Slovenia year 2017 EUROPA Stamps – Palaces and Castles MNH

Slovenia year 2017 EUROPA Stamps – Palaces and Castles ☀ New Unused MNH

Rajhenburg Castle considered one of the most important monuments of medieval castle architecture in Slovenia, has for centuries kept watch over the surrounding area. It was the first castle to have been built in the territory of the relatively vast South Styrian lands belonging to the Salzburg Archbishopric, initially constructed between 1131 and 1147 under Archbishop Conrad the 1st; the oldest Romanesque part attesting to this fact. The castle and the belonging estate were for centuries managed by legates who took the name of the castle – Rajhenburg. After the family died out in 1570, their successors began adding contemporary elements to the structures and gradually created what we can admire today. In 1881, the Castle and the land belonging to it were purchased by the Trappist monks and converted it into a monastery, which remained active without interruption until the War in 1941, when the occupying German forces used in to set up a camp for the expulsion of Slovenes. After a relatively short restoration period, the new government nationalised and confiscated the Castle and its estate in 1947. A year later, the main Castle building was converted into a correctional facility for women, later followed by other penal institutions. From 1968 onward when an exhibition on exiles was inaugurated, the Castle became a venue intended primarily for museum activities and events.