Gottschee (, ) refers to a former German-speaking region in Carniola, a crownland of the Habsburg Empire, part of the historical and traditional region of Lower Carniola, now in Slovenia. The region has been a county, duchy, district, and municipality during various parts of its history. The term often also refers to the entire ethnolinguistic enclave regardless of administrative borders.Jones, William Jervis. 2001. "Early Dialectology, Etymology and Language History in German Speaking Countries." In: Sylvain Auroux (ed.), History of the Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present (pp. 1105–1114). Berlin: de Gruyter, p. 1110.Prolke, Herman. 2003. Genocide of the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia, 1944–1948. Munich: Verlag der Donauschwäbischen Kulturstiftung, p. 34. Today Gottschee largely corresponds to the Municipality of Kočevje. The original German settlers of the region are called Gottschee GermansPrince, John Dyneley. 1931. "The Gottschee Germans of Slovenia." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 70(4): 391–398.Costello, John R. 1997. "German in New York." In: Oelia García & Joshua A. Fishman (eds.), The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New York City (pp. 71–92). Berlin: de Gruyter, p. 73. or Gottscheers,Suschnigg, Peter. 1996. "A Sociological Profile of Austrian-Canadians." In Frederick C. Engelmann, Manfred Prokop, & Franz A. J. Szabo (eds.), History of the Austrian Migration to Canada (pp. 123–156) Ottawa: Carleton University Press, p. 156. and their German dialect is called Gottschee GermanHutton, Christopher. 1999. Linguistics and the Third Reich: Mother-Tongue Fascism, Race and the Science of Language. London: Routledge, p. 151. or Gottscheerish.Salminen, Tapani. 2007. "Endangered Languages in Europe and North Asia." In: Moseley, Christopher (ed.), Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages (pp. 211–280). New York: Routledge, p. 246.
Geography The Gottschee enclave encompassed a roughly oval-shaped area between 45° 46′ N and 45° 30′ N, and between 14° 36′ E and 15° 9′ E. Geographers divided the enclave into seven regions based on valleys (from west to east):Tschinkel, Hans. 1908. Grammatik der Gottscheer Mundart. Halle: Max Niemeyer, p. 4.Ferenc, Mitja. 2007. Nekdanji nemški jezikovni otok na kočevskem. Kočevje: Pokrajinski muzej, pp. 9–10.Das Gottscheer Land Geographisch Petschauer, Erich. 1980. Das Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer. Klagenfurt: Leustik, p. 205. The Suchen Plateau () in the extreme west, with the (pre-1933) municipalities of Obergras and Suchen; The Back District () in the west, with the municipalities of Göttenitz, Hinterberg, Masern, Morobitz, Rieg, and Tiefenbach; The Upper District () in the central area, with the municipalities of Lienfeld, Mitterdorf, and Seele, plus the city of Gottschee (); The Lower District () in the south-central area, with the municipalities of Graflinden, Mösel, Schwarzenbach, and Unterlag; The Forest District () in the north-central area, with the municipalities of Altlag, Ebenthal, Langenton, and Malgern; The Tschermoschnitz District () in the northeast, with the municipalities of Pöllandl, Stockendorf, and Tschermoschnitz; The Lower Side () in the southeast, with the municipalities of Nesseltal and Unterdeutschau.
History
Early history (13th century1623) The Gottschee region was conferred upon the Counts of Ortenburg by the Patriarchate of Aquileia on 20 September 1277.Czörnig, Carl von. 1878. "Die deutsche Sprachinsel Gottschee." Zeitschrift des Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Alpenvereins 9: 273–287. The territory was settled by German farmers from Carinthia and East Tyrol between 1330 and 1400. The first settlement in the territory attested in written sources was Mooswald (), which appeared in a letter from Patriarch Bertram on 1 September 1339.Tschinkel, Wilhelm. Gottscheer Volkstum in Sitte, Brauch, Märchen, Sagen, Legenden und anderen volkstümlichen Überlieferungen. Ljubljana: ZRC, p. 607.Savnik, Roman, ed. 1971. Krajevni leksikon Slovenije, vol. 2. Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije, p. 231. A 1363 letter mentioned the settlements of Gottschee (), Pölland (), Kostel, Ossilnitz (), and Göttenitz ().Hösler, Joachin. 2006. Slowenien: von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Regensburg: Pustet, p. 28. The town of Gottschee acquired market town status in 1377.Prince, John Dyneley. 1931. "The Gottschee Germans of Slovenia." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 70(4): 391–398, p. 392.
With the extinction of the House of Ortenburg in 1418,Šumrada, Janez, & Tone Ferenc. 1991. "Kočevarji." Enciklopedija Slovenije, vol. 5. (pp. 179–181). Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. the Gottschee area came under the control of the Counts of Celje in 1420. When the House of Celje died out in 1456, the territory came under the control of the House of Habsburg, dukes of Carniola. Emperor Frederick III elevated the town of Gottschee to a city in 1471.
The late 15th century began a time of unrest in Gottschee. Numerous Ottoman attacks took place in the region (in 1469, 1471, 1476, 1480, 1491, 1507, 1528, 1546, 1559, 1561, 1564, 1578, and 1584).Tomšič, Štefan, & Fran Ivanc. 1887. "Kočevsko okrajno glavarstvo. Zemljepisno-zgodovinski opis." Ljubljana: Narodna tiskarna, pp. 14–16. It was partly in response to the devastation of the Ottoman raids that Emperor Frederick III granted the people of Gottschee the right to sell goods outside the territory in 1492. There were also six peasant uprisings in the territory, starting in 1515 and ending in 1662.
