Original scientific paper

The Physiocratic Mouvement in Dalmatian Croatia

Ivan Pederin ; Historijski arhiv, Zadar, Hrvatska

Abstract

Following the French physiocratic mouvement the Croatian intellectuals started such a mouvement simultaneously to the Ita1ians. They did so in the southern province olf Croatia - in Dalmatia, which until 1797. was ruled by Venice.
In Dalmatia this mouvement rose due to the peculiar caracter of our colonate where the peasant as a free man cultivated the grounds of the owner since generations. He was reluctant in giving the part due to the owner, the nobleman and the Venetian, authorities looked for a period with irresolution to the frictions of the absente landlord, living in a town and the peasants. Due to the obsolete taxpaying sistem most of arable land was left uncultivated. New wars with Ottoman Empire were unlikely to occur. Our physiocratic mouvement rose out of these conditions when our intellectuals organized in a number of agricultural accademies in Split, Zadar, Kaštela and Trogir. In this article their programmes and ideology are reviewed. It was amouvement of landlords, which conceived themselves as the agricultural and civil teachers of the peasantry which now is seen as a modern Croatian nation. Agriculture has to be animated by modern agrotechnic means, by building of roads which would render possible the free trade and the industrialisation of the nation which would unite and annect parts of Croatian order to supply the industry by raw materials.
This progamme is to be realized by passing a modern legislation enabling everybody to sell and buy, ground. This legislation would protect privat property, equality before the law, so that privat and public interests would coincide.
In the Croatian model of democracy, in the rule by consent the idea of municipal authonomy which existed in our coastal towns since the Roman times and was inherited by the Middle Ages played a role as, the national sovereignty was conceived by means of municipal authonomy.
The scholarization of the whole nation was also suggested. As this nationalism was not a linguistic one, the study of natural sciences have been placed ahead but the introduction o:f the Croatian as a modern national language was suggested. Venetian rule was rejected for being obsolete and for being the rule of foreigners.
This mouvement acted in ,the framework of European physiocratism generating the first model of modern democracy in Croatia, which played a role in our democratic and liberal mouvement of the XIXth century. These stressed more the importance of language and the folklore remaining more to the left as the Croaitian liber al parties were parties of the poorer part of ,the middle class. Bishops, army generals, rich industrialists, which form the political right, were in Croatia foreigners troughout the XIXth century and later.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

87818

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/87818

Publication date:

3.12.1984.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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