Anđelko Vlašić – Scientific conference with international participation “Slavonske šume kroz povijest / Forests of Slavonia through history”, Slavonski Brod, Croatia, October 1-2, 2015

Under the auspices of the Croatian Institute of History, more specifically, its Branch for the History of Slavonia, Syrmia and Baranya in Slavonski Brod, the Croatian Forestry Society, and the City Library of Slavonski Brod, and on the occasion of 250 years of organized forestry in Croatia (1765-2015), on October 1 and 2, 2015, in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, was held a scientific conference on the topic of forests of Slavonia through history. The conference was the fourth event in a series of yearly symposiums named “Historiographical encounters in Slavonski Brod / Symposia Brodensia historica” and the second conference organized by the aforementioned Branch in Slavonski Brod on the topic of environmental history, following a conference on the river Sava, which was held in 2013. The conference was held in the City Library of Slavonski Brod. The Slavonian forests have thus far been researched mainly from the perspective of forestry and biology, and works from the historian’s perspective have been very scarce. This was the reason why the organizers whished for the symposium to have a broad basis of historiographical contributions, while at the same time keeping an interdisciplinary aspect and comprise contributions from different scientific fields on the topic of interaction of man and forest throughout the history of Slavonia. This aim was achieved through participation of not only historians, but also forestry experts, archaeologists, ethnologists, literary historians, and art historians.

On the first day of the conference, after opening speeches followed the first panel, which included contributions on the topic of narrative and cartographic sources for the history of forests in Slavonia and Syrmia. Josip Parat talked about forests and trees of southern Pannonia as presented by Antique writers, and Hrvoje Gračanin and Silvija Pisk presented Late Antique and early Middle Ages written sources for the same area. Their conclusions were similar and generally indicated a scarcity of sources for the research of the influence of man on forests in the mentioned periods. More specifically, on the one side, Parat demonstrated that the density of forests was frequently mentioned in the descriptions of Pannonia and that Antique writers often mentioned what type of trees were used in those times. And on the other hand, Gračanin and Pisk tried to find mentions of type of trees in the mentioned sources, tried to demonstrate the role of forests in defining borders, etc. Vladan Gavrilović presented the description of Slavonian forests in the works of Austrian officials Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube and Franz Stefan Engel, who described Slavonian woodland estates and focused their efforts on the management of forests. Their works came to be an excellent source for the research of the state of forests in Slavonia and Syrmia in the second part of the 18th century. Milan Vrbanus talked about Slavonian forests as mentioned in the Habsburg chamber surveys of Slavonia from the end of the 17th until the middle of the 18th century. Vrbanus concluded that the mentioned forests neither had great significance in the process of defining the worth of Slavonian estates, nor did they have huge significance in the economic activities of the owners of those estates up until the middle of the 18th century. Danijel Jelaš held a presentation on the cartographic sources for the history of Slavonian forests located in the State Archives in Osijek, stating that the mentioned sources are not extensive, but that these still represent a solid basis for the research of the 18th century and the later period, especially for the research of the forest areas of eastern Croatia.

Next panel was focused on specific forest areas, and it included a presentation by Stanko Andrić on the forest area named Garavica, which was a no man’s land on the border between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires in the second half of the 16th and in the 17th century, in the proximity of the river Ilova. The woodland on this border was gradually expanding as the once densely populated area was abandoned due to military activities, and this change was recorded on the maps from that period. Ante Grubišić talked about the forests of the Vukovar manorial estate in the 18th century according to cadastral maps as cartographic sources of great quality. Grubišić focused on the changes in the size and distribution of the forest areas of the mentioned estate and the resultant changes in the entire cultural landscape of that region. Tomislav Dubravac held a presentation on the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) in the Spačva forest basin area and underlined the longevity of the mentioned trees. He also posed a question of the method of management of the mentioned forest area in the future, when it is obvious that economic trends tend to move towards saving resources. Hrvoje Volner held an exposé on the discussion concerning the age and origin of Slavonian oak forests on the pages of the Šumarski list, the official bulletin of the Croatian Forestry Society, in the 1890s. Volner argued that this discussion manifested the state of scientific methods used by the foresters of the end of the 19th century and their knowledge and experience concerning the mentioned topic.

The third panel was focused on forest management and policies of forest exploitation throughout the history of Slavonia. Damir Matanović’s presentation dealt with the exploitation of forests of the Slavonian Military Frontier and the conflict between the military authorities of the Frontier and their soldiers concerning their opposed views on whose right it was to harvest the forests and to what extent. Hrvoje Pavić held a speech about Ivan Kapistran I Adamovich de Csepin, a practical economist of 18th century Slavonia who became famous through his instructions on the management of forests of Slavonian estates. Adamovich’s aim was to preserve the forest capital and stop reckless deforestation in order to profit from the forest fund in the future. Zlata Živaković-Kerže talked about the exploitation of wood in Slavonia at the turn of the 20th century and tried to demonstrate to which extent different authorities used the possibility of exploitation of wood. Živaković-Kerže stated that Slavonia remained a peripheral area of exploitation despite the possibility of orientation of the Slavonian timber trade towards the Black Sea and the Mediterranean via rivers Sava, Drava and Danube. Robert Skenderović presented an exposé on the management of the Brod Estate Community and the challenges of the said management in the form of thefts, debts and embezzlements. Skenderović described various ways in which the Estate Community administrators tried to stop those wrongdoers and the extent of successfulness of their efforts. Branko Ostajmer held a presentation about the tannin factory in Županja from its establishment at the beginning of the 1880s until 1912 and focused on its golden age, which was during the last decade of the 19th century. Ostajmer set the mentioned factory in the context of the beginning of large lumber industry in Slavonia and demonstrated the influence of the said industry on its immediate milieu through the opening of numerous jobs in Županja and its surroundings. Luka Pejić talked about the strikes of wood processing industry workers in Slavonian factories from 1905 until 1907. The first general strike in Croatian history broke out in 1905 in Osijek and marked the beginning of two bitter years of workers’ dissatisfaction due to lack of interest of factory owners for their troubles. Pejić asserted that these events were characterized by the conflict between conservative factory owners and workers whose actions were infused with Marxist radicalism and social democratic reformism in the fight for better wages, shorter working hours, etc.

