Preliminary Programme

Wed 22 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 23 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 24 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Sat 25 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

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Wednesday 22 March 2006 16:30
H-4 RUR05 Rural societies facing social change: European case studies from the 19th century
Room H
Network: Rural Chair: Anton Schuurman
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Ulla Aatsinki : Revival and labour movement in a rural society
I examine how transition from agrarian society to modern one was effecting in the Northern Finland in the early 20th century. Economical and political modernisation went very fast in this peripheral area because of forest industry. World market acted an important roll even in small northern parishes: it changed economical, ... (Show more)
I examine how transition from agrarian society to modern one was effecting in the Northern Finland in the early 20th century. Economical and political modernisation went very fast in this peripheral area because of forest industry. World market acted an important roll even in small northern parishes: it changed economical, social and cultural relationships by bringing along paid labour, new labour market system, immigration. At the same time there were going on remarkable democratisation and nationalisation processes in Finland: new values, ideas and habits forced their waves from center into periphery. I examine through popular movements - revival and labour movement - how peripheral people and societies reacted to these processes. What was the effect of these processes on political, economical and social relationships on the countryside? How
was power dealt in rural societies in a new situation? (Show less)

Fernando Collantes : A mobile history: peasants, markets and institutions in marginal Europe (1800-2000)
The paper provides a comparative analysis of peasant communities in the mountain and upland regions of Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the analysis is not restricted to them, the focus is particularly on Scotland (Highland region), Switzerland (Swiss Alps), France (French Alps, Massif Central, French Pyrenees), Italy ... (Show more)
The paper provides a comparative analysis of peasant communities in the mountain and upland regions of Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the analysis is not restricted to them, the focus is particularly on Scotland (Highland region), Switzerland (Swiss Alps), France (French Alps, Massif Central, French Pyrenees), Italy (Italian Alps, Apennine) and Spain (Cordillera Cantábrica, Spanish Pyrenees, interior ranges, Cordillera Bética). Sidney Pollard’s economic and social history of marginal Europe is thus extended to include Mediterranean uplands and the industrial era.
Section 1 uses historiography to give an economic portrait of rural society in marginal Europe by 1800. Family, local organizations and markets are highlighted as the most relevant institutions. Alongside environmental constraints, these institutions shaped the productive orientation of peasant communities. Sections 2, 3 and 4 are about the changes brought about by European industrialization. Section 2 provides a theoretical framework whose economic section is inspired in Gunnar Myrdal’s backwash and spread effects. Section 3 deals with the way in which peasant families actively adapted to the expansion of urban markets, as well as to the collapse of some of their traditional off-farm sources of income. Geography and the time-space patterns of industrialization account for much of the difference to be found between the Alpine and the Mediterranean path of adaptation. The role of political factors, such as the usually problematic relations between peasant communities and the state, is also considered. Section 4 focuses on the demise of peasant communities as such and the increasingly peripheral role of farming in the local economy during the twentieth century. A dramatic decrease took place in the number of mountain farms, and many villages went through painful processes of depopulation. The consequences of the post-1975 European mountain policy are reviewed in this context.
Contrary to certain ahistorical preconceptions, conclusions in section 5 suggest that the history of mountain peasant communities during European industrialization is anything but immobile. Peasant families made the best out of their economic and ecological endowments to adapt to changes that were taking place in a wider economic system. Ironically, this kind of adaptive behaviour made in the end a major contribution to the demise of peasant communities as such. (Show less)

Anuleena Kimanen : Explaining Religious Revivalism in a Northern Karelian Village - A Microhistorical Approach
Much has been written on the subject why religious revivalism movements got support in certain regions or localities. Explanations vary from the frustration of the lower strata of the peasant society to the growing self-awareness of the peasants. Diverse changes in society, culture and economy have also been suggested to ... (Show more)
Much has been written on the subject why religious revivalism movements got support in certain regions or localities. Explanations vary from the frustration of the lower strata of the peasant society to the growing self-awareness of the peasants. Diverse changes in society, culture and economy have also been suggested to have caused religious revivalism. Also geographical factors have been brought up. Microhistory, however, puts the question differently: in stead of "Why here?" it asks "Why these people?" One can also apply a more holistic view of the conversion.

First, there were factors that made those who got into the revival interested in new views of the world. My studies on the village of Oravisalo in eastern Finland in the 1820's show that religious revivalism there probably had its roots in the low status and poor expectations of the future of those who got into the revival. They were mostly younger sons and daughters-in-law who had to leave the farm, servants and crofters. Some of them had had illegitimate children or constant quarrels with their neighbours but for the most part were quiet and honest people. These facts make it necessary to discuss their conversion from the psychological point of view. Second, there were factors that attracted them in the message and the character of the preacher, Henrik Renqvist. Third, certain conditions and circumstances were needed in order that they in practice could get into the revival. The fact that Oravisalo was located right next to the villages in the neighbouring parish where the revivalism got started and where many of the villagers had relatives was probably crucial for the outburst of the revival in the village. Furthermore, it appears that cases where an individual got into the revivalism movement without his or her family or its acceptance were very rare. (Show less)

Tatjana Tönsmeyer : Aristocracy and rural population in the second half of the 19th century in England and Bohemia
In the paper I am going to compare the relationship between aristocratic landowners and rural population in Bohemia and England in the second half of the 19th century.
Being great landowners meant that aristocratic families in both countries were in different ways interconnected with the rural world. This world consisted of ... (Show more)
In the paper I am going to compare the relationship between aristocratic landowners and rural population in Bohemia and England in the second half of the 19th century.
Being great landowners meant that aristocratic families in both countries were in different ways interconnected with the rural world. This world consisted of tenants, estate workers, village and small town populations, local elites, clergy, the local poor and others. Members of aristocratic families were important to local societies not only because they directly or indi-rectly employed local people, but also because they or their agents were the local representa-tives of authority, e.g. in magistrates, school boards, as church or charity wardens.
Obviously, the big difference is the date of abolition of feudalism. It is an open question though, how these different experiences shaped the relationship between aristocratic land-owning families and the local population generally and especially as far as the question of authority is concerned.
What ever the situation, English as well as Bohemian aristocrats well into the 20th century thought of themselves as being paternalistic and benevolent towards the rural population and therefore entitled to deference. But paternalism as well as patronage can also be interpreted as traditional techniques of social control which helped aristocracy as a class to remain in power (or to slow down decline) in a modernising world.
Along with the question of social control goes the question how conflicts were dealt with. Since the second half of the 19th century brought along further industrialisation, urbanisation, political mobilisation and an agrarian crisis, there definitely was room for conflict. One of the arguments this paper is going to discuss is the issue that the English aristocracy remained in a stronger position as far as exercising direct authority is concerned. In Bohemia, conflicts were more often dealt with by courts. So the transformation from traditional social control by the landlords to control exercised by the state via the law seems more advanced in Bohemia than in England.
One of the consequences might be that with traditional relations loosening earlier this helped to found agrarian interest groups in Bohemia that consisted of aristocratic landlords and (ten-ant) farmers who tried to influence politics in Vienna and Prague together. Examples of this kind where quite short-lived in Britain, and after the agrarian crises nearly completely came to an halt.
So the comparison of two aristocratic groups and their relationship to the rural population in England and Bohemia leads to questions of social control and dealing with conflicts, both of which have consequences for the interpretation of the rural world’s transformation in the 19th century. (Show less)



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