Slovenj Gradec ( ) is a town
and a municipality formerly in the Slovene Styria region, now in the recently
enlarged Koroška statistical region of
northern Slovenia
.
The town
is located around 45 km west of Maribor
and
65 km northeast of Ljubljana
.
Historically, Slovenj Gradec was part of the
Duchy of Styria within the Austrian Empire
until 1918, when, together with Lower Styria, it was ceded to the new Kingdom of
the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
.
Between
the mid 19th century and 1945, the town was a German-speaking
island in a Slovene-speaking area. In the 1880
census, town of Slovenj Gradec, or Windischgrätz, as it was called,
was 75 percent German-speaking and 25 percent Slovene-speaking, but
among the German speaking population a considerable proportion were
allegedly - like the family of the famous composer
Hugo Wolf - of ethnic Slovene origin.
After the end of the
World War I, many of the local German
speaking inhabitants moved to Austria
; those that
remained were gradually assimilated to or re-integrated into the
Slovene-speaking majority. After
World War II, all remaining
ethnic Germans were expelled from
Yugoslavia, thus Slovenj Gradec lost its
traditional presence of German speakers.
The great German and Austrian noble family of the Princes of
Windisch-Graetz, first mentioned in
1220, had their original home in a castle nearby and took their
name from the town's German name which translates as "little
Slovene castle".
In 1860, the composer
Hugo Wolf was born
in Windischgrätz/Slovenj Gradec. His birthplace is now a music
school. Other important structures near his birthplace include the
parish church in the main square,
which is a
Gothic chapel with
frescos from the
middle of the 15th century. In 2003, an
acheological excavation uncovered the remains of
the oldest church in all of Styria, which originates from the
Carolingian period.
Towns and villages
Brda, Gmajna
, Golavabuka
, Gradišče
, Graška
Gora
, Legen
, Mislinjska
Dobrava
, Pameče
, Podgorje
, Raduše
, Sele
, Slovenj Gradec, Spodnji Razbor
, Stari trg
, Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu
, Šmiklavž
, Tomaška
vas
, Troblje
, Turiška
vas
, Vodriž
, Vrhe
, Zgornji
Razbor
Notes and References
- The information in this article is based on and translated from
that found in its German equivalent.
External links