To the unknown soldiers

After The Pobrežje Cemetery was open in August 1st 1879 mostly soldiers were buried here, besides the convicts and poor people.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the Pobrežje cemetery became the central military cemetery in Maribor. The units of Austria-Hungary army (Slovenes, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles...) were passing through Maribor towards the front on the Balkans or the Isonzo front. Dead soldiers were left behind, many of them unknown they found their last home on the Pobrežje cemetery.
Also many Russian and Italian prisoners of war who died during the construction of factory in Ruše or of hydroelectric power station in Fala are buried here. During the Second World War besides German soldiers also the Soviet and British prisoners of war were buried here.

After the war, in the south of the cemetery, the group tomb was built and the monument erected, dedicated to the deceased partisans.

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Czeikes arcades

The Franciscan Cemetery in Pobrežje is the youngest cemetery in Maribor.

The Franciscans came to Maribor in 1864 on the invitation of Bishop Anton Martin Slomšek and they took over the church of St. Mary Mother of Mercy as well as s Slovene perish in a former suburb of Graz. In 1900 they built a new church and monastery that in 1906 became a basilica.

In 1927 the Franciscan parish bought some land, west of the town’s cemetery, where a new cemetery was arranged. In the middle of the cemetery a cross was erected. At the passage from the town’s cemetery to the Franciscan cemetery, two brick arcaded hallways were built in 1930, designed by the architect Maks Czeike. Those hallways consist of 18 arches under which tombs are located. The Franciscian cemetery was consecrated by Bishop Karlin in 1929.

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The tomb of the Soviet prisoners

In 1941 and 1942 in autumn 1941 the Germans changed the former customs warehouse in Melje into the prison-camp for the soldiers from the Soviet Union.

During the winter 1994/42 around 2800 prisoners died there because of terrible sanitary conditions and brutal treatment. The Germans buried them by three in one grave in the south of the city cemetery. Their remains were put in this group tomb after the Second World War and the monument was erected.

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Peace Monument

During the Second World War, there were around 3000 soldiers and civilians from 27 countries buried in the Pobrežje Cemetery.

Between 1941 and 1942, 1895 Soviet soldiers, who died due to inhuman treatment and horrible hygiene conditions in the prisoner camp in Melje, were buried here. 38 soldiers from Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, New Zealand and Great Britain, who died between the years 1941 and 1945 in the large prisoner camp for allied soldiers, were also buried in the Pobrežje Cemetery.

Apart from them, 682 soldiers from Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Denmark, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary, Macedonia, Germany,Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA and 330 civil victims of the bombing were also buried in the Cemetery in the last two years of the war.

Due to the expansion of the Cemetery to the area of the former war graves after the Second World War, and due to the exhumation of the bodies of some of the soldiers, it is difficult to say with absolute certainty, how many of those who died here still rest in the same place where they were originally buried. Most of them were reburied into the common grave at the Peace monument which was erected in memory of all the war victims without any dividing and value judgements, but only to create memories.

The Peace Monument unveiling ceremony

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Partisan tomb

In National Liberation War during the Second World War (1941 – 1945) a lot of partisans lost their lives around Maribor in struggles with occupants.

139 partisans were buried in this group tomb on the Pobrežje cemetery after the war. Four of them are still unknown, but the names of 135 partisans are cut in memorial tablets on the monument erected in 1979.

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Fallen soldiers 1914 -1918

During the First World War (1914 - 1918), around thousand Austro-Hungarian soldiers, who fell in Maribor, were buried in Pobrežje cemetery.

In the beginning of the 30s of the 20th century, the soldiers‘ graves were digged up and 970 remains of the soldiers (928 with names and surnames, 42 unknown) were transferred to the joint grave, set up between 1932 and 1937. In the grave soldiers of numerous Austro-Hungarian regiments and all types of armies - infantry, cavalry, artillery, aviation and navy - are buried. Among them there are almost all Austro-Hungarian nations: Austrians, Bosniaks, Czech, Montenegrins, Croats, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Serbs, Ukrainians and Germans.

