Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu (; sometimes ''Šmartno pri Slovenjem Gradcu'') is a settlement in the

City Municipality of Slovenj Gradec The City Municipality of Slovenj Gradec (; sl, Mestna občina Slovenj Gradec) is a municipality in northern Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Slovenj Gradec. It is part of the historic Styria region, and since 2005 it has be ...

in northern

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

. The area is part of the traditional region of

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...

. The entire municipality is now included in the

Carinthia Statistical Region The Carinthia Statistical Region ( sl, Koroška statistična regija) is a statistical region in northern Slovenia along the border with Austria. The region is difficult to access and is poorly connected with the central part of Slovenia. The env ...

Church

The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

from which the settlement gets its name is dedicated to Saint Martin and belongs to the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Maribor The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Maribor ( la, Archidioecesis Mariborensis, sl, Nadškofija Maribor) is an archdiocese located in the city of Maribor in Slovenia. History * 1859 : Maribor (then Marburg) became the see of the Diocese of Lavant ...

. It was first mentioned in written documents dating to 1106. A second

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

on Homec Hill west of the settlement is dedicated to the

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

and was built in the 17th century.

Mass graves

Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu is the site of two known

mass graves A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of executi ...

from the period immediately after the Second World War. The Gortnar Shrine Mass Grave ( sl, Grobišče pri Gortnarjevi kapelici) lies northwest of the settlement, behind the Gortnar

chapel-shrine A wayside shrine is a religious image, usually in some sort of small shelter, placed by a road or pathway, sometimes in a settlement or at a crossroads, but often in the middle of an empty stretch of country road, or at the top of a hill or mo ...

. It measures and contains the remains of 30 to 36 people, probably Ustaša soldiers, who were killed while fleeing toward the Austrian border between 10 and 15 May 1945. The House No. 143 Mass Grave (), also known as the Homšnica Creek by the Klemen Farm Mass Grave (), is located next to the road southwest of the house at Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu no. 143. The ground is visibly sunken at the site. It contains the remains of 10 people killed while fleeing toward the Austrian border between 10 and 15 May 1945.

References

External links

*
Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu at Geopedia
Populated places in the City Municipality of Slovenj Gradec Slovenj Gradec {{SlovenjGradec-geo-stub