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1 Paper prepared for the XIV International Economic History Congress Helsinki, Finland, August 21-25, 2006 Session 98: Economic Relations between Empires and Borderlands in the 19th and early 20th Centuries Organisers: Antti Kuusterä, Yuri Petrov Andrea Komlosy (University of Vienna): Habsburg Borderlands: A Comparative Perspective [email protected] 1. Expanding Empires: Colonies, Borderlands, Peripheries What does it mean to speak of a borderland of an empire? How do borderlands relate to the various types of territories constituting the empire at a given moment of history? Depending upon geographical location, empires tend to be sea-based, or land-based; respectively, overseas expansions of sea-based empires are called colonies, while there is dispute on how to call expansions of land-based empires: internal colonies, internal peripheries, conquered territories, new acquisitions? It is necessary to differentiate the different ways of expansion and the functions the incorporated lands fulfil for the older parts of the state; if the borders between the former and the latter are marked by seas, rivers, mountains or no natural markers at all, is of minor importance, however. In each case, territorial losses - e.g. by lost wars, decolonisation, secession, declaration of independence etc. - lead to new borders, hence turning new regions into borderlands. Speaking of borderland certainly points on those territories, which are situated at the fringe of an imperial state. But which notion of borderland is meant? Are borderlands conceived to be - whole lands, provinces, which - for a certain period of time - were annexed to an empire? - the regions of these provinces, situated within a smaller distance from the state border? - Does the notion of borderland also include the heart-lands, the initial hereditary lands, if they are bordering a neighbour country? As a consequence of their relative position between competing neighbours, a regional perspective will not be able to solve the problem of size and extension. On the contrary, border regions by definition require multilateral perception from different sides: from the dominating political and economic centres inside and outside the state to which they belong to, from the side of their inhabitants, who identify themselves with this region, and from the side of the direct neighbours on the other side of the border. Borderlands are shaped by being situated at the fringe of one state, and its political centre; at the same time they are shaped by the transborder relations with neighbouring regions, which again influence the relations to the politically dominating core. Transborder communication may be based on several foundations: - The borderland may be part of a transnational region, disposing of common history, common economic integration, common cultural features. 2 - - - Having belonged to a political unit, now located on the other side of the border, impacts the future development of the region after joining another state. The same applies for economic links and cultural identities. Even if the ties with the former unit are cut, mutual interaction is not immediately stopped, and it may survive long periods of separation. Often border regions are characterized by permanent disputes of neighbouring empires, to which state they belong to, causing armed conflict, changing statehood, or partitions, eventually strengthening the regional identity of the population of being a distinct region in between. Not every border region is the product of conquest or secession separating regions which previously formed a political unit. Clear cut borders, which separate states with their different political, economic and cultural legal systems, may also cause communication: different conditions on the other side may attract smugglers, investors, migrants, opening them access to purchasing, labour or capital markets at different conditions than at home. The different affiliations of a borderland with the states and societies on both sides impact the analysis of its functions, too. Serving as a transborder region, it can fulfil common functions; the functions which it fulfils for one side, can also contradict the claims of the other side, hence causing competition and conflict. Huge borderland territories, especially if they form separate administrative provinces, play a completely different role than more narrow border zones or border towns. In general borderlands are identified with military-geopolitical, with economic and with demographic and socio-cultural tasks and purposes in different and changing combinations. Each territorial acquisition at a state border has geopolitical impacts on size, power and influence of an empire, with direct effects on the military situation, which can be used for defensive, for expansionist purposes or as a buffer zone to isolate conflicting neighbours and neighbouring conflicts. Economically a borderland can serve as a periphery, delivering the core regions with raw materials, cheap migrant labour, or favourable conditions for outsourcing production; it can equally serve as a bridge-head for certain cross-border activities, as well out-going as in-coming ones. It matters, if a borderland is politically dependent from a central government and administration, or if it enjoys self-government. The success of political