Slovenj Gradec

Slovenj Gradec is the seat of the only municipality in the statistical Carinthia region and the legal, economic, banking, school, information, health, supply, transport center of the Mislinjska dolina and the wider area of the statistical Carinthia region. The ancient city in the basin between Pohorje and Uršlja gora is also a Slovenian synonym for cultural center, where the rich tradition of the past lends itself to a modern pulse. In the sense of being involved in the old-world landscape image, an excessive and disproportionate industrial development, as it marked most Slovenian cities in the 19th and 20th centuries, was spared to Slovenj Gradac. The rapid development of economic and service possibilities in recent years has therefore happily shooked up here with the ancient spiritual tradition and natural resources in the vicinity of the urban center. Historical monuments connect us to the past at every step and easily lull us into a feeling of romantic nostalgia, and at the same time remind us that we are only humble but proud successors of the story that began in the gray ancient. A living connection with the past and the richness of cultural heritage is the foundation of cultural development and the central move of local identity even in the time we live in. It is torn between the silenced echo of the most famous episode of medieval history, embodied by the artistic treasures of the city's parish church, in 1251, as the first in the world dedicated to the Hungarian princess and the Thuringian duchess of St. Elizabeth, the protector of the poor and beggars, and the respectful memory of the world-famous composer Hugo Wolf, the unsurpassed master of late romantic solo singing, who was born in 1860 in a house on the central square of Slovenia. The artistic tradition of medieval carvers and baroque masters has been poured into the internationally high-profile activity of the Gallery of Fine Arts, which in the last four decades, especially with events under the auspices of the United Nations, has established itself far beyond the borders of its homeland and permanently marked it as A city of peace and international communication. The crown of these efforts is the charter with which in 1989 the general secretary of the world organization, Perez de Cuellar, listed Slovenj Gradec as one of the honorary bearers of the title of messenger of peace. But the venerable urban tradition and cosmopolitan openness to the world are only part of the landscape and spiritual atmosphere of the world near Mislinja. Here, the rural hinterland preserved archaic originality and a large part of the ancient primal beauty. At any time of the year, the tempting and almost unspoiled nature is immersed in a softly loose view of the forests of overgrown hills, which is only here and there intersected by a torrent from many sources on the surfaces of Pohorje and Uršlje gora and cuts deep and narrow hollows, where the mists crawl there until noon, when the sun in the valley already warms the meadows and fields.