WHERE ARE WE GOING? #2 – Untersteiermark

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At our new blog-category “where are we going 2014″ we proudly present the second region Tramprennen 2014 will travel trough! – UNTERSTEIeRMARK!

How is it possible that an actual Slovenian region is called ‚Untersteiermark’. It sounds completely Austrian! O-ooo, the history of the ‘Duchy of Styria’, what’s most likely the origin of the name ‘Lower Styria’, would be far too long to write down here. Let’s just say, the oldest discovery of human life is the Homo Neanderthalensis, another big chapter seem to be the Romans…

Untersteiermark_1

But ok, let’s jump to the newer history, so it’s possible to keep also the ones of you that are not very interested in the subject.

The name Lower Styria really comes from the Herzogtum Steiermark. After the First World War in 1918/1918 the region became Slovenian. The country Slovenia is a part of ex-Yugoslavia and got it’s independence after the Yugoslavian War in 1991.

There exists still a minority of German speaking population because especially during the Second World War the Germans followed an extensive Germanization policy. Till this day Slovenia doesn’t accept the German speaking population as a minority.

Whoever will pass Lower Styria, it might be good knowing and maybe correctly pronounce the Slovenian and Croatian name of the region.  In Slovenian the region is called slovenska Štajerska or just Štajerska, in Croatian they call it Donja Štajerska.

Untersteiermark_2