The arguments against the alleged mass Gottscheer's immigration could possibly be something like this: 1) In the 13th or even in 14th century, the peasant Habsburg immigrants did not have fixed surnames. Permanent surnames only began to emerge at the end of the 15th century, when professional land registry clerks first wrote them down for some Habsburg serfs. The argument between professors Ivan Simonič (* 1905) and Josef Obergföll (* 1853) regarding the origin of the surnames recorded in Gottscheer's land registry of 1574 was thus pointless. Rather, it was like a pointless projection onto the alleged immigration that supposedly took place a quarter of a millennium before this land registry. 2) National consciousness did not exist in the 14th century, when attachment to a more tangible domestic place prevailed. National consciousness flared up in Central Europe only after the Spring of Nations in 1848, and therefore with much greater pomp. 3) Each linguistic enclave eventually got lost in the sea of differently speaking neighbors. Unless it served a special purpose, like Auersperg's Gottscheer Germanized bridge to the Adriatic Sea in the form of Drang nach Osten. 4) The cultural identity of the Gottscheers and their Slovenian neighbors testifies against their mass immigration. 5) Nugent's management of the Kostel in those crucial years for national definition, in 1815-1890, enabled the Sloveneness among the Kostel natives, also with additional Slovenian influences on the neighbors of Osilnica and Poljaned above Kolpa. L. Nugent's Gottscheer neighbors were the 6th Duke Wilhelm I Auersperg (1759 Graz-1822 Sopron), his son the 7th Duke Karl Wilhelm II Auersperg (1782 Graz-1827 Sopron), his nephew 8th Duke Vincenc Karl Auersperg (1812-1867), and his cousin's son 9th Duke Karl Maria Alexander Auersperg (1859 Vienna-1927 Goldegg). These Auerspergs agitated in the opposite German direction. The Illyrianism of L. Nugent's friend Ljudevit Gaj (1809 Krapina-1872) also swept over Kostel by Stanko Vraz, despite F. Prešeren. A quarter of a millennium of Kostel manor connected to Rijeka (and Varaždin) between 1695-1935 gave Kostel an indelible Slavic stamp, perhaps even with some Italian admixtures. But certainly nothing German, which dominated Auersperg's Gottscheer-land. Even the last Kostel lord, the Russian Andrei Nikolajevič Belotsvetov, had no interest in Germanization. Kostel's semi-smuggling trade with the Littoral region flourished for centuries, with Croatian and Italian influences included. The Gottscheers' peddling business, however, was much less so, especially after the 1st Duke Auersperg did not receive the desired Venetian asylum, and the son of his great-grandson, Karl Maria Alexander Auersperg (1859 Vienna-1927 Goldegg), tried to obtain an impossible outlet to the (Italian) sea for his Gottscheer's republic in 1918/19. The 1st Duke's brother, Herward Auersperg (1613-1669), was also not on good terms with his deputy in the Military Krajina, Zrinski. Then the Auerspergs doomedly left the Zrinski princes in the lurch in 1671. On the Gottscheer's-Kostel border, Italian-German, Croatian-German, and finally even the Slovenian-German conflicting interests clashed. Of course, among the Androcha-type landlords, their godfather Auersperg and their Ribnica neighbor Kobenbcl (Cobenzl), the socialized "class" consciousness of the 18th-century nobility reigned high above nationality! "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"
Stanislav Južnič (Fri,) studied this question.