Apart from that the Remains of the war prisoners of the former Russian Empire, Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of the Italy, who died between the years 1914 - 1918 during the construction of hydroelectric power plant Fala and were buried at Pobrežje cemetery were transferred from the prisoner-of-war camp Šterntal near Kidričevo to the grave.

The mortal remains of 119 Italian war prisoners were transferred to the grave in Ljubljana in 1933. Among the prisoners of the Russian Empire army buried at Pobrežje cemetery are soldiers from Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus,Poland and Moldavia.

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Josip Priol

Josip Priol was the leading pomologist in Slovenia, studying fruit types and diseases, fertilisation, sorting, storage and the development of new fruit varieties.

Since 1919 he had worked as a technical teacher at Viticulture and Fruit School in Maribor. After having passed the professional exam in 1924, he started teaching fruit growing (pomology) and in 1928 became the headmaster of the school. In 1946 he was appointed headmaster of the newly founded Slovene Institute for Fruit Growing in Maribor.

He organised courses for teachers of primary schools, farm masters and housekeepers. He participated at many fruit exhibitions and congresses, where he reported about his biological experiments with fruit trees.

He cultivated several varieties of apple trees, among which also the renowned Priol`s Delicious in 1967. Moreover, he published more than 250 professional articles and a number of independent publications and text books.

Pavel Turner

Patron, publicist and educator | 1842-1924

As a secondary school student he was an active member of the Slavonic Reading Club (Slovanska čitalnica), the first national society in Maribor. After he had been awarded the doctor`s degree in Strasbourg in 1873, he worked as a tutor in Budapest, Vienna and in England, where he met many writers and statesmen. He was considered one of the most educated Slovenes of that time. In 1903 he returned to Maribor. Intellectuals gathered at his estate below Kalvarija. He was a patron of many Slovene pupils, students and artists. In 1924 he bequeathed his property for grants to the then established University of Ljubljana (Turner scholarship) and his vast library to the Historical Society of Maribor.

Filip Terč

Dr. Filip Terč (1844 -1917), a doctor and beekeeper from Maribor (Slovenia) who successfully cured 543 out of his 658 of patients suffering from rheumatic diseases, is considered the father of the modern apitherapy.

Dr. Filip Terč was born in 1844 in Praporište (Czech Republic). He studied medicine in Vienna (Austria) and worked in Vienna General Hospital as a surgical assistant. He got married to Rudolfina Valenta and had a son with her. Since 1976, Dr. Terč and his family lived in Maribor, where he worked as a doctor and a teacher. He got remarried to Katarina Scherbaum and had another son and a daughter with her. He died in Maribor in 1917.

Beside medicine, Dr. Filip Terč had a big passion for bees. Working as a beekeeper encouraged him to study the beneficial effects of bee poison on patients suffering from rheumatic diseases. He published his findings in a magazine in Vienna in 1888. After this notification, Central Europe became interested in Apitherapy. The works of Dr. Filip Terč show that by his experiments and clinical observations he opened the way for the subsequent science of Allergy and Immunology.

For several years, his birthday, 30 March, has been celebrated as World Apitherapy Day.

Rudolf Maister

Rudolf Maister (Vojanov) (29 March 1874 – 26 July 1934) was a Slovene military officer, poet and political activist. The soldiers who fought under Maister's command in northern Slovenia became known as Maister's fighters (Slovene: Maistrovi borci). Maister was also an accomplished poet and self-taught painter.

Maister was born in the Upper Carniolan commercial town of Kamnik, then part of Austria-Hungary. A career soldier, during World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1917, he was sent to Graz promoted to the rank of a major. In 1918, near the end of the war when it was obvious that Austria-Hungary was losing, the city council of Maribor proclaimed the annexation of Maribor to Austria. Maister organized Slovene volunteer forces of 4000 soldiers and 200 officers and in the night of 23 November 1918 seized control of the city of Maribor and the surrounding region of Lower Styria. This date has been recognized as a state holiday in Slovenia since 2005. The Slovene National Council for Lower Styria awarded him the rank of general on November 1. The German-speaking city was thus secured for the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which united with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on December 1.

