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

City Municipality of Slovenj Gradec The Urban Municipality of 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 belonged to the NUTS-3 Carinthia St ...

in northern

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

. The area is part of the traditional region of

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

. The entire municipality is now included in the

Carinthia Statistical Region The Carinthia Statistical Region () 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 environment has been strongly affect ...

Church

The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), 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 com ...

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

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Maribor The Archdiocese of Maribor (, ) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Slovenia. Its episcopal see is Maribor. 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 place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

on Homec Hill west of the settlement is dedicated to the

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Catholic Mariology#Dogmatic teachings, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution as follows: It leaves open the question of w ...

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 exec ...

from the period immediately after the Second World War. The Gortnar Shrine Mass Grave () 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 mount ...

. 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 on Geopedia
Populated places in the Urban Municipality of Slovenj Gradec Slovenj Gradec {{SlovenjGradec-geo-stub