The Treatment of the Local Inhabitants of Slavonia by Austro-Hungarian Authorities Before, During and After the Great War

Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts

Year: 2023

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/4th.icsha.2023.04.005

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The Treatment of the Local Inhabitants of Slavonia by Austro-Hungarian Authorities Before, During and After the Great War

Ana Tereza Zelinski, Ana Pavic Jukic

ABSTRACT: 

Do the signing of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise and the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy pose even greater problems for the already oppressed people of Slavonia and Baranya? Double economic and political oppression, Austrian absolutism, and Germanization, as well as severe economic crisis felt in the already poor Slavonian villages all contributed to the growing dissatisfaction and resentment among the people in Slavonia. Economic instability, shortages, social and political unrest, and the consequences of the war left their mark on the economy of Croatia, including Slavonia and Syrmia. There were many wounded soldiers and soldiers in general who had returned from the battlefields, many widows, and orphans. An insecure, socially dysfunctional living and working environment became a norm. The research aims to investigate whether decasyllabic poems written by local inhabitants of Slavonia, particularly within the bećarac genre known for its lucid content, can offer objective insights into the relationship between the authorities and their subjects, and provide a basis for drawing new conclusions. The corpus used in the analysis consists of the records of verses written by Slavko Janković and manuscript of couplets by Luka Lukić. The research methodology involves a systematic analysis of the decasyllabic poems. The poems will be examined to identify themes and motifs that reflect the historical context and experiences of the people of Slavonia. A qualitative approach will be employed to interpret the verses, focusing on the content related to the relationship between the authorities and the population, socio-economic conditions, political oppression, Germanization effors, and the impact of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Great War. The analysis suggests that bećarac can indeed contain objective information and offer a deeper understanding of the historical context and the experiences of the local population. The findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of the region’s history and provide a basis for drawing new conclusions about socio-political dynamics of the time.

keywords: Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; bećarac; Luka Lukić; Slavko Janković; World War I