The Spanheim descendants from Osterwitz in Austrian Carinthia held this picturesque castle as a hereditary fief from the middle of the twelfth century until the last quarter of the fifteenth century. They were first mentioned as hereditary cup-bearers at the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Duke Bernhard of Carinthia created court offices in his residence in Sankt Veit an der Glain before leaving for the imperial coronation in Rome with King Otto IV. The Lords of Osterwitz also left a noticeable trace in Slovenian history, which is confirmed by more than 270 sources related to them, which belong to the so-called Slovenian corpus. Most of these are original documents, some are notarial records, and a small part subsequent copies of originals that have not been preserved to date. The discussion focuses on their connection with the territory of modern Slovenia. They acquired important properties in Vipava and central Carniola through grants and purchases in the fourteenth century, and also owned the Šenkov turn tower (Ger. Schenkenthurn) in Šinkov Turn near Vodice, named after their position of hereditary cup-bearers (Ger. Schenk). A few found their spouses among the Carniolan nobility; at the end of the fourteenth century and in the first half of the fifteenth century, they were also the provincial governors of Styria and Carniola.
The article discusses how Lož’s town privileges were exercised during the period that spanned the formal establishment of the town and the first half of the nineteenth century. Lož is one of the smallest and most recent towns of medieval origin in the territory of modern Slovenia and the only town for which the original parchment of its municipal charter has been preserved. By 1832, the said charter was followed a dozen of sovereign privileges, most of which have been preserved in transcript. The major hindrance to tracing the practical use of recorded town privileges is the chronical shortage of first-hand sources on the town administration and judiciary, owing to the town archives having been mostly destroyed. When studying the town’s functions, historians are therefore left to rely almost entirely on the archives of external factors, predominantly higher authorities. The article is divided into chapters discussing the relationship between the town of Lož and the homonymous seigniory, the rights and obligations of Lož’s burghers, as well as the town administration, judiciary, and economy.
The article provides an insight into the conservation method of heritage settlement assessment in the case of Biljana and Fojana in the Goriška Brda region. The assessments were conducted with the aim of drawing up the proposal to include the heritage units in the Register of Immovable Heritage and to protect the settlements within the framework of the Goriška Brda municipality’s zoning plan. Nine settlements in the Goriška Brda hold the status of registered heritage settlement, with Šmartno and Slapnik officially declared as cultural monuments of local importance.
This paper presents the results of archaeological rescue excavations carried out in 2024 on the left bank of the Sava River at Vernek near Litija. Alluvial fragments of Bronze Age pottery were recovered, attributable to the Oloris–Podsmreka horizon. The presence was confirmed of a small Roman settlement, occupied from at least the mid-first to the mid-second century AD. During the Roman period, the site likely functioned as a riverside station along the Sava Gorge that provisioned boatmen and served as a staging post for replacing pack animals.
Mirenski Grad (“Miren Castle”), a strategic hill overlooking the settlement of Miren on the Vipava River, may have obtained its name after a local hillfort and/or castle. During the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, the term “castle” was not yet in the foreground. The hill was mentioned in connection to St Mary’s Church. Rather than a feudal seat, the toponym may have referred to a walled area from the (late) Roman or even prehistoric period.
The article discusses life in Solčava, the remotest area of the Upper Savinja Valley. By presenting the village of Solčava and the selected aspects of the local way of life, the introductory part etsablishes the context for the central discussion concerning the Gradišnik farm in Matk Cirque. Writing about this farm presents a unique challenge for the author, as it is her native homestead. The author’s research approach is thus interwoven with personal memories and family tradition, and the study draws on a combination of archival and oral sources. The discussion centres on generations, whose memory still forms part of the homesteaders’ oral tradition. The period under examination spans the emergence of the farm in the seventeenth century and 1993.
The logbook from Herle’s tavern in Solčava, which was publicly presented by Prof. Tine Orel in the mountaineering gazette Planinski vestnik in 1963, also contains a report on the ascent that four young men—Fran Skaza and Miha Levstik, both students at the teachers’ training institute in Maribor, and two mountaineers from the Woschnagg (Slo. Vošnjak) family from Šoštanj–made to Mount Ojstrica in August 1881. On returning to the valley, Miha Levstik wrote a dramatic three-page report of their ascent in the mountaineering logbook in Solčava. The article presents an annotated transcript of the report. Mention is also made of several connections of schools and teachers with the Savinja Alps at the end of the nineteenth century. The central role in establishing mountaineering societies was played by the teachers Miha Kos and Fran Kocbek, the authors of the first Slovenian mountain guide from 1894.
