The Venetic theory (Slovene: venetska teorija) is a pseudohistorical interpretation of the origin of the Slovenes that denies the Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps in the 6th century, claiming that proto-Slovenes (also regarded as the Veneti people by the proponents of the Venetic theory) have inhabited the region since ancient times.
[1][2][3] A version of the Venetic theory states that most of Central Europe and portions of today's northern Turkey were originally inhabited by a single people—the Veneti—a people that were subsequently dispersed by several invasions from the North in the form of Celtic and Germanic migrations and by the push northwards of the Roman Empire.
The Venetic theory was advanced in the mid-1980s by a group of Slovenian authors, notably Jožko Šavli, Matej Bor and Ivan Tomažič.
The third argument is based on the ancient Venetic inscriptions found in North-Eastern Italy and in the Slovenian Littoral, which Bor interpreted as being Slavic.
Several of the most prominent Slovenian historians, such as Bogo Grafenauer and Peter Štih, entered into open polemics with the creators of the Venetic theory.