Category:Intangible heritage

UNESCO defines the intangible culture as practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills that communities recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.

In Slovenia it is usually divided in the following areas:

• oral traditions and folk literature (e.g. storytelling)
• performances and presentations (theatre e.g. Škofja Loka Passion Play, singing, instrumental music)
• customs and habits (seasonal customs e.g. Kurentovanje or Mardi Gras at Cerknica)
• knowledge and practices concerning the environment
• traditional craftsmanship (e.g. lacemaking from Idrija, traditional salt making)
• cultural environment

Its safeguarding is based on the UNESCO Convention (2003) and the state law on natural and cultural heritage (2008) and is coordinated by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.

In May 2018 the national register lists 65 items of Slovene intangible heritage, among them the Škofja Loka Passion Play, the Laufarija in Cerkno, the Procession of the Kurent - Korant, Making Idrija bobbin lace, Ribnica woodenware, Traditional production of sea salt, the Traditional breeding and keeping of Lipizzaner horses at the Lipica stud farm, Slovene folk-pop music, and the Painting beehive panels.

Among the 500 elements corresponding to 122 countries on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity there are also the ones related to Slovenia: the Škofja Loka Passion Play (inscribed in 2016), the Door-to-door rounds of Kurenti (2017), the Bobbin LaceMaking (2018) and the Art of dry stone walling, knowledge and techniques (Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland) (2018).