Veliki Tabor Castle
The Veliki Tabor Castle (Great Tabor) is located in northwestern Croatia near the town of Desinić .
The oldest parts of the castle date from the 12th century. The castle got its current appearance in the 16th century . Veliki Tabor is now state-owned and serves as a museum and excursion destination.
The castle stands on a 300 m high elevation in the Croatian border region with Slovenia . The construction of a first castle is not documented. Some experts suggest that it was as early as the 12th century.
As a builder of today's castle is Count Friedrich II. V. Cilli ( Celje ) at the end of the 14th, beginning of the 15th century.
After the counts v. Cilli in 1456 was taken over by the Moravian aristocrat and in the service of Count v. Cilli standing officer Jan Vitovec de Greben their property and thus also the Veliki Tabor Castle. He expanded the castle until his death (probably in 1468).
In 1502 the castle came into the possession of the Hungarian noble family Rattkay ( Ratkaj ). In the service of Duke Johann Corvinus v. Slavonia standing Paul I. v. In 1502 Rattkay was given numerous Hungarian and Croatian possessions as a gift for his services, including the Veliki Tabor Castle. The castle remained in the possession of the Rattkay family for almost 300 years.
They initially expanded the castle into a Renaissance fortress, which at that time had an important protective and defensive function against Ottoman incursions and attacks .
At the end of the 16th and 17th centuries, conversions in the Baroque style were added. With the death of Josip Ivan Ratkaj, the line Ratkaj-Veliki Tabor, raised to counts in 1687, died out in 1693 and the castle fell to the Kingdom of Hungary , to which this part of Croatia then belonged.
Ownership changed several times until the beginning of the 20th century; they did little to preserve the castle. During World War I, the Austro-Hungarian army used the castle as a prisoner of war camp. Croatia and thus also Veliki Tabor came to the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 ( Kingdom of Yugoslavia since 1929 ). The young state was not interested in the ramshackle castle. The Croatian painter Oton Iveković bought it at auction in 1919 and undertook conservation measures. Due to financial problems, Iveković had to sell the castle to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which gave it to the nuns of the Sisters of Mercy of the Third Order of St. Francis for use as an orphanage and housekeeping school.
After the Second World War, the nuns had to leave the castle in 1945 by order of the government of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Veliki Tabor was declared public property and in the following decades it was used by the Desinić u. a. used as a warehouse. During this time, repair work was only occasionally carried out on the buildings.
Today Veliki Tabor belongs to the Republic of Croatia , which had the castle extensively restored and refurbished. Since 2003, Veliki Tabor has been administered and operated by the Croatian Museum Association Muzeji Hrvatskog zagorja .
The main castle is preserved today. There are remains of walls from the ramparts and defense towers of the outer bailey.
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Coordinates: 46 ° 8 ′ 57.82 " N , 15 ° 40 ′ 11.16" E