Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31141/zrpfs.2023.60.150.649
Legal and sociolinguistic aspects of prostitution using the example of the city of Osijek at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries
Ljubica Kordić
orcid.org/0000-0002-2900-7906
; Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Pravni fakultet Osijek
Višnja Lachner
; Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Pravni fakultet Osijek
Abstract
In this paper, the authors investigate the legal regulation of prostitution in the city of Osijek
at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The introductory section offers a brief
description of the multicultural urban environment of the city of Osijek and various aspects of
public life in the city in the historical period of research. Throughout the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy, prostitution was legal, but due to moral and, above all, health reasons, it was limited
by the provisions of the Penal Code from 1852. These provisions were of a general nature, and
the specific regulation related to the operation of brothels was left to local (police) authorities.
Therefore, in the main part of the paper, based on the original archival materials available in the
State Archives of Osijek, the authors analyze in detail the provisions of the Basic Ordinance for
the Supervision of Prostitution in the City of Osijek of 1881 and amendments to these provisions
introduced by the Ordinance of 1896 and by the Ordinance for Brothels in the Free Royal City of
Osijek of 1911. In addition to the legal analysis of the aforementioned regulations, prostitution
in the city is analyzed from a sociolinguistic point of view based on advertisements published by
women in the local magazines entitled Slawonische Presse and Die Drau. As a result of the study
of the original archival materials, it is concluded that Osijek shared the European attitudes of that
time regarding the legal regulation of prostitution. Nevertheless, that profession was still considered
socially unacceptable, as confirmed by the sociolinguistic analysis of advertisements published by
the end of the 19th century in Slawonische Presse and Die Drau magazines.
Keywords
prostitution; legal regulation; historical sources; sociolinguistic analysis
Hrčak ID:
311806
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2023.
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