interference from either side will depend upon the socio-cultural integration of the region, the ethnic and religious composition of the population on each side. Although borderlands always are situated at the geographical fringe of a state, they do not necessarily represent peripheries in the world systemic sense of the term, i. e. fulfilling functions according to the economic needs of a core, thus preventing a development of the region in its self-interest. In many cases borderlands can be identified with peripheralization, but there is no equation between borderland and periphery. More so, economic, political, and cultural aspects of borderland peripheralization do not always coincide, giving rise to complex patterns of selfreliant and dependent relations within and across the different spheres of society as well as state borders. Borders and borderlands evoke specific politics. Here we do not stress the acquisition of a borderland by whatever means, which is the most obvious form of border politics. Once the territory is incorporated, border politics will shape the relations with the border-region as well as with the neighbour (whose border politics have to be considered as well). 3 - - Border politics will shape the border as a zone or as a line, they will decide on methods of fortification, on the permeability of the border for goods, capital, and migration, they will set up criteria for the intensity and the selectivity of transborder relations and the means of controls and sanctions. Although measurements aim at the border and will take place at the border, they affect the bilateral relations of the neighbouring states, their international competivity; some of them have specific regional effects on the borderlands, whether handicapping the border regions or supplying it with special functions. Border regions are also affected by the state of internal integration within the empire to which they belong to. On a political and administrative level one has to look at the amount of local and regional autonomy, the contribution of a border region to tax collection and its share of state expenditures. On an economic level one has to investigate about existence and functioning of internal borders, affecting the circulation of goods, capital, and people between the different provinces of an empire. In the case of newly associated territories specific strategies of regional integration might be necessary in order to adjust different levels of development or legal traditions. We conclude: borderland politics aim at internal and on external borders, both of them shaping the relations of a borderland with its surrounding regions, within the country, with neighbours and with regard to broader interregional and international relations. 2. The Habsburg Monarchy In a long-term historical perspective, the territorial composition of the Habsburg Monarchy shows big variations, causing permanent changes in what could be defined "heart-lands" and "border-lands"; while former heart-lands got lost or became bordering regions, former border-lands moved towards a central position, geographically and politically. If we look at the beginning of the 18th century, when Habsburg Austria included the Austrian Netherlands, Lombardy and the former Spanish possessions in Italy, Silesia, Hungary and Transylvania, its continental extension was to the west, the north, the south and the east. With the loss of Silesia and the Netherlands during the 18th century Habsburg Austria was reduced to its central European part. Further expansion as well as commercial connections were directed eastwards and south-eastwards, i.e. Galicia and Bukovina, Venetia and Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Netherlands and Silesia, the borderlands in the west and north, were among the economically most developed regions of the Habsburg Monarchy. After their separation, heart-lands approached the borders of the Empire: Tyrol in the west, Bohemia and Moravia in the north. The new acquisitions in the east represented a different type of borderland, conquered or acquired not out of medieval dynastical ambitions and connections, but as a part of imperial state-building, tending at territorial consolidation of the Empire as a modern state. Another pillar of territorial consolidation was internal integration of the lands and provinces in economic, political and administrative respects. Important steps were the setting up of direct rule and central administration, the abolition of internal customs and tolls, the introduction of a customs union, and the transformation of subjects from feudal subordination to a feudal lord to state citizenship. State 4 territorialization provoked strong conflicts with the feudal authorities about who was entitled to exercise political power, juridical rights, to collect revenues and taxes from the subjects etc. The central state limited the power of regional powers by setting up new administrative districts, which were controlled by state authorities. The new territorial delimitations with their respective borders also served as a means to establish central state authority in the newly acquired provinces. In order to differentiate types of borderlands, each border province requires to be checked along the following questionnaire: - Date, motif and method of acquisition of province - State(s) to which it previously belonged to - Functions of the province