History
[edit]
See also: Timeline of Maribor
Historical affiliations
Archbishop of Salzburg (1164–1555)
Habsburg Monarchy (1555–1804)
Austrian Empire (1804–1867)
Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (1918)
Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941)
Nazi Germany (1941–1945; annexed)
SFR Yugoslavia (1945–1991)
Slovenia 1991–Present
Prehistory[edit]
The oldest known remnants of settlement in the Maribor area date back to the 5th millennium BC, at the time of the Chalcolithic. With the construction of Maribor's western bypass, larger settlements were discovered dating from the 44th to 42nd century BC. Another settlement from around the same period was also discovered in Spodnje Hoče, a town right next to Maribor and another below Melje Hill near Malečnik. Another settlement below Melje Hill was also found dating to the 4th millennium BC.
A more intense period of settlement of the Maribor area occurred in the 3rd millennium BC with the advent of the Bronze Age. In the 13th to 12th century BC, in the age of the Urnfield culture, new settlements were found in Pekel. Around 1000 BC, new settlers moved to the Maribor area. An urnfield cemetery was found from that period in today's Mladinska ulica and another necropolis was also found in Pobrežje.
Antiquity[edit]
With the Iron Age and the Hallstatt Culture, new settlements began to appear on hills. One of them was Poštela in the Pohorje Mountains. Poštela was an old town that was abandoned in the 6th century BC and inhabited again in the 2nd century BC.
During Roman times, the area where Maribor later developed was part of the province of Noricum, right on the border with Pannonia. During that period, Roman agricultural estates known as villae rusticae filled the area around Radvanje, Betnava, Bohova, and Hoče. The best-known of them was in today's Borova Vas neighborhood of Maribor. An important trade route was also established in the area, connecting Celeia and Flavia Solva in one direction with Poetovio and central Noricum on the other.
Medieval history[edit]
Maribor in the 17th century. A copper engraving by Georg Matthäus Vischer, 1678.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Maribor area was settled by the Slavs.
A Slavic cemetery was found in Radvanje dating to the 10th century AD. The area of what later became Maribor was first part of Samo's Empire and later the area stood on the border between Carantania and Lower Pannonia. In 843 the area was absorbed into the Frankish Empire.
In the Frankish Empire, the area again stood on the border, this time between the Frankish Empire and the Principality of Hungary. To protect the Frankish Empire from Hungarian raids, a castle was built on Pyramid Hill. The castle was mentioned for the first time on 20 October 1164 as Castrum Marchburch. A settlement soon began to grow below the castle. Maribor was first mentioned as a market near the castle in 1204, and it received town privileges in 1254. It is likely that the castle stood before 1164 because Bernard of Trixien, the count of the region, already used the title Bernhard von Marchpurg 'Bernard of Maribor' in 1124.
Maribor Castle. A copper engraving by Georg Matthäus Vischer.
The town began to grow rapidly after the victory of Rudolf I of the Habsburg dynasty over King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. The town built fortifications, and trade, viticulture, and crafts started to grow. The town had a monopoly over the entire region and also controlled the viticulture trade with Carinthia. The first churches were built, and also around this time the first Jews arrived. The Jews built their own ghetto in the southeastern part of town, where they also built the Maribor Synagogue. Most Slovenians lived in the northwestern part of town on what is now Slovenian Street (Slovenska ulica).
In 1478, a second castle was built on the northeastern side of the town, today known as Maribor Castle. In 1480 and in 1481, Matthias Corvinus besieged the town but failed to conquer it on both occasions. In 1496, Maximilian I issued a decree to expel all Jews from Maribor and Styria. In 1515, the Maribor Town Hall was built and a few years later, in 1532, Maribor again came under siege, this time by the Ottoman Empire. In the battle that became known as the Siege of Maribor, a 100,000-strong Ottoman army under the leadership of Suleiman the Magnificent attacked the town, which was defended only by the local garrison and its citizens. Despite all the odds, Maribor was defended and the legend of the Maribor shoemaker who raised the sluice gates and flooded the Ottoman army is still popular today.
Modern period[edit]
In the 17th century, numerous fires razed the town. The biggest ones occurred in 1601, 1645, 1648, and 1700. As a consequence, the town was rebuilt numerous times. In addition to fires, the plague decimated the town's population. The largest plague epidemics occurred in 1646, 1664, and 1680. Due to the plague, the town lost 35 percent of its population. In gratitude for the end of the plague, a plague column was built in 1681, with the original being replaced in 1743. In 1846, the Southern Railway was built through the town, which resulted in great economic growth and territorial expansion. In 1859, Anton Martin Slomšek, a bishop of the Diocese of Lavant, transferred the seat of the diocese to Maribor, and he further encouraged the use of Slovene. With the transfer, Maribor also received its first higher school. Four years later, Maribor was connected with Carinthia with the construction of the railway from Maribor to Prevalje. The first daily Slovenian newspaper, called Slovenski narod, was established in 1868 on today's Slomšek Square (Slomškov trg). On 4 April 1883, the first electric light in Slovene ethnic territory was installed on Castle Square (Grajski trg). The renowned electrical engineer Nikola Tesla lived in Maribor from 1878 to 1879, where he received his first job. Maribor National Hall was built in 1899, and it became a political, cultural, and economic centre for all Styrian Slovenes.
Postcard of Maribor National Hall.
