Search

Copyright of Contributions to Contemporary History / Prispevki za Novejšo Zgodovino is the property of Prispevki za Novejso Zgodovino and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contributions to Contemporary History / Prispevki za Novejšo Zgodovino is the property of Prispevki za Novejso Zgodovino and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Glasnik Slovenskega Etnološkega Društva is the property of Slovene Ethnological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article aims to present some of the characteristics of the 19th--century Habsburg welfare 'system' in the province of Istria, as perceived mainly through the perspective of (in)ability to work as a key criterion for determining eligibility for social assistance. Welfare issues were not addressed in a sufficiently systematic way at the time, nor were they long--term measures, but instead they mainly involved ad hoc solutions to individual problems, which suggests that the drivers of social welfare were mainly crisis circumstances. Seasonal poverty was also a pressing problem, especially in rural areas, but in general old age, illness and unemployment were identified as central drivers of poverty. The bourgeois work ethic (which helped to shape the regulation of charity) is also relevant in this context, since it understood the alleviation of poverty primarily in terms of providing work or training for individuals living in poverty. At national and provincial levels, the concept of charity was limited to institutional care, which covered only a small part of the social issues. The financial burden for all other forms of welfare rested with the municipalities, which had to find their own ways of providing resources, relying to some extent on the bourgeois ethic of philanthropism, but also on inter--municipal solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper observes the experience of the plague and its consequences through 17th century reports, which were written by "first hand" witnesses of the plague Fabio Fino, a syndic in Koper and Giovanni Maria Marusig, a priest in Gorica. From both testimonies and other available sources the paper extracts collective emotions triggered by the epidemics in the years 1630/31 and 1682/83, their demographic consequences and changes of the social order. At the same time, the paper observes how the chroniclers' positions, functions and personal involvement affected their reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents a case study on influenza epidemic in Koper (Capodistria) between the autumn of 1918 and the spring of 1919. The epidemic outbreak is placed within the context of a long-lasting indigence, malnutrition (protein low and deficient food) and poverty, which was a direct consequence of the war and which strongly affected the immunity of the population in the region, with Trieste and smaller Istrian coastal towns included. Besides, chaotic political situation (war ending, changing of authorities and establishing provisional administrative structures after the end of the Austrian rule and before the final reestablishment of Italian authority in the Julian March) was not in favour of the hard situation and led to disorganized confrontation with health issues, absence of physicians and medicine shortage s. The paper tries to reconstruct the epidemic situation through scarce quantitative data (parish registers) and narrative sources (newspapers, memoirs, school chronicles etc.). Methodological obstacles in evidencing the appearance of this disease, are especially regarding inconsequent and non-uniform recording of the cause of death in the parish registers, lack of morbidity data due to non-obligatory announcing of influenza cases, prevalence of political topics but also the censorship, to which the daily (and other) press of the time was subjected. Despite these limitations, the paper tries to contribute, at least in part, to the deficient knowledge about the living conditions and social circumstances of the civilian population within the Julian March at the very end of the World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]