for the political core - Functions of the province for the economic core(s) - Functions of the province in a trans-national context (external affiliations, intermediately role, competing external centres, ...) - State of internal integration (political, economic, cultural) - Size and importance of the province for the empire; is the whole province considered a borderland, or is there a more narrow border zone, or border town with specific functions, e.g. fortress, military basis; duty-free zone, free port; market, production for smuggling; transit economy (part of a long-distance trade route); transnational border zone etc. 3. Habsburg Borderlands: A Typology In the 19th century the following types of Habsburg borderlands can be observed: a) Borderlands vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire The borderlands with the Ottoman Empire date back to the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire incorporated vast parts of Hungary (as a pashalik) and Transylvania (as a suzerain duchy) into their sphere of influence. A military border zone (Vojna krajina, Militärgrenze, Confin) was established all along the border with the Ottoman Empire by the Habsburg rulers, whose claim on the Hungarian Lands resulted from a succession treaty with the Jagellonian dynasty, who ruled Hungary until their last king died in the Battle of Mohács, lost against the Ottomans in 1526. The borderland was exempted from local aristocracy's rights, it was a special military province, directly governed from the court (first in Graz, later on in Vienna). Inhabitants, most of them orthodox settlers fleeing the occupation of their lands by the Ottomans, served as soldiers; they were rewarded for their services with land, which they cultivated for their families' subsistence, without being subjected to a feudal lord. When the Ottoman Army was pushed out of Hungary and Transylvania after the defeat of Vienna in 1683, the military borderland province, originally built up in Croatia and Slavonia, was enlarged by a Transylvanian section, which attracted Romanian settlers, former serfs on Hungarian estates, now hoping for social advent as peasant-soldier. At the moment of its maximal extension the military border province comprised 1800 km, 49.000 km2 and a population of 1,25 million. The provincial status was abolished in 1881, when Serbia and Romania had succeeded the Ottoman Empire as neighbouring states. 5 The military border province had a pure military function; agriculture served subsistence and was subordinated to military services. After a while, the soldiers were trained to be elite troupes, fighting not only against the Ottoman Army, but on other battle-fields as well. This caused further neglect of the regional agriculture. Towns were small, handicrafts and industry hardly developed, military supply was imported into the province. The borderland province hence was economically very backward. Nevertheless it cannot be regarded an economic periphery, because there were no resources to be withdrawn except military ones. From a military point of view it was a key province, delivering specialists for various battlefields, so that it may be labelled a military centre or a military bridge-head. As a result of the specific location at one of the most contested military fronts of Europe, it does not make sense to apply the terms "centre" and "periphery" in their economic meaning. Once the Vojna krajina lost its military function and became part of the Hungarian Kingdom, strategic centrality turned into economic peripherality. The property rights and the ethno-religious orientation of the former warrior-peasants guaranteed them a special status within Croatia, however. Dalmatia, former part of Venetia, became part of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1797 and received the status of a separate crown-land after the end of Napoleonic rule in 1815. Although it had a long border with the Ottoman Empire, it was not incorporated into the military border province, but remained a civil province, providing ports for the Austrian Navy, however. Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a special case. The Ottoman province was occupied by Habsburg troops in 1878 and administered as a Habsburg protectorate. Occupation took place with the consent of the Great Powers as well as of the Ottoman High Gate, who agreed for a protectorate status at the Berlin Congress. This compromise allowed to maintain formal Ottoman dominion, thus preventing Russia from extending its influence on the Balkan peninsula as well as the partition of the province among the newly arising neighbouring nation-states along ethnoreligious lines. The incorporation into the Habsburg Monarchy was only partial until the annexation in 1908, which ended the equilibrium of power and paved the way for a military conflict about the Balkan state borders. When Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed in 1908, it still remained outside of the two entities, in which the Habsburg Empire was divided, Cisleithania and Transleithania, representing a special colonial entity. b) Borderlands vis-à-vis the Russian Empire For a long time, the Austrian and the Russian Empires did not have a common border. The Empires only became neighbours in the last quarter of the 18th century as a result of the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire and the Moldavian