Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.32004/k.58.1-2.2
RAKOVEC HOUSEHOLD COOPERATIVES
Franjo Pajur
; Zagreb / Eisenstadt
Abstract
Summary
The town and municipality of Rakovec is located on the local road leading from Sv. Ivan Zelina to Vrbovec. In feudal times, the fortified "town" of Rakovec, where the lords had their seat, was the seat of a vast estate with settlements of their subjects who lived in house cooperatives.
Rakovec house cooperatives were offshoots of a typical cooperative culture and were therefore called "skupčina": their main characteristic was the common property and the common life of its members. The common property was cultivated by a "community", which usually consisted of several families related by kinship, but sometimes - due to a shortage of labor - also married or joined non-kin families. The cooperative was managed for a certain period by an elected master (headman) and not, as in patriarchal communities, by the oldest member “starješina”) or the father of the family (“pater familias”). Although, according to Bogišić's survey from 1874, the largest Rakovec cooperatives had 42-44 members, these were still exceptions: the average number was probably around twenty members. In the second half of the 19th century the disintegration of these cooperatives began, and they gradually divided into different families.
Keywords
: Rakovec; household cooperatives
Hrčak ID:
345324
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2025.
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