ZajednicÌŒar = Fraternalist. [volume] (Allegheny, Pa.) 1894-current, 1956-06-06

General circumstances affecting Croatia
Political, economic and social causes of emigration
IN the territory of the Military Frontier serfdom was
unknown. The famous Frontiersmen, called Granica-
ri, paid their tribute to the Emperor in shedding their
blood for him on many European battle fields.
The Military Frontier was finally incorporated with
the rest of Croatia, 1881. The old military laws made way
to civilian laws. The new General Civil Code, replacing the
old system of natural laws, was introduced without ade-
quate preparation. The application of it on the peasants
proved in many ways disastrous
1t favored the partition of the old institution of house
community (zadruga), the cost of which was so high that
the peasant found himself unable to pay his share. He
accumulated debts that grew heavier and heavier due to
excessive interest rates. There was no escape, consequent
ly his few possessions, in many cases., went on public sale.
Narodne Novine, National Gazette), published daily
long lists of peasants houses and lands put up for public
auction The government was not only impressive to the
ruin of the free peasant, but played an outra geous part
competing with the private banks and spectators in strip
ping the peasant of his belongings. This was official
Magyar policy, against whose proceedings the Croatian
Government in Zagreb was impotent. The aim of this
policy was a systematic depopulation of Croatia and re-
placement of the Croats by foreigners.
Between 1880 and 1914 more than half a million
Croats left their country and only one quarter of them
returned. simultaneously, Q840 1910, the Magyars in
creased in Croatia from $3.50 to 1O5, 948 and the Germans
from 1926 to 136, POI" With the peasants losing their
ancestral homes through the policy and financial opera
tons in Vienna and Budapest, the country was losing it's
Croatian character.
The serfdom, abolished in Dalmatia as well, continued
nevertheless in a lighter form, called colonate, under 1tal-
ian landowners, until World War I.
The government and administration officials did moth
ing to relieve the people; on the contrary they squeezed
the last penny out of them through taxes and other means.
Their costly administration needed more and more money
with the income tax as it's only resource.
Lack of industries and trade made the peasant the
principal taxpayer. He could not carry the burden all alone.
His products sold at a low price, and very often not at all.
In order to obtain the needed tax money, he was obliged to
borrow from the bank and thereby increase his debts.
But the banks were demanding in addition a 1870
interest rate or more, taking advantage of his plight. In
evitably the tax collectors finished by confiscating all his
possessions unto the last cow. Public auction became a
common spectacle in every village.
Defenseless, enjoying neither political rights nor legal
protection, the Croatian peasant was bound to lose his last
foothold on his native country.
Up to the middle of the NX-th century Croatia served
as a natural passage from Austria to the open sea. Wheat
from Croatia and Hungary was shipped on the Danube,
Sava and Kupa rivers.
Hungarian tobacco and Croatian oaks reached the
port of Karlovac, from where numerous wagon-trails
assured their conveyance to Rieka and SEM. This artery
Of transportation from the inland to the sea procured to
the population of Lika and Gorski Kotar their living.
When the railways Vienna-Trieste and Budapest-Zagreb-
Rijeka took over those transports, the people of Lika and
Gorski Kotar were left %breadless. They furnished the lar.
gest number of immigrants
About 1883 the phylloxera destroyed the vineyards in
Croatia and Slavonia. The region of Jaska, south of Ia
greb, lived solely on the profits of the vine business, there
fore the blow was hard. 1t sent the better part of the
population into the world, animated by the hope to earn
the necessary funds for replanting their Vineyards
The Naturalization of Germany and some parts of
Austria and Bohemia, growing rapidly during the second
half of the XIX-th century, provoked in Central Europe
a major economic crisis which was felt especially in the
Habsburg Monarchy. A modern financial system was
substituted for the former practice of basic economy of
exchange. Agricultural products could no more pay for
clothing, household and other articles, and cash was rare
in peasants hands,
Deprived of all civilian rights, uneducated and eco
nonicaly abused, the Croatian peasants from all parts
of the country %emigrated.
The descendants of those who had gone out into the
world to fight for the Emperor were now in their turn
obliged to leave their homes and cross the ocean in search
for work and freedom.
MACK, Vladimir, Bit hrvatskog seljackog pokreta, New York,
Pedeset godina hrvatske seljacke stranke, 1854, 9; 12Radic, Poll
ttki katekizam, 140; "Marjanoyic, Milan, Jugoslavija, New York,
Jugoslavenska bibioteka, 1916, 20; II Kresic, MILO, AutobOgra-
fila, zagreb, p, so; l5Macek, Letter; IS Gazi stjepan, Dvadeset
godisnjca hryatskih sejacdh organizacija n Kanadi, Winnipeg
National Publishers, 1859, go.