Duchy. The Polish Empire was partitioned in 1772, 1775 and 1795 between Prussia, Russia and Austria. The Duchy of Moldavia, which was suzerain to the Ottoman High Gate, was partitioned in 1775 between Russia and Austria, who gained Bessarabia and Bukovina, while a rest of Moldavia remained under Ottoman influence. The expansionist advances corresponded with the territorial consolidation of the Prussian, Austrian and Russian Empires, which were directed against each other - at the expense of independent states in between, which were transformed in border 6 provinces. At the same time the partition powers were interested in diminishing the Ottoman zone of influence, carefully watching that the territorial gains did not change the balance of power in favour of one of them. Galicia and Bukovina first of all had a military and a geo-strategic function. Galicia was a huge province with 78.500 km2 and 5,4 million inhabitants (1869). Bukovina with 10.500 km2 and 457.000 inhabitants, was administered as a part of Galicia until it got its own government in 1849. The population was predominantly agrarian, a majority of small-holders producing for subsistence and working on the estates of a small minority of feudal land-lords. Handicrafts and industrial production were on a low level. Galicia was at the cross-roads of some trans-European East-West and North-South trading routes. When Galicia became annexed in 1772, the question soon arose if it should join the Customs Union, which was established in 1775, comprising the hereditary lands, but not Hungary, the Tyrol, the Netherlands, and Lombardy. Merchants trading in Galicia opposed accession, because it increased the prices of transit goods; Austrian and Bohemian industrialists argued in favour of the big Galician market. A compromise was found, so Galicia joined the Union in 1784, while Brody, Podgórze, and Biala were exempted as duty-free merchant towns. Obviously Galicia was perceived under economic premises right from the beginning. Integrating the province into the customs union meant opening it for industrial exports of the western provinces, while no efforts were undertaken to develop industry or civil infrastructure in Galicia. Such measurements only took place in the second half of the 19th century, when Galicia's richnesses were discovered to be useful for the core provinces. In order to transport salt, coal and oil to the Western regions, a railway line was opened in 1847. After the abolition of serfdom, agricultural products, especially wheat, became interesting for export. With some exceptions, e.g. brewing and distillery, there was no large scale industrial production. Oil, which gained importance after the development of new drilling techniques, left the region unrefined, while the big refineries were located in the Vienna region as well as in the sea-ports of Fiume/Rijeka and Trieste. We may therefore speak of Galicia as an internal periphery supplying the central regions with raw materials, agricultural products, and labour, hence in a way replacing the functions overseas colonies fulfilled for the western European Sea Powers. The peripheral function of the Galician economy was contested by other economic players, however. Competition between cores can be observed in the field of the oil industry, where know how and investment was Canadian and U.S.-American rather than Austrian. There was also a strong competition for Galician labour migrants since the 1880s, when the concentration process in Galician agriculture did not allow the small peasants to survive any longer without additional earnings. Instead of going to Vienna or specialized agricultural regions within the Habsburg Monarchy, the majority of labour migrants went to Germany, working on a seasonal basis on the estates of the East Elbian farms, or emigrated to the United States of America. Labour was one of the commodities, Galicia as a labour periphery delivered to core regions; however, Austrian regions were defeated by Germany, and the United States, which received the majority of Galician labour. 7 The labour market also demonstrates, how economic and cultural relations may mingle. Social stratification in Galicia had an ethnic component, Poles (the majority in western Galicia) rather representing the landed aristocracy, Ukrainians (in Habsburg Austria called Ruthenians; the majority in eastern Galicia) small-holders and landless population. Germany was interested in migrant labour, but it did not want to increase the number of Poles working in Germany and therefore preferred Ruthenians to Poles. When anti-polish migration laws were opposed by big industry and agriculture in 1885, special residence regulations guaranteed, that Galician migrants had to return to Habsburg homelands every winter. c) Borderlands vis-à-vis Holy Roman Empire (until 1806), Deutscher Bund, and Deutsches Reich As long as (the central European part of) the Habsburg Monarchy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and the House of Habsburg held the role of the Emperor, borders with neighbouring German states did not matter in many respects. However, the German states were separated by customs borders until the foundation of the German Customs Union (Deutscher Zollverein) in 1834, which Habsburg Austria did not join. Capital, goods, and migrants had to obey a whole series of regulations in order to move from one German state to the other. Being part of the Holy Roman Empire did not prevent the member states from wars and territorial disputes. Austria was especially touched by the conquest of Silesia in 1740, one of the main industrial provinces, by Prussia, this loss alerting the Viennese authorities to initiate administrative and economic reforms. Bohemia and Moravia, core provinces since their dynastical unification in the 16th century, now became border provinces, without ever being considered "borderland", however. Nevertheless Bohemian regions bordering Silesia and Saxony turned into locations for illegal exports and imports, merchants and industrial producers on both sides profiting from avoiding customs. Border generated traffic equally took place between Vorarlberg and Switzerland, or between Lombardy and France. