Original scientific paper
Environmental Micro-History of a Multiple Borderland: Podravina’s Torčec in the Second Half of the 18th Century
Hrvoje Petrić
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper was based on a land survey of the village of Torčec (a village in northwestern Croatia) made between 1775 and 1780 and preserved in Croatian National Archives (in Zagreb) as well as on other numerous sources. The document provides detailed information on all inhabitants of Torčec, including their old names and a detailed description of their landed property. Based on these facts a land possession and land cultivation analysis was produced, using quantitative methods. The terminology used in describing the parcelling of land was also examined. Torčec was at the time inhabited by freed serfs, freeman. Their status of freeman was a consequence of their colonization. Landlords and large estate owners offered and provided freedom to serfs in order to populate empty lands and to attract new labour. These ex-serfs from Slavonnia and other parts of Croatia in majority declined to move and work without personal freedom. Besides, for landlords the ever present danger was that serfs could easily flee to Military Border and join the Military Border as frontier guards. In order to precisely determine the land territory of Torčec in 1778, there had been a feudal regulation, ordered by the Queen Maria Theresa on 24 September 1773. By the regulation the borders of the main arable lands of the region were delineated and increased in length. This increased the number of plowlands, meadows and homesteads. More intensified processing of land, and increase of arable lands, helped a spatial expansion of Torčec. During 18th century Torčec expanded and number with the Triplex Confinium area as a case study. It was situated on Koprivnica (one of four main fortresses of the Slavonnian Military Border) and it was part of the 3Drnje County District and Drnje Parish (two kilometres from Torčec). It belonged at times to the Military Border and at other times to Civil Croatia. This analysis could also denote a beginning of eco-historical research in the Podravina (Drava Region).
Keywords
river of Drava; environmental history; village of Torčec; Drava river Region (Podravina); 18th century
Hrčak ID:
78689
URI
Publication date:
1.11.2004.
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