and combats, national disciplines and examples from ancient gymnastics. The idea was based upon the considerations from Humanism and the Enlightenment and upon the search for an educational reform, in which physical activity holds an important place.

Partizan Slovenia
At the end of World War II and with the establishment of socialism, ‘royal’ physical education was replaced by the Communist or Soviet fizkultura (‘physical culture’). Its organization was based upon uniform clubs and committees. Organizational and also conceptual transformation rested on the integration of pre-war gymnastics, alpine and sports clubs, into a uniform Physical Culture Society. The policy of physical culture aimed at, as it was stressed back then, educating new healthy citizens, working people and strugglers, who will keep the acquisitions of a 4-year struggle and become involved in the reconstruction of the country.

The Sports Union of Slovenia
In the beginning of July 1990, the Declaration on Sovereignty of the Republic of Slovenia was adopted in Slove¬nia and in December 1990 the Slovenes at a plebiscite decided, by an absolute majority, that the Republic of Slovenia should become an independent state. In the first half of 1991 Slovene politics was bound by this plebiscite to prepare everything necessary for the sepa¬ration from the Yugoslav state and the transition to in¬dependence, and this happened on 26 June 1991. The Yugoslav government responded with aggression from the Yugoslav Army upon Slovenia but Slovene armed forces repelled it.