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the foundation of the Habsburg Empire in 1804/06, borders with German states became more important. The Austrian state underwent a process of territorialization – borders serving to mark the sovereignty and political unity of the Austrian Lands. The process of an Austrian state formation had already begun, while the Holy Roman Empire was still operating, but it accelerated with its dissolution. The separation was achieved, when German and Austrian state-building became exclusive and antagonistic project, resulting in the war of 1866 and the foundation of the German nation state in 1871. The regions on both sides of the border did not show specific imbalances in their economic development; nevertheless economic integration between the Austrian Monarchy and the other German states was severed, while the links of the border regions with regions within their respective states became stronger. Labour migration again serves as a good example: until the beginning of the 19th century, medium and long distance labour migration to the Vienna region originated mainly from Southern Germany; after the political separation, labour came from the Bohemian Lands, while migration from Germany significantly diminished during the 19th century. 8 Until the turn of the 18th to the 19th century Habsburg Austria also held – scattered – possessions in the western part of the Holy Roman Empire, which can be regarded as dislocated borderlands. These territories were taken over by Napoleonic France, or (and) they were seized by the process of territorial consolidation of the German States after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Their loss was compensated by Habsburg’s territorial acquisitions in eastern and south-eastern Europe, as mentioned above. d) Internal borders Internal borders played an important role in the Habsburg Monarchy, which consisted of a number of distinctive provinces (lands) with a high degree of selfgovernance, united by a common sovereign. State formation engendered centralization, which was achieved by the administrative, fiscal and legal reforms of the 18th century. At the same time it was refused and fought by the traditional elites, aristocratic as well as urban ones, who were afraid to loose power on the level of local or regional governance. So internal borders, in spite of the ongoing administrative and legal attempts to overcome traditional feudal borders, did not disappear. On the one hand, local and regional manorial power was replaced by state bureaucracy which subjected each citizen to the same laws and procedures; internal tariffs on trade were replaced by a customs union; external tariffs were adjusted; feudal restrictions against the mobility of their subjects gave way to a new passport legislation administered by the state. On the other hand, new administrative territories with new borders were formed. While the movement of goods and capital was freed from internal barriers and tolls, on the level of civil administration the territorialization of the state required a new spatial order attributing distinctive competences to distinctive administrative territories with regard to residence, travelling, and migration from one territory to the other. So the struggle between central state administration and local elites was reflected by different types of borders, competing against each other for the control of the subjects. Internal political-administrative borders existed between each crownland. They were completed by administrative borders on the regional and local level, including ecclesiastical, juridical, and fiscal borders as well. This complicated network of borders covered the whole state territory, but it did not necessarily create borderlands. It supplied the tools to control mobility, migration, and access to poor relief. The network of political-administrative borders has to be put in relation with the gaps and regional imbalances which existed between distinctive economic regions, which increased the more the market integration of the political economy took shape. How did the spatial administrative reforms affect the incorporation of new provinces at the border of the Empire? Both processes corresponded to the same interest of territorializing state power, both against internal and external competition. Internal and external consolidation were more directly linked, when conquest and annexation raised the question of how to integrate the newly acquired territories into the existing political, administrative, and economic structures. Measurements of integration differed widely, as the following examples demonstrate. 