Planina is a village in the Municipality of Postojna in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia. It includes the hamlets of Gornja Planina, Dolnja Planina, and Grič in the main settlement as well as Kačja Vas to the southwest and Malni and Hasberg to the south.
Name
Planina was attested in written sources in 1300 as Mounç in foro. The Slovenian name of the settlement is derived from the common noun planina 'treeless mountain; mountain pasture', referring to the local geography and semantically corresponding to Middle High Germanalbe in the medieval transcriptions of the name.
History
The Planina area was already settled in prehistoric times, along a trade route from Šmihel pod Nanosom to Vrhnika. The hill with ruins of Haasberg Castle has the remains of prehistoric and Roman-era fortifications, and graves dating to the Bronze Age and Roman era have been excavated on a hill slope closer to Unec. Medieval Planina developed around a castle belonging to the lords of Alben. A toll house belonging to the Counts of Gorizia was attested in Planina in 1217. As a town, Planina was granted the right to a market day every Saturday and an annual fair on Saint Margaret's Day. The town was later under the control of the Haller and Eggenberg noble families. By the 17th century, Planina had developed into an important trade connection between Carniola and the Adriatic, with routes connecting it to Pivka, Cerknica, and Logatec. A major postal station was established in Planina in 1728, and a road to Trieste was laid through the town in 1830. In the early 19th century an amadou factory was established in Planina and it exported its products throughout Europe. A district court was established in Planina in 1867. After the First World War, the Treaty of Rapallo split the town: the hamlet of Kačja Vas, the source of the Unica River, the Ravbar Tower of Little Castle, and Haasberg Castle lay on the Italian side of the border. During the Second World War, the Partisan Dolomite Detachment was active in the area. The Partisans destroyed an Italian outpost near Planina on 17 May 1943, and then burned Haasberg Castle on 27 March 1944, resulting in the loss of all the castle's furnishings. The Partisans also burned the Windischgrätz archive and destroyed the nearby family crypt and castle park.
