In the past, the study of West Slavic languages was inhibited by a range of different factors. In the 19th century, it was hindered by the denationalisation policy of the Habsburg Monarchy and the lack of national universities and academies. In the period between the two World Wars the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks and Slovenes could breathe more freely and interest increased in national literature and culture, but the period was too brief to resolve this issue. After 1945 or 1948 changes in the social order, the healing of the wounds of war and ideological pressure from the Soviet Union severed for a number of years all cultural contact between Slovenia and Central European Slavic countries. During this time, a great many of those who had before the war been involved in cultural relations among these countries fled abroad in fear for their lives. The 1960's, due to lack of suitable personnel, were too short for the revival of formerly exemplary cultural relations. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, ideological censorship was replaced by economic censorship. The cultural and political elites placed great plans at the forefront of their programmes, but lacked the feeling for higher education, humanism, social studies and bilateral cultural relations required to realise these plans.
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