9 In the case of the Customs Union, initiated in 1775 between the hereditary Austrian and Bohemian Lands, we can observe the initial absence of Hungary, the Tyrol, the Netherlands, and Lombardy. The exclusion of Hungary was argued by the refusion of the Hungarian nobility to introduce administrative reforms which would allow central authorities to collect taxes, to control the recruitment of soldiers and to establish direct state control over subjects. Moreover, this conflict may also be read as a legacy of Hungary's former status as a borderland under Ottoman rule. Ottoman rule did not only bring along political suppression and tax collection by an occupying power, it also offered political privileges and freedom of religion to the local aristocracy. When Hungary moved from an Ottoman to an Austrian borderland, the elites were not ready to accept the political-administrative reforms undermining their traditional power; they preferred autonomy to political and economic integration, even if this autonomy was economically not favourable for their country. Hungary was excluded from industrial development; it was dedicated to import Austrian industrial commodities, which subjected to much higher tariffs than the agricultural goods, which Hungarian producers exported to Austria. From the side of the manorial agriculture this unequal exchange, which was conceived to compensate for the lack of direct central state taxation, was not questioned. In the case of the Tyrol, joining the Customs Union was rejected because of its negative impact on Tyrol's function as an economy offering transit services. A compromise was only found in 1825, when Tyrol and Lombardy, after years of French occupation, became members. When Galician merchants after annexation by Habsburg Austria asked for the same privilege, they were granted a few duty-free trading towns, but had to join the common economic project in spite of their diverging interests in 1784. Although the country was part of the common market, industrial development was not on the agenda, Galicia serving as market for industrial exports from the west of the Empire, delivering selected raw materials to the Austrian and Bohemian Lands. Obviously their is a link between borderland status and the form of economic integration, which may explain the different conditions under which Austrian crownlands were joining the common market. Investigating internal borders, also requires to take account of the economic boundaries between more central and more peripheral regions within the Habsburg state and to relate them with politicaladministrative borders. Another, different example to illustrate this link is the moment, when a province had to accept central recruitment of soldiers. While Galicia did so right after its annexation, Tyrol and Hungary did not join the crown lands forming a common area of conscription. As a consequence their citizens had to accept strict passport regulations when they wanted to enter those parts of the Empire which formed the "conscription provinces" (Konskribierte Länder). 4. Conclusions and hypotheses for further research Borderland is too general a term to define commonalities between regions and lands at the fringes of the Habsburg Empire. Borderlands with the west and north fulfilled different functions than borderlands with eastern and south-eastern Europe. In both cases the development of the borderland has to be related with the internal spatial configuration, both political and economic, which links internal with external borders. 10 East and south-eastern borderlands, which were acquired in the process of state territorialization in the 18th and 19th centuries, represent a type of borderland, which requires special attention. A structural comparison stressing border as a common feature does not take account of the very different contexts and functions of western and eastern borderlands.The comparative approach with other types of Habsburg borderlands may serve to identify what is special about the acquisitions in eastern and south-eastern Europe, however. The countries and regions, which were subjected to the Habsburg eastwards expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries, have distinctive histories and identities, which were shaped when they formed part of the Polish-Lithuanian, the Russian and the Ottoman Empire, to which they belonged before conquest or annexation. Agricultural systems, political constitutions and governance practices showed big differences, which survived and persisted integration into Habsburg's administrative, political and economic structures. Also cultural identities differed significantly: While the Habsburg "heart-lands" were catholic countries, the rise of protestantism being suppressed by a radical counter-reformation, which at the same time served to establish central power over regional ambitions for self-administration, the newly acquired provinces were religiously mixed. There were protestants in Hungary, which were out of the reach of re-catholisation because of Ottoman rule; there were Polish catholics in Galicia; there were jews, who lived all over eastern and southeastern Europe because of higher religious tolerance, which simultaneously was linked to the economic functions the Jewish elites fulfilled in trade and finance. The majority of the population were