In 1900, the city itself had a population that was 82.3% Austrian German (19,298 people) and 17.3% Slovene (4,062 people; based on the language spoken at home);: 4  most of the city's capital and public life was in Austrian German hands. However, the county excluding the city had only 10,199 Austrian Germans and 78,888 Slovene inhabitants, meaning the city was completely surrounded by majority-Slovene ethnic territory.: 210, 300  Some former independent settlements that later became part of the city had more ethnic Slovenes than Austrian Germans (e.g., Krčevina, Radvanje, Tezno), whereas others had more Austrian Germans than ethnic Slovenes (e.g., Pobrežje and Studenci).: 202–206  In 1913, a new bridge was opened over the Drava River, today known as the Old Bridge. In World War I, the 47th Infantry Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army was based in the city and also fought on the Isonzo front. During the First World War many Slovenes in Carinthia and Styria were detained on suspicion of being enemies of the Austrian Empire. This led to distrust between Austrian Germans and Slovenes.
Rudolf Maister
After the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Maribor was claimed by both the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and German Austria. On 1 November 1918, a meeting was held by Colonel Anton Holik in the Melje barracks, where it was decided that the city would be part of German Austria. Ethnic Slovene Major Rudolf Maister, who was present at the meeting, denounced the decision and organised Slovenian military units that were able to seize control of the city. All Austrian officers and soldiers were disarmed and demobilised to the new state of German Austria. The German city council then held a secret meeting, where it was decided to do whatever possible to regain Maribor for German Austria. They organised a military unit called the Green Guard (Schutzwehr), and approximately 400 well-armed soldiers of this unit opposed the pro-Slovenian and pro-Yugoslav Major Maister. Slovenian troops surprised and disarmed the Green Guard early on the morning of 23 November. Thereafter, the city remained in Slovenian hands.
On 27 January 1919, Austrian Germans gathered to await the United States peace delegation at the city's marketplace were fired upon by Slovenian troops. Nine citizens were killed and eighteen were seriously wounded;: 142  who had actually ordered the shooting has never been unequivocally established. German sources accused Maister's troops of shooting without cause. In turn Slovene witnesses such as Maks Pohar claimed that the Austrian Germans attacked the Slovenian soldiers guarding the town hall, one even discharging a revolver and hitting one Slovenian soldier in the bayonet.: 141  The German-language media called the incident Marburg's Bloody Sunday. As Maribor was now firmly in the hands of the Slovenian forces and surrounded completely by Slovenian territory; the city had been recognised as part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes without a plebiscite in the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919 between the victors and German Austria. For his actions in Maribor and later in the Austro-Slovene conflict in Carinthia, Rudolf Maister is today considered a Slovenian national hero.
After 1918, most of Maribor's Austrian Germans left the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for Austria. A policy of cultural assimilation was pursued in Yugoslavia against the Austrian German minority similar to the Germanization policy followed by Austria against its Slovene minority in Carinthia. From 1922 to 1929, Maribor was the seat of the Maribor Oblast, a subdivision within Yugoslavia and was later part of the Drava Banovina. Up until World War II, Maribor was considered the fastest-developing city in the country.
World War II and aftermath[edit]
See also: Maribor prison massacres and Stalag XVIII-D
Adolf Hitler on the Old Bridge in Maribor, Yugoslavia in 1941
In 1941 Lower Styria, the predominantly Slovene part of Styria, was annexed by Nazi Germany. German troops marched into the town at 9 pm on 8 April 1941. On 26 April Adolf Hitler, who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited Maribor and a grand reception was organised in the city castle by the local Germans. Immediately after the occupation, Nazi Germany began mass expulsions of Slovenes to the Independent State of Croatia, Serbia, and later to the concentration and work camps in Germany. The Nazi goal was to Germanize the population of Lower Styria after the war. Slovene patriots were taken hostage and many were later shot in the prisons of Maribor and Graz. This led to organised resistance by Slovene partisans. The first act of resistance in Maribor and occupied Slovenia occurred only three days after Hitler's visit, when Slovene communists and SKOJ members burned two German cars.
Maribor in ruins, 1945
Maribor was the site of a German prisoner-of-war camp from 1941 to 1945 for many British, Australian, and New Zealand troops who had been captured in Crete in 1941. In 1944, the largest mass rescue of POWs of the war in Europe took place when 105 Allied prisoners from the camp were freed by Slovene partisans in the Raid at Ožbalt. The city, a major industrial centre with an extensive armament industry, was systematically bombed by the Allies in the closing years of World War II. A total of 29 bombing raids devastated some 47% of the city area, killing 483 civilians and leaving over 4,200 people homeless. Over 2,600 people died in Maribor during the war. By the end of the war, Maribor was the most war-damaged major town of Yugoslavia. The remaining German-speaking population, except those who had actively supported the resistance during the war, was summarily expelled at the end of the war in May 1945. At the same time Croatian Home Guard members and their relatives who tried to escape from Yugoslavia were executed by the Yugoslav Army. The existence of nine mass graves in and near Maribor was revealed after Slovenia's independence.
Contemporary history[edit]
After the Second World War, Maribor became part of SR Slovenia, within SFR Yugoslavia. A major process of renewal and reconstruction began in the city. Maribor soon after became the industrial centre of Slovenia and the whole of Yugoslavia, hosting many known companies such as the Maribor Automobile Factory among others. The first clash between the Yugoslav People's Army and the Slovenian Territorial Defence in Slovenia's war of independence happened in nearby Pekre and on the streets of Maribor, resulting in the conflict's first casualty. After Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, the loss of the Yugoslav market severely strained the city's economy, which was based on heavy industry. The city saw a record unemployment rate of nearly 25%.
The economic situation of Maribor after the mid-1990s crisis worsened again with the onset of global economic crisis combined with the European sovereign-debt crisis, which was one of the causes for the beginning of 2012–13 Maribor protests which spread into 2012–2013 Slovenian protests. In 2012, Maribor was one of the two European Capitals of Culture, and the following year, Maribor was the European Youth Capital.
