Page 110 - Mocarelli, Luca, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2020. Maize to the People! Cultivation, Consumption and Trade in the North-Eastern Mediterranean (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century). Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 110
maize to the people!
arrived from the eastern Adriatic coasts and the eastern Mediterranean
(Dalmatia and “Turkish regions”). The other main maize gateway into
Slovenia was from the Balkan mainland to the eastern part of Styria, where
the rivers very likely played a role. Evidence confirms this route and the
role of river navigation in the eighteenth century, but we may assume this
was also the case in earlier periods. That is, if we consider the opportuni-
ties provided by the river routes, which in the early modern period con-
nected the Slovenian lands to the Black Sea region (Vilfan 1978, 79): I am
thinking of the Danube (for today’s Serbia and Hungary) and its tribu-
tary rivers Sava, Drava and Mura (for today’s eastern Croatia, eastern and
central Slovenia, and south-eastern Austria). This would mean that maize
came to the eastern Alpine and subalpine area both from the west-south-
west and the southeast, as German-language literature has been telling us
since the sixteenth century. The addition to be made is that in both di-
rections, maize arrived by land as well as by sea (as the stronger presence
around the port towns shows), while we may imagine the rivers playing a
role in the land route.
Interpretive conclusions: the factors of maize diffusion
By connecting the conclusions mentioned so far, and combining them with
some existing interpretations about the conditions of maize diffusion by
historians, I would propose the following updated interpretation of the fac-
tors of maize diffusion. To this purpose, I will distinguish between socio-
economic factors and localization factors as follows:
a) Socioeconomic factors
The Austrian historians Roman Sandgruber and Walter Brunner wrote
that of crucial importance for the affirmation of maize in Vorarlberg and
Styria during the seventeenth century must have been the worsening liv-
ing conditions among the peasantry, who realized that maize granted very
good yields and large harvests, and therefore started to increase its culti-
vation. Extending this interpretation to the Slovenian regions, I would add
that – perhaps – only the hardship caused by the economic stagnation and
crisis in the long period between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth
centuries, made it reasonable for the peasants to engage in the hard and
time-consuming work necessary for maize cultivation with the techniques
used at that time.
108
arrived from the eastern Adriatic coasts and the eastern Mediterranean
(Dalmatia and “Turkish regions”). The other main maize gateway into
Slovenia was from the Balkan mainland to the eastern part of Styria, where
the rivers very likely played a role. Evidence confirms this route and the
role of river navigation in the eighteenth century, but we may assume this
was also the case in earlier periods. That is, if we consider the opportuni-
ties provided by the river routes, which in the early modern period con-
nected the Slovenian lands to the Black Sea region (Vilfan 1978, 79): I am
thinking of the Danube (for today’s Serbia and Hungary) and its tribu-
tary rivers Sava, Drava and Mura (for today’s eastern Croatia, eastern and
central Slovenia, and south-eastern Austria). This would mean that maize
came to the eastern Alpine and subalpine area both from the west-south-
west and the southeast, as German-language literature has been telling us
since the sixteenth century. The addition to be made is that in both di-
rections, maize arrived by land as well as by sea (as the stronger presence
around the port towns shows), while we may imagine the rivers playing a
role in the land route.
Interpretive conclusions: the factors of maize diffusion
By connecting the conclusions mentioned so far, and combining them with
some existing interpretations about the conditions of maize diffusion by
historians, I would propose the following updated interpretation of the fac-
tors of maize diffusion. To this purpose, I will distinguish between socio-
economic factors and localization factors as follows:
a) Socioeconomic factors
The Austrian historians Roman Sandgruber and Walter Brunner wrote
that of crucial importance for the affirmation of maize in Vorarlberg and
Styria during the seventeenth century must have been the worsening liv-
ing conditions among the peasantry, who realized that maize granted very
good yields and large harvests, and therefore started to increase its culti-
vation. Extending this interpretation to the Slovenian regions, I would add
that – perhaps – only the hardship caused by the economic stagnation and
crisis in the long period between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth
centuries, made it reasonable for the peasants to engage in the hard and
time-consuming work necessary for maize cultivation with the techniques
used at that time.
108
