Begunje
Name
Begunje na Gorenjskem was first attested in written sources in 1050 as Begûn and in 1063 as Uegun, among various other spellings. The name of the settlement is derived from the personal name *Běgunъ, probably as a clipped version of *Běgun'e (selo) 'Běgunъ's village' (i.e., a neuter singular form) that later shifted to a feminine plural form. In Slovene, the settlement was originally simply called Begunje but the modifier na Gorenjskem 'in Upper Carniola' was later added to distinguish it from Begunje pri Cerknici (literally, 'Begunje near Cerknica'). In older sources, the settlement was sometimes named Begunje pri Lescah (German: Vigaun bei Lees)—that is, 'Begunje near Lesce', which also corresponded to the parish name.
History
The ruins of 12th-century Kamen (German: Stein or Stain) Castle are just outside the village in the Draga Valley. First documented in 1185, it appeared as Castrum Lapis in 1263 and Stain in 1350, when it passed into the Carniolan possessions of the Counts of Ortenburg. The castle played a vital role in protecting the comital lands in the Bohinj and Upper Sava Valley. When the Ortenburgs became extinct in 1418, it passed to Count Hermann II of Celje and was inherited by the Austrian House of Habsburg in 1456.
Fifteenth-century Kacenštajn Castle, rebuilt in the late 17th century, stands in the centre of the village. The castle was used as women's prison in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and it was seized as Upper Carniolan headquarters of the Nazi German Gestapo during the war. After the war, a Yugoslav labor camp for political prisoners operated in the village. A memorial and a museum dedicated to the victims were set up in part of the building, which today houses a psychiatric hospital accepting patients from all over the Upper Carniola region.