Page 21 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 21
the integrated peasant economy as a concept in progress
ble 1.3). Considering that about 30% of the industrial production derived
from peasants and about 50% of the traded goods were handled by peasants
(since they traded volumes comparable to urban merchants), we might con-
clude that market oriented peasant activities in the secondary and tertia-
ry sectors in Early Modern Slovenia reached macroeconomic dimensions
and impact.
What we have in between, that is from the beginning of the 17th to the
mid-18th century, as far as economic movements in general and the peas-
ant economy dynamics in particular are concerned, represents probably
the main knowledge gap in Slovenian modern economic history (Gestrin
1982, 207). There is, anyway, a general interpretative convergence among
Slovenian and Austrian scholars, that can be summed up as follows: on the
so called “Ljubljana road” (Laibacher Strasse), connecting the Hungarian
Pannonian plain with the Adriatic sea and northern Italy through the Slo-
venian lands of Habsburg Austria, after the 16th century expansive phase
signs of a commercial slowdown may be registered between the end of that
century and the beginning of the 17th.6 Such periodisation of economic dy-
namics fairly coincides with the turning point from growth to “crisis” (or
at least “stagnation”) in the Italian economic area, which was an expres-
sion of the general shift in economic centrality from the Mediterranean to
north-western Europe and involved the neighbouring Venetian Republic as
well (Romano 1992; Malanima 1998; Tenenti 1961). At the local level, during
the 17th century seemingly contradictory evidence may be detected, since in
western Slovenian lands bordering the Republic of Venice, the persistence
of lively peasant traffic may be observed along with an increased pressure
on natural resources (peasant reclamations of commons and woods, exam-
ples of intensive exploitation of grasslands and woodlands) that might re-
semble an opposite, ‘back to agriculture’ trend.7 As we have mentioned, a
steadier economic growth is registered again only in the 18th century.
Based on the regression of industrial activities, Žarko Lazarević re-
cently wrote of two periods of discontinuity in which a “deindustrialisa-
tion” and “reagrarisation” process took place in the Slovenian lands, that is
in the 17th and then again in the 19th century. Perhaps even more relevant is
his stressing the fact that being a small economy, with a consequently insuf-
ficient domestic demand to support an internally driven development, the
6 Pickl 1971; 1977; and 1983; Valentinitsch 1973; 1975; and 1989; Hassinger 1987; Ges-
trin 1991 and in different earlier works; a synthesis in Panjek 2002, 139–43.
7 Panjek 2002; 2015b, 85–117; and 2015c, 59–106.; see also Panjek and Beguš 2014.
19
ble 1.3). Considering that about 30% of the industrial production derived
from peasants and about 50% of the traded goods were handled by peasants
(since they traded volumes comparable to urban merchants), we might con-
clude that market oriented peasant activities in the secondary and tertia-
ry sectors in Early Modern Slovenia reached macroeconomic dimensions
and impact.
What we have in between, that is from the beginning of the 17th to the
mid-18th century, as far as economic movements in general and the peas-
ant economy dynamics in particular are concerned, represents probably
the main knowledge gap in Slovenian modern economic history (Gestrin
1982, 207). There is, anyway, a general interpretative convergence among
Slovenian and Austrian scholars, that can be summed up as follows: on the
so called “Ljubljana road” (Laibacher Strasse), connecting the Hungarian
Pannonian plain with the Adriatic sea and northern Italy through the Slo-
venian lands of Habsburg Austria, after the 16th century expansive phase
signs of a commercial slowdown may be registered between the end of that
century and the beginning of the 17th.6 Such periodisation of economic dy-
namics fairly coincides with the turning point from growth to “crisis” (or
at least “stagnation”) in the Italian economic area, which was an expres-
sion of the general shift in economic centrality from the Mediterranean to
north-western Europe and involved the neighbouring Venetian Republic as
well (Romano 1992; Malanima 1998; Tenenti 1961). At the local level, during
the 17th century seemingly contradictory evidence may be detected, since in
western Slovenian lands bordering the Republic of Venice, the persistence
of lively peasant traffic may be observed along with an increased pressure
on natural resources (peasant reclamations of commons and woods, exam-
ples of intensive exploitation of grasslands and woodlands) that might re-
semble an opposite, ‘back to agriculture’ trend.7 As we have mentioned, a
steadier economic growth is registered again only in the 18th century.
Based on the regression of industrial activities, Žarko Lazarević re-
cently wrote of two periods of discontinuity in which a “deindustrialisa-
tion” and “reagrarisation” process took place in the Slovenian lands, that is
in the 17th and then again in the 19th century. Perhaps even more relevant is
his stressing the fact that being a small economy, with a consequently insuf-
ficient domestic demand to support an internally driven development, the
6 Pickl 1971; 1977; and 1983; Valentinitsch 1973; 1975; and 1989; Hassinger 1987; Ges-
trin 1991 and in different earlier works; a synthesis in Panjek 2002, 139–43.
7 Panjek 2002; 2015b, 85–117; and 2015c, 59–106.; see also Panjek and Beguš 2014.
19
