Occupation Borders as High-Intensity Border-MakingAjlec, Kornelija (Avtor) Repe, Božo (Avtor) phantom borderscoercive territorializationoccupation bordersspatial afterlivesdiscursive afterlivesSloveniaYugoslaviaSecond World WarSoutheast EuropeIn April 1941, Slovene-inhabited territory was divided among four Axis powers: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary, and the Independent State of Croatia, each of which claimed that the occupied territory was historically or ethnically its own. This article contributes to phantom border studies on two levels. First, it argues that the key variable in producing the long- -term e'ects of borders is not their duration, but rather the combination of intense coercion, demographic disruption, the replacement of administrative structures, and the violent interruption of established spatial practices. Second, the article distinguishes between classical phantom borders, which emerge through long-term institutional internalization, and coercive occupation borders, which, due to violence and contested sovereignty, produce primarily traumatic and conflictual forms of persistence. Populations often functionally adapted to such borders yet never granted them normative legitimacy. The article further distinguishes between spatial afterlives, which gradually weaken at the local level, and discursive afterlives, that is, legitimizing languages of historical restitution and civilizational hierarchy that remain politically available long after the borders themselves have disappeared. The article thereby refines the existing conceptual framework of phantom borders and proposes a model applicable to other cases of short-lived yet highly coercive border-making in Southeast Europe and beyond.20262026-07-20 17:48:45Članek v reviji185018sl