In 1507, Maximilian I mortgaged the Dominion of Gottschee (German: Herrschaft Gottschee, ) to Count Jörg von Thurn.Petschauer, Erich. 1980. Das Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer. Klagenfurt: Leustik, p. 51. The territory was purchased by Hans Ungnad in 1524, and then mortgaged to the Croatian Counts of Blagay in 1547.Petschauer, Erich. 1980. Das Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer. Klagenfurt: Leustik, p. 52. In 1574, Gottschee extended from Mount Snežnik in the extreme west to Blatnik pri Črmošnjicah in the east, and from Seč and Gornja Topla Reber in the north to just below Bosljiva Loka and Osilnica in the south.Simonič, Ivan. 1934. "Migracije na Kočevskem v luči priimkov". Etnolog 7: 107–138, p. 122. In 1619, the territory was purchased by the Khisl family.
Gottschee County (1623–1791) The territory was elevated to Gottschee County (German: Grafschaft Gottschee, ) in 1623. In 1641 Wolf Engelbert von Auersperg purchased Gottschee County from Count Georg Zwickl-Khisl for 84,000 florins. Engelbert abandoned the deteriorating castle at Friedrichstein and built a new castle in the town of Gottschee itself, which survived until the Second World War. Because Gottschee was a county, Engelbert thereby became a count himself.Preinfalk, Miha. 2005. Auerspergi: po sledeh mogočnega tura. Ljubljana: ZRC, p. 230. Because he died without an heir in 1673, the county passed to his brother Johann Weikhard of Auersperg, who had become a prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1653. He combined Gottschee with some neighboring estates into a single domain. In 1774, Emperor Joseph II issued a patent allowing the residents of Gottschee County to sell citrus fruit and oil, and the emperor issued a patent confirming peddling privileges on 27 April 1785.
Duchy of Gottschee (1791–1809)
In 1791, Emperor Leopold II elevated the territory to the Duchy of Gottschee (German: Herzogtum Gottschee, ) and Karl Josef Anton von Auersperg to the Duke of Gottschee.
Illyrian Provinces (1809–1814) During the short-lived period of the Illyrian Provinces, Gottschee was part of the Napoleonic French Empire. Under this arrangement it was initially part of the Province of Ljubljana () from 1809 to 1811, and then the Province of Carniola () from 1811 to 1814. Gottschee constituted a separate administrative canton under this arrangement.Svoljšak, Petra. 1995. "Neodvisna kočevska republika." Kronika 43: 103–107, p. 106. The Gottscheers revolted against French rule during the 1809 Gottscheer Rebellion, killing the commissar of the Novo Mesto district, Von Gasparini.Matijevič, Meta. 1998. "Napad kmetov na francoske vojake v Novem mestu leta 1809." Kronika 46: 42–46, p. 44. With the collapse of the Illyrian provinces, Gottschee was returned to Habsburg rule within the Kingdom of Illyria.
Kingdom of Illyria (1816–1849)
As part of the Habsburg Kingdom of Illyria, Gottschee was administratively part of the Novo Mesto District (German: Neustädtler Kreis).Riedl, Joseph. 1818.Charte von dem Koenigreiche Illyrian nach J. K. Kindermann. Vienna: Riedl. The Kingdom of Illyria was succeeded by the reconstituted Duchy of Carniola in 1849.
Duchy of Carniola (1849–1918)
Within the Duchy of Carniola, a separate administrative Gottschee District (German: Bezirk Gottschee or Gerichtsbezirk Gottschee) was set up. The district had an area of approximately and contained a total of 177 settlements (including ethnically Slovene ones and some abandoned before 1941).Ferenc, Mitja. 1993. Kočevska. Izgubljena kulturna dediščina kočevskih nemcev. Ljubljana: Delo, p. 7. The Gottschee District was bordered (clockwise) by the districts of Ribnica (), Žužemberk (), Novo Mesto (), Metlika (), and Črnomelj (). Fully German or ethnically mixed Slovene-German territory extended into all of the neighboring districts. On 31 December 1869 the entire Kočevje District had 3,473 houses and a population of 18,432. Subtracting the ethnically Slovene communities of Osilnica () and Kostel left a total of 2,966 houses and a population of 15,520 in ethnically German or German-majority territory in the district itself. Adding in ethnically German houses and population from communities adjacent to the district resulted in a total of 4,161 houses and a population of 21,301 in the culturally German Gottschee area. Czörnig estimated the total Gottschee German population in 1878, accounting for population growth and men working away from home, to be about 25,000.
In 1906 the ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian lawyer and politician Aurel Popovici unsuccessfully proposed the reorganization of Austria-Hungary as the United States of Greater Austria.Popovici, Aurel. 1906. Die Vereinigten Staaten von Groß-Österreich. Politische Studien zur Lösung der nationalen Fragen und staatrechtlichen Krisen in Österreich-Ungarn. Leipzig: B. Elischer nachfolger. Popovici's proposal included Gottschee as a separate autonomous district within the proposed state of Carniola.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941)