The first panel of the second day of the conference focused on the topic of coexistence of man and forests, and began with a presentation by Žarko Španiček on the disappearance of villages in the wooded areas of central Slavonia. Španiček asserted that the mountains of central Slavonia are becoming less and less populated and that the forests are taking over whole villages. Španiček concluded that this phenomenon of reforestation is positive from the ecological point of view; however, it is negative from the demographic and societal points of view. Anđelko Vlašić held an exposé on forests as a source of food, more specifically, on chestnut cultivation and trade in Požega and its surroundings in the 16th and 17th centuries, when a wealthy Ottoman official extensively grew chestnuts and exported them from central Slavonia. Vlašić also talked about the importance of chestnut for the confectionery production in Požega in the 16th century and asserted that it had an important place in the social life of Ottoman Požega. Hrvoje Petrić talked about the interrelation between man and forests of Slavonia and Syrmia at the end of the 18th century vis-a-vis the concept of sustainability, which spread to Croatian lands in the second half of the 18th century. Barbara Riman’s presentation dealt with the phenomenon of Slovenian forest workers called Hrvatarji who were employed as seasonal workers in the woodlands of Slavonia and other Southeast European countries during the 19th and 20th century. Riman’s presentation focused on the importance of Slovenian workers for the Croatian economic history and on the hardships of these workers in the forests of Slavonia.

The subject of the last panel of the conference was the place of Slavonian forests in the cultural history of Slavonia. Jasna Šimić held a presentation on the role of trees in the religious notions of the Celtic people of Pannonia. The Celts considered oak, beech, elm and other types of trees sacred and thus might have worshipped the trees of the dense forests of Slavonia in the 4th century BC, when they settled in the forests of present northern Croatia. Anica Bilić held an exposé on the Slavonian woodland as a topic in the opuses of a number of Slavonian writers, for instance, Josip Kozarac and Matija Antun Relković, and described their views of the Slavonian forest areas. Jasminka Najcer Sabljak held a speech on the theme of Slavonian forests in the works of painters Hugo Conrad von Hötzendorf and his student Adolf Waldinger. Najcer Sabljak demonstrated that the forests of Slavonia were a frequent motive in their works and had a strong influence on their creativity. Last but not least, Dinko Župan talked about the education of Slavonian foresters in the Imperial Academy of Forestry at Mariabrunn, Austria, from 1813 until 1867, demonstrated the importance of their education at that institution and described the activities of two most known Slavonian students of the mentioned academy in Slavonian forests.

The discussions between the panels, as well as the final discussion at the end of the second day of the conference, focused on numerous interesting questions. For instance, the scholars who were present during the sessions tried to answer the question of how severely have the forests of Slavonia been deforested during the 19th century, when the size of Slavonian woodlands decreased from approximately 70% to about 35%. There was no consensus on this question due to lack of information on the size of forests before the beginning of the deforestation, as well as the absence of uniformed measures of the size of forest areas. Another interesting question posed during the discussion concerned the damage done to the forest fund of Slavonia and the worth of the wood gathered from the forests through tree felling, especially from oak forests. Here, too, there was no consensus among the scholars, mainly because of the discrepancy between the views of the forestry experts, who considered the worth of the felled trees not so significant when compared to the profit made through cultivation of crops during a longer period of time, and the historians and other scholars, who believed the worth of oak forests too precious to have been exploited as recklessly as they were by the owners of the biggest estates of 19th century Slavonia.

After the final discussion followed a presentation of the research project “From virgin forests to arable land: the history of anthropization of forests in Slavonia from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century”, within which the conference was organized, and which is financed by the Croatian Science Foundation. This project will last for four years, i.e. from June 2015 until June 2019, and will include an interdisciplinary research of forests of Slavonia. The conference was closed with the opening of an exhibition called “In the traces of the Guttman railroads – the history of the Slavonian-Podravian railway”, which was held in the City Library of Slavonski Brod. The organizers acknowledged that they plan to publish a book of proceedings in the near future. All in all, this conference represents a valuable addition to the research of forests of Slavonia and is a clear indication that the Branch for the History of Slavonia, Syrmia and Baranya in Slavonski Brod as part of the Croatian Institute of History is becoming the leading center for research in environmental history in Southeastern Europe.

Anđelko Vlašić