St. Stefan (Wolfsberg community)

St. Stefan im Lavanttal is a village in the Lavanttal in the south of Carinthia , Austria . The population of this place is 1833 (as of October 31, 2011). The cadastral municipality of St. Stefan was an independent municipality and was incorporated into the municipality of Wolfsberg in 1974 .

geography

The village of St. Stefan is about 3.2 km from Wolfsberg city center. The former municipal area extended southeast of Wolfsberg to the left of the Lavant up to the Koralpe .

history

Parish church St. Stefan in Lavanttal

Train from former coal mine

A church in St. Stefan was named "capella sancti stephani" in a document from Bishop Otto von Bamberg in 1106 when the bishop had a chapel built here.

In the agricultural area, silver ore mining has been proven as early as the 16th century . In the second quarter of the 19th century were first tentatively and dismantled 1845-1968 intensive lignite deposits, whereby the location of the rural agricultural village to the mining village walking, and as far as the city limits of St. Johann and Reding grew. Mining ceased in 1968 after a serious accident the year before.

From the 13th century to the revolution in 1848, the area belonged to the Hartneidstein district court, named after Hartneidstein Castle in the south of the municipality, which had its seat there until the 17th century and which comprised a large district in the Lavant valley.

Political communities were founded around 1850. So around 1865 there were still two local communities in the later municipality area - St.Johann (consisting of the cadastral communities Hartelsberg, St.Johann, Reideben, Rieding, Kleinwinklern, Vordergumitsch and Weißenbach) and St.Stefan (cadastral communities St.Stefan, Michaelsdorf and Paildorf) existent. A year later, in 1866, the two parishes were united. The municipality of St.Stefan existed in this form, which was granted the right to use the designation market municipality in 1965 until the state-wide municipal reform in 1973 - where it was incorporated into the municipality of Wolfsberg together with a few other municipalities. In the 1990s there were efforts to reunite in St. Stefan as well as in St. Margarethen and Frantschach-St.Gertraud , but this only happened in Frantschach-St. Gertraud succeeded.

Lignite deposits

In St. Stefan there are abundant brown coal deposits from the Miocene . From 1826 onwards, initially on a trial basis, and from 1845 onwards, lignite excavations were carried out intensively . A mine was completely rebuilt in the 1850s and was considered one of the most modern in Europe for the underground mining of lignite. A separate miners' settlement was built for the miners, the so-called Barbara settlement on the northern outskirts of St. Stefan. The mining was stopped in 1968 after a serious mine accident - against the will of the workforce. To this day, the earth in and around St. Stefan has not come to rest; there are repeated earth collapses and cracks in the walls of the houses. Large parts of the region south and west of St. Stefan are still closed to any development today, as the tunnels have not been 100% sealed and filled. There are still many hundreds of thousands of tons of brown coal in the earth around St. Stefan, but they are not being mined.

Mine disaster

On November 1, 1967, a devastating mine fire broke out in the St. Stefan lignite mine in Lavanttal (Lavanttaler Kohlenbergbau GesmbH. - LAKOG), killing five miners. A miner could never be recovered and is still in the tunnels to this day . This sealed the premature end of this mine. The last coal hunt left the mine on March 31, 1968. Over 1,500 miners were suddenly unemployed, which at the time meant a financial and social catastrophe for the structurally weak state of Carinthia. Most of the structures were removed. Only a few buildings are still standing today and are now used by other companies. Among other things, a large bakery has set up shop in the former coal mine in the Wolkersdorf district.

exhibition

Since June 9, 2016, the Lavanttaler coal mining has been the subject of a special exhibition in the museum in the Lavanthaus in Wolfsberg . It is entitled “Luck on, miners! The Lavanttaler Coal Mining "and is open until May 31, 2018. After that, it will become part of the museum's permanent exhibition.

Cadastral communities

Today's cadastral communities of the city ​​of Wolfsberg , formerly the market town of St. Stefan in Lavanttal:

• Hartelsberg
• Kleinwinklern
• Michaelsdorf
• Reideben
• Rieding
• St.Johann
• St.Stefan
• Paildorf
• Wolkersdorf

Culture

In 1915 the poet and writer Christine Lavant (actually Habernig) was born in St. Stefan .

The House of Music was opened in St. Stefan in summer 2008 .

coat of arms

The former coat of arms of St. Stefan, which was awarded to the community at that time on November 14, 1960, reflects, among other things, the local economic history. The upper half of the shield with the traditional mining colors black and green as well as the tough ( mallet and iron ) refers to lignite mining, the lower half with the ear pattern refers to the fertility of the Lavanttal soil. The oblique sword is reminiscent of the former Hartneidstein district court. The silver hen with the bucket in its beak goes back to a legend according to which miners employed in silver mining were cursed for outrageous acts. Instead of silver, only a hen can be found in the mountain. Silver would only be found again when it had eaten all the grains out of a conveyor bucket.

The official blazon of the coat of arms read: “Embedded shield, behind in green a black mining symbol (Schlegel and Eisen), below in front green with a black, behind black with a green ear pattern, which consists of two ears pointing vertically upwards and one in the middle is formed contiguously directed vertically downwards. The shield is overlaid by a silver sword pointing diagonally to the right, this one by a silver hen with a small silver delivery bucket in her beak and with her left wing flapped. "

The flag of St. Stefan was black-white-green with an incorporated coat of arms.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Austrian National Library: ÖNB-ALEX - Provincial Law Gazette Carinthia 1850-1999. Retrieved on April 26, 2017 (In the course of the legal gazette, a list of the then existing municipalities in the state, including the associated cadastral municipalities, was announced.). 
2. ^ Austrian National Library: ÖNB-ALEX - Provincial Law Gazette Carinthia 1850-1999. Retrieved April 26, 2017 . 
3. ^ Wall of fire and smoke drove the Retter back Arbeiter-Zeitung, November 3, 1967.
4. ↑ Lavanttaler coal mining - Wolkersdorfer Schacht
5. ^ Graz-Köflacher Eisenbahn- und Bergbau-Gesellschaft / GKB-Bergbau GmbH: Securing "Lakog" relics , October 6, 2007, accessed on June 12, 2019.
6. ↑ Ulrike Greiner: Wolfsberg: look back into the world of the buddies . In: kleinezeitung.at . June 8, 2017 ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed June 10, 2017]).
7. ↑ Georg Lux: History: On the trail of black gold . In: kleinezeitung.at . June 11, 2017 ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed June 11, 2017]).
8. ^ Quoted from Wilhelm Deuer: The Carinthian municipal coat of arms . Verlag des Kärntner Landesarchiv, Klagenfurt 2006, ISBN 3-900531-64-1 , p. 334.

Coordinates: 46 ° 48 '  N , 14 ° 51'  E