Mountain pastures are high-altitude grazing areas where farmers move their cattle in the warmer months of the year. This practice facilitates a more efficient agricultural activity as well as the preservation of local traditions, ways of knowing, and landscapes. Whereas most mountain pastures in Slovenia are communal, the overwhelming majority of alpine grazing lands in the Solčava area are under individual ownership. A special place among them belongs to the Grohot common mountain pasture, which is also the only shepherd’s settlement in the area under discussion. The article draws on ethnographic research and is thematically divided into three segments: farm chores, the significance of kinship relations, and ownership. Grohot was once a dairy cow mountain pasture, where women dairy farmers took care of milk production, whereas today hired herders tend to the grazing cattle. Kinship structures, which enable the transmission of knowledge and resources, are of utmost importance for the preservation and functioning of the high-altitude grazing land. The history of Grohot reflects broader changes in ownership and agricultural policy during the twentieth century, ranging from grazing rights, nationalization, and denationalization to Slovenia’s integration into the European Union, which points to the blending of local practices with national and European influences.
Based on the analyses of preserved built structures, old depictions and photos, particulars regarding the history of the property, as well as appropriate analogies, it is possible to determine the main development phases of one of the most recognizable historical castle architectures in the Upper Savinja Valley. The castle was most probably built in the second half of the twelfth century and underwent at least three expansions during the Late Middle Ages. In the sixteenth century, it obtained its outer wall with three cylindrical towers and in the seventeenth century it was transformed into a Renaissance-style residence of Ljubljana’s bishops. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the castle underwent no major construction work. The medieval castle core was demolished in the eighteenth century. In 1900, it was restored and added a Historicist chapel sometime between 1917 and 1920. After it was destroyed in the Second World War, the castle underwent a gradual and thorough restoration during the second half of the twentieth century.
The article discusses the life and mountaineering career of Branko Zemljič (1887–1961), a teacher, cultural worker, and long-time secretary of the Savinja branch of the Slovenian Mountaineering Society. His work is placed in the broader context of the development of mountaineering in Slovenia at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and in the first decades of the twentieth century, when the mountains were not only a place for spending free time but also a site of national and cultural struggle. Special attention is paid to Zemljič’s efforts to strengthen the Slovenian presence in the Savinja part of the Kamnik–Savinja Alps. The article also highlights the “story” from his youth about the area of the Korošica mountain pasture below Mount Ojstrica or, rather, his personal account of the national struggle linked to the symbolic significance of mountain huts. Zemljič’s work shows how everyday efforts of individuals were intertwined with questions of identity, and his legacy offers valuable insight into the formation of the Slovenian mountaineering space.
The Upper Savinja Valley is an area from which several early Slovenian administrative texts or records are already known, dating to before the mid-nineteenth century: a decree of the diocesan synod and a translation of a papal breve, both from Gornji Grad, and two oath forms for newly admitted dwellers of the market towns of Rečica ob Savinji and Mozirje. Through recent discoveries, new documents have surfaced, most notably tithe registers and two documents that are unique in the entire Slovenian area: the only probate inventory of a serf in Slovenian and the only last will of a serf drawn up by a priest. The article presents an overview of all hitherto discovered Slovenian administrative records from the Upper Savinja Valley, with a particular focus on those that have so far not been published and discussed.
Sergij Vilfan developed an early interest in legal antiquities, legal customs, as well as rural life and work methods. In 1947, he was invited to become a member of a group that carried out several ethnological field studies across Slovenia under the leadership of Boris Orel. Vilfan’s interest in ethnology grew even more evident after 1956, when he began to spend his summer vacations with his family at Gornji Grad, where local farmers would provide him with abundant information about life and work on mountain farms. In 1971, he purchased a house on the Zgornji Kovšak farm at Florjan pri Gornjem Gradu with several agricultural tools preserved, alongside various household items that Vilfan kept and restored as well as organized them into a small ethnological collection presented in this article.
The article provides an insight into the pilgrimages and pilgrimage processions that took place in pre-Josephinian parishes of the Upper Savinja Valley during the Baroque period. Based on information from registers and visitation records, the calendar of pilgrimage processions is presented, followed by a systematic discussion of all the pilgrimage churches in the area.
The article discusses climate and hydrological changes in the Upper Savinja Valley since the 1960s. The area is characterized by diverse geological structures, a rugged surface, and torrential watercourses. Most of the area is covered by forest. Climate changes are reflected in rising average annual temperatures, decreasing annual precipitation, and a significantly shorter snow cover period. Hydrological changes are reflected in decreasing average minimum, average mean, and average maximum annual river discharges. In addition to water quantities, watercourses also exhibit changing discharge regimes. As the Upper Savinja Valley is susceptible to extreme water events, the article highlights some of the most significant ones in the last century and attempts to predict how they will develop in the future.
