Bauern und Städter, Deutsche und Slowenen – ein Brief aus dem Herzogtum Krain des Jahres 1869

Abstract

The contribution focusses on a hand-written letter, which the German director of a factory near Ljubljana/Laibach sent to his brother, who lived near Göttingen. The author of the letter led the paper factory Vevče in Zalog/Salloch, which at that time was Austrian property (from 1870: Leykam-Josefsthal AG). Since 1990, this enterprise has been owned by the Austrian W. Hamburger AG. The letter dates from 1 June, 1869, and its author, from a partial perspective tending to supporting the German side, describes in detail the bitter skirmish between nationally minded Slovenes and members of German gymnastic associations. However, he takes the party of the factory workers, seeing them as a group detached from national „excesses“. The events related by the factory owner are contextualised by means of daily press reports. On the whole, the contribution provides a significant “snapshot” of Slovene social history during the times of national emancipation (1848–1880), which took place in the midst of the campaigns for a “United Slovenia” with its frequent mass gatherings (tabori), after the Austro-Hungarian “Ausgleich” (1867).