christian orthodox, accepting their respective church authorities in Constantinople or Russia, or - in the course of the 19th century - in new nation states. Along with Habsburg annexation, there were constant efforts to integrate orthodox christians into the hierarchy of the catholic church, however, which led to the so called "unification", local orthodox churches, who followed orthodox rites while accepting the Roman catholic patriarch as their pope. Religious diversity mingled with ethnic mix, producing specific ethno-religious hybrids. Among the broad range of ethnic groups, Germans only represented a minority. They had moved into the region by various waves of settlements and - after the period of military colonisation by the German Order (Deutscher Orden) was over peacefully coexisted, although ethnic difference very often corresponded with a social and economic hierarchy in favour of Germans. Habsburg expansion into the region attracted new German speaking elites and promoted the social advent of local Germans, without realizing the far reaching projects of germanizing administration and education, however. Having formed a political unity with a neighbouring region, which now belongs to a neighbouring state, or belonging to a group which is living on both sides of the border in cultural or religious regards, may represent a chance and a burden. It is a burden, if it engenders special measurements of assimilation pressure or of control, destroying the identity of the people. It may turn into a chance, if the multiple identities are used for bridge-building, turning border areas into zones of contacts in economic or cultural respects. 11 The different historical context of acquisition of the eastern and south-eastern European provinces by the House of Habsburg requires a specification, which notion of borderland applies: - In the case of the regions bordering the Ottoman Empire, borderland is a very flexible category, changing its geographical position with the changing extensions of the Empires. In a narrow sense of the word, borderland in the 16th and 17th can be used for the small zone of Habsburg Hungary, especially those regions, which became a special administrative unit, the "Military border province". As soon as Habsburg Austria took over the rest of Hungary from the Ottomans, one might include all Hungary into a vast definition of "borderland"; this is not the way, how the term was conceived by contemporaries, however. Hungary always enjoyed a special status within the Empire, but it was not considered borderland. The idea of borderland was restricted to the "Military border province", which at the same time was enlarged and moved eastwards along with the military defeat of the Ottoman Army, including territories in Banat and Transylvania since the 18th century. - When Galicia and Bukovina were incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy, the concept of a military border province was not applied, neither vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire nor the Russian or the Prussian Empires, which neighboured Galicia. At the time of conquest these provinces were regarded as transitional acquisitions, serving as buffer zone rather than border province; when they had become an integral part of the Empire, the perception changed and they were regarded border provinces - regardless of the big size of the province and the distance of most of its regions to the state border. - In the case of Dalmatia, province and borderland were identical, because the country was a narrow costal province bordering the Ottoman Empire, respectively Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its special military function was based on the long sea coast, where the Austrian Navy was anchored. - Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was the last province shifting from Ottoman to Habsburg domination, on the one hand may be regarded as a borderland. On the other hand it was officially not incorporated into the Habsburg state, remaining part of the Ottoman Empire, which withdrew from all administrative functions, however. As a protectorate, Bosnia and Herzegovina represented a borderland region outside of the Habsburg Empire's territory, thus representing a veritable colony, although directly bordering the motherland. All acquisitions were occupied because of military and geo-strategic motifs. After a period of time, other functions prevailed - according to the economic potential (and the power of its provincial elite) of a province. The "Military border province" can be regarded as an exception: it primarily fulfilled military functions until its dissolution in 1881; then it became a peripheral border region of the respective Lands of the Hungarian Crown (Croatia-Slavonia, Hungary, Transylvania), backward, but without any attraction for economic exploitation. Quasi-colonial economic extraction did take place in Croatia-Slavonia, Hungary, and Transylvania, which can be regarded internal peripheries or colonies, which were not conceived borderlands, however. Their function as internal colonies specializing on exports of agricultural products, 12 raw materials and migrant labour, was comparable to Galicia and Bukovina, which conversely were considered borderlands. It may thus make more sense to ask for the degree of peripheralization of a region and the functions which it fulfils in the political economy of