The Roschütz family – barons who they were not

Abstract

In the last quarter of the 19th century, an affair broke out in Carniola in which the family of the baron Roschütz from Podsmreka near Višnja Gora was involved. It turned out that the family was not highborn at all and that they simply arrogated the title on their own. Baron Emil Roschütz, one of the biggest and most acknowledged apiarists in Carniola, was compelled to waive the baron title and family name; he replaced it with a neutral surname Ravenegg. After his death, his beekeeping enterprise fell in ruins and the family moved to Graz.