Description

Oblong small 4°: interleaved 49 black and white photographs, 1 blue mimeographed page and 6 blue cards with printed titles, bound in original red linen covers, with gilt embossed title, originally bound with brown string (Very Good, slightly stained).

This small elaborately made atlas, composed of 49 original black and white photographs of detailed statistical maps, was a pioneer post WWII work by the Slovenian Statistical Office to make a basis for a national strategy for economic development of this north Yugoslavian country.

The map was made in 1951, after WWII under the regime of the new government under the leadership of Josip Broz-Tito, after the fallout with the Communist countries and the Eastern Europe in 1948, when Yugoslavia started developing its own economic program. The maps still omit the coastal region, which at the time belonged to so called the Free Territory of Trieste.

The maps showcase: the relief, position of Slovenia in Europe, percentage of inhabitants of different age groups, statistics on women, who can work, statistics of children who can work or study, percentage of different professions, statistics of farms, which own different farming equipment, maps of distribution of farming animals, fruit and vegetables in the country etc.    

The maps are based on the statistics of 1948 and were important for the Yugoslavian economical plan to include women and non-studying youth in the economic development. 

The mimeographed text explains this is only an introduction to a much larger work, four times the size of this one. According to the available sources such work was never completed and this atlas remains the earliest and most complete work of the time.

Because the elaborate manual method of multiplying the atlas, such as hand developing 49 photographs and hand binding with a string, the atlas was probably made in limited edition. Only one copy is known in institutions worldwide (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts / Central Humanities Library, OCLC 780760665).