Zbornik Janković, Vol. VIII No. 10, 2025.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.47325/zj.8.10.3
LJUDEVIT VILLAGE FROM 1880-1918
Vjenceslav Herout
; Daruvar, Hrvatska
Abstract
The migrations of Czechs during the 19th century have been extensively researched and written about by scholars in the 20th century. They were studied by many scientists from the area that is now part of today’s Czech Republic, as they were massive there and were not limited to Croatian regions, but also extended to some European regions and overseas countries. This described migration took place in the area of the then Habsburg Monarchy (Austro-Hungarian), which included the Czech and Croatian territories. Consequently, many interpreted it from the perspective of population migration from overpopulated areas to less populated areas within the mentioned country. This uneven population distribution has its historical justification, because the southern parts of that country (“Hungarian lands”) were mainly under Ottoman rule until the end of the 17th century. After the liberation of those countries, those areas were abandoned by a large number of people, including the Ottomans and a larger number of their former subjects. The liberated countries had to be made suitable for a more advanced economy, and this could be achieved by colonising those areas, then clearing some forest areas and making them ready for more advanced agricultural production, for which they had all the desirable prerequisites. The Viennese court supported such a policy, but until the abolition of serfdom (1848), there were problems with obtaining permits from the landowners, who often withheld the issuing of dismissal notes. In the second half of the 19th century, after the abolition of serfdom, a part of the small peasantry joined the migrations, motivated by the desire to buy arable land, whic was noticeably cheaper in the Slavonia region, by selling their small estates. In addition to them, many landless peasants joined the migrations, who, at the invitation of some Slavonian noble families, entered into a lease relationship and worked as tenants on those noble estates that they retained for themselves. In return, they received smaller lease areas, but the lessors could always cancel earlier contracts at will. It was precisely in this relationship that the villagers of Luisendorf were involved from the settlement’s founding in 1855 until 1888, when they registered the leased estates in their names.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
344420
URI
Publication date:
11.2.2026.
Visits: 606 *