Rudeneck Castle was built in the second quarter of the fourteenth century as a rather large new two-part main residence for the Lords of Altenburg (Slo. Vrbovec), which sparked a feudal war. After the conflict, the significance of the castle and the Lords of Altenburg waned. By the sixteenth century at the latest, the original castle core had been abandoned. A detached Gothic great tower was preserved, next to which a new Renaissance-style building was constructed soon after 1578 to serve as the personal country residence of Ljubljana’s bishop Janez Tavčar. Once it lost its residential and economic significance, the castle became increasingly neglected from the first third of the seventeenth century onwards and was ultimately abandoned soon after 1681. Although its remnants are rather modest, they nonetheless allow for an interpretation of building development. The article also provides concise architectural-historical analyses of the Haslach (Slo. Lešje) manor or mansion and the former Rudenstein Castle (Slo. Rudenštajn), both of which were historically and spatially linked to Rudeneck Castle.
The article offers a comprehensive study of the Franciscan library in Nazarje, one of the key cultural centres of the Upper Savinja Valley since the seventeenth century. The first part, based on sources such as the Diarium Conventus Nazarethani and early inventories, critically revisits the origins of the library and rejects the long-standing thesis of its Bosnian provenance. Instead, it shows that the collection developed gradually from the friars’ arrival and through donations, notably the bequest of Ludvik Umek in 1752. The second part presents the first systematic survey of more than twenty-six medieval manuscript fragments—liturgical, hagiographic, legal and even secular texts—preserved in bindings, shedding new light on the transfer of earlier materials into the collection. The third part addresses the turbulent fate of the library in the twentieth century, especially wartime destruction, dispersal, and later rediscovery of supposedly lost books. The article thus combines a historical, codicological, and cultural heritage perspective.
Drawing on archival material from the Maribor Archdiocesan Archives, the article discusses the dealings that Anton Martin Slomšek, Bishop of Lavant, had with the parish of Mozirje. Slomšek made his first visit to Mozirje in 1833, long before he became Prince-Bishop of Lavant in 1846. During his tenure as bishop, he made three canonical visitations to the parish (in the years 1848, 1854, and 1861); during the last one, he consecrated the filial Church of St. Nicholas at Ljubija. He also maintained many contacts with the parish of Mozirje that may be traced through the official correspondence between the parish and the diocesan ordinariate. The official correspondence concerns the financial and personal matters of the parish, as well as education, pastoral life, and care for sacral buildings. Similar issues were also addressed by other parishes. Somewhat more prominent were the endeavours of Mozirje’s inhabitants to re-establish the benefice, which had been transferred to Šmihel nad Mozirjem as part of the Josephinian church reforms, and a report on a manslaughter committed in 1855.
Apart from well-preserved vital records, the parish of Mozirje also boasts the states of souls (status animarum) in excellent condition. The earliest one was produced in 1657 as the first comprehensive source of its kind in Slovenia. It was meticulously compiled by Janez Plevnik, the parish priest of Mozirje, who probably discontinued the recordkeeping that same year. This is one of merely two status animarum from the seventeenth-century Slovenia that also state the age of individual persons. The article presents and discusses only the part of the census that covers the market town of Mozirje.
Drawing on the existing literature and the analysis of archival material, the article discusses the selected aspects of the peasant rebellion raised by the subjects of the seigneury of Gornji Grad (Ger. Oberburg) between 1602 and 1607, when the seigneury was under the administration of Tomaž Hren, Bishop of Ljubljana. The article focuses on two main thematic clusters. The first discusses the reasons and circumstances of the rebellion and highlights a few concrete events, especially those that unfolded before 1602 and in the early phase of the rebellion. The second part of the article deals with the question of how the rebellion was addressed by the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, with a particular focus on the role of the provincial princely commission, papal nuncios, and the final decision made by the nuncio Salvago from 1607. The article aims to shed light on the early and closing phases of the rebellion, which has not received much attention in the literature so far.
The article aims to reconstruct the experience of Miren’s exiled shoemaker cooperative in the Savinja Valley during the First World War. It draws on two sources, the history of the cooperative, written by its long-standing leader Anton Vuk, and the diary for part of 1917, kept by its secretary Leopold Kemperle. When Italy entered the war, the inhabitants of Miren were evacuated as early as 23 May 1915. The leadership of the shoemaker cooperative (established in 1907) chose Altenburg Castle (Slo. Vrbovec) at Rečica in the Savinja Valley as a suitable accommodation for its workshops and settled workers in the nearby area. Even in exile, the organization continued to abide by its cooperative principles by systematically ensuring material supply and the production of military and civilian footwear, by provisioning the refugee colony with food, clothing, firewood, and coal, and by distributing refugee and military support.