On 27 January 1919, Austrian majority awaiting the American peace delegation at the city's marketplace were fired on by Slovenian troops under the command of Maister. Nine Austrians were killed and more than eighteen were seriously wounded. The responsibility for the shooting has not been conclusively established. Austrian sources accused Maister's troops of shooting without cause, while Slovenian witnesses, such as Maks Pohar, testified that the Austrians (some still in the uniforms of the pro-Austrian paramilitary organization called the Green Guard) attacked the Slovene soldiers guarding the city hall.[citation needed] The Austrian Germans allegedly attacked the police inspector, Ivan Senekovič, and then pressed towards the Slovenian soldiers in front of the city hall. A Slovenian version of this event involves an Austrian firing a revolver in the direction of the Slovenian soldiers, who responded spontaneously by firing into the civilian crowd.[citation needed] The event became known in German as the Marburger Blutsonntag (Marburg Bloody Sunday).

In November 1919, Maister's forces joined the Kingdom of SHS army's offensive in Carinthia. Maister joined them later and took part of the capture of Klagenfurt.[citation needed] After the Carinthian Plebiscite, in which majority of the local Slovenian population decided to remain part of Austria, Maister withdrew to private life. He spent most of his later life in an estate near Planina in Inner Carniola.

Maister also wrote poetry, which he published in two collected volumes, in 1904 and in 1929. Most of his poetry follows the Post-Romantic aesthetics, and is influenced by 19th century Slovene lyrical and patriotic poetry of Simon Jenko, Simon Gregorčič and Anton Aškerc.

Cvete dekletu rožmarin

Franz Swaty

Grinding wheels factory Swaty (Maribor, Slovenia) was established by chemist Franz Swaty so that it is one of the oldest European producers of grinding tools.

At the beginning the production was based on a patented procedure for production of grinding wheels in mineral bond. This production was abandoned in 1958 when it was substituted by up to dated production programmes.

Leon Štukelj

Leon Štukelj About this sound listen (help·info) (12 November 1898 – 8 November 1999) was a Yugoslav gymnast of Slovene nationality, Olympic gold medalist and athlete.

He is a noted figure in Slovenian sporting history. Štukelj is one of the few Slovene athletes to have risen to the very top of his sport, where he remained right from the World Championships in Ljubljana in 1922 all the way to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, at which he finished his competitive gymnastics career.

Štukelj competed at seven major international competitions and captured a total of twenty medals: eight gold, six silver and six bronze. At the Olympic Games alone he won six medals: two gold medals (counted for Yugoslavia) in Paris in 1924, one gold medal and two bronze in Amsterdam in 1928, and a silver medal in Berlin in 1936, with which he concluded his career.

Štukelj was born in Novo Mesto, Austria-Hungary (now Slovenia). In 1927 he completed his studies in law. Since the young age, he was an active member of the Slovenian Sokol athletic movement. After finishing his sports career he became a judge, first in his hometown Novo Mesto. Later he moved to Lenart, and then to Maribor, where he lived until his death. After World War II Štukelj was not a supporter of the newly formed Communist regime of Yugoslavia. It has been suggested that during World War Two, he took part of the Yugoslav royalist (Chetnik) anti-Nazi underground movement, hostile to Tito's partisans, and maintained contacts with the British Special Operations Executive.[1][2][3] For these reasons, he was suspicious to the new Communist regime. After the war, he was first imprisoned, then released but permanently disbarred from being a judge. He worked as a legal assistant for the rest of his career.

Štukelj was presented at the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXVI Olympiad in Atlanta in 1996 as then oldest living Olympic gold medalist, where he shook hands with the President of the United States Bill Clinton. He also presented the medals to winners in the men's team competition.

His 100th birthday in 1998 was a major celebration in Slovenia. Štukelj still exercised regularly until even just before his death, only four days short of his 101st birthday.

Today a sports hall in Novo mesto, mainly used by a local basketball team, is named after him, in addition to the University Sports Hall situated on the campus of the University of Maribor.

More about Leon Štukelj
LiveCam: Leon Štukelj's Square in Maribor