the Empire, than to reason about its borderland status. All eastern and south-eastern provinces were supplying the developed regions in the western and central parts of the Empire with products, gained on the grounds of their specialization on natural resources and cheap labour. Transferring them to the industrialized regions created surplus values which are characteristic for the economic relationship between motherland and colony. This economic function was inseparably interconnected with the geo-strategic position of these provinces, which renders a separation of military and economic provinces difficult. A net separation was only possible for the Vojna krajina, but not for the eastern and south-eastern provinces in general. For all these eastern provinces, no economic policies were conceived aiming at a development comparable to the western provinces. We may therefore speak of internal colonialism, conceding that the colonial relationship differed from those Empires, where motherland and colonies were geographically separated (mostly by seas) and their inhabitants enjoyed different civil rights. In the Habsburg Empire incorporation was linked with equal civil rights (except Bosnia & Herzegovina), which did not prevent the provinces and their citizens from economic peripheralization. Justification and discourse vis-à-vis the peripheral provinces were similar to the colonial discourse, pointing at lower standards of civilization, inseparably associated with ethnic and religious difference. The ethnographic and anthropological disciplines, which came up in the course of the 19th century, openly illustrate the racist approach to the Empire’s internal peripheries, which therefore rather deserve the term "internal colonies". Selected Literature: Becker Joachim/Odman Asli, Von den inneren zu äußeren Grenzen. Die Auflösung von Habsburgermonarchie und Osmanischem Reich im Vergleich, in: Becker Joachim/Komlosy Andrea (Hg.), Grenzen weltweit. Zonen, Linien, Mauern im historischen Vergleich (Wien 2004), 75-100. Baumgart Peter, Schlesien als eigenständige Provinz im altpreußischen Staat (1740-1806), in: Conrads Norbert (Hg.), Schlesien. Deutsche Geschichte im Osten Europas (Berlin 1994). Adolf Beer, Die Zollpolitik und die Schaffung eines einheitlichen Zollgebietes unter Maria Theresia, in: Mittheilungen des Instituts für oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung Bd. XIV (Innsbruck 1893), 237326. Berend Ivan/Ranki György, Underdevelopment in Europe in the Context of East-West-Relations in the 19th Century. Budapest 1980 (= Studia Historica 158). Berend, Iván/Ránki, György, The European Periphery and Industrialization 1780 – 1914 (Cambridge1982). Bidermann Hermann Ignaz, Die Bukowina unter österreichischer Verwaltung 1775 - 1875 (Lemberg 1876). Caro Leopold, Auswanderung und Auswanderungspolitik in Österreich. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot 1909 (Schriften des Vereins für Socialpolitik 131). Doppler Elisabeth, Die sozio-ökonomischen Verhältnisse in Galizien in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wien 1991. 13 Ernst G. (Hg.), Die österreichische Militärgrenze (Regensburg 1982). Feichtiger Johannes/Prutsch Ursula/Csáky Moritz (Hg.), Habsburg postcolonial. Machtstrukturen und kollektives Gedächtnis. Innsbruck 2003. Franaszek Piotr, Die Voraussetzungen für die Entwicklung des Erdölbergbaus in Galizien. In: Buszko, Josef / Leitsch, Walter (Hg.): Österreich – Polen. 1000 Jahre Beziehungen. Krakau: Jagellonische Univ. 1996 (Studia Austro-Polonica 5), 195-204. Geschichte der Eisenbahn der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie, Bd.1, hg. H. Strack (Wien/Teschen/Leipzig 1898). Die Geschichte der Erdölindustrie in Österreich, Hg. ÖMV-AG u.a. (Wien o. J.). Geselle Andrea, Bewegung und ihre Kontrolle in Lombardo-Venetien, in: Waltraud Heindl/Edith Saurer (Hg.), Grenze und Staat. Paßwesen, Staatsbürgerschaft, Heimatrecht und Fremdengesetzgebung in der österreichischen Monarchie (1750-1867) (Wien-Köln-Weimar 2000), 347-518. Göllner Carl, Die Siebenbürgische Militärgrenze. Ein Beitrag zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1762-1851 (München 1974). Good David F.,The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750-1914. Berkeley 1984. Horst Glassl, Das österreichische Einrichtungswerk in Galizien (1772-1790) (= Veröffentlichungen des Osteuropa-Institutes, Wiesbaden 1975). Gross Nachum Th., Die Stellung der Habsburgermonarchie in der Weltwirtschaft, in: Brusatti Alois (Hg.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, Bd. 1 (Wien 1973) 1-28. Hárs Endre/Müller-Funk Wolfgang/Reber Ursula/Ruthner Clemens (Hg.), Zentren, Peripherien und kollektive Identititäten in Österreich-Ungarn. Tübingen-Basel 2006. Heindl Waltraud / Saurer Edith (Hg.), Grenze und Staat. Paßwesen, Staatsbürgerschaft, Heimatrecht und Fremdengesetzgebung in der österreichischen Monarchie (1750-1867) (Wien – Köln - Weimar 2000). Jochen Hauser, Zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung der österreichischen Karpatenländer Galizien und Bukowina 1848-1918. Wien 1997. Hofbauer Hannes / Roman Viorel, Bukowina, Bessarabien, Moldawien. Vergessenes Land zwischen Westeuropa, Rußland und der Türkei (Wien 1997). Kappeler Andreas, Der schwierige Weg zur Nation. Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte der Ukraine. Wien 2003. 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