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Adaptation for Survival: The Varžić Zadruga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

Philip E. Mosely
Philip E. Mosely*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

In Southeastern Europe the zadruga, or communal multiple family, has long held a central place in peasant life and, especially during its decline in recent decades, many controversies have been waged around it. While no single definition embraces all varieties of zadrugas, for present purposes the zadruga may be described as “a household composed of two or more biological or small-families, closely related by blood or adoption, owning its means of production communally, producing and consuming its means of livelihood jointly, and regulating the control of its property, labor, and livelihood communally.” The growth of an exchange-economy, the displacement of peasant custom by the written law of the jurists and of the more individualistic town, the spread of new rules of dowry and inheritance, have contributed to break down the zadruga in many regions of the Balkans. Naturally, the question has been asked whether the zadruga can survive.

Type
Research Article
Information
Slavonic and East European Review American Series , Volume 2 , March 1943 , pp. 147 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1943

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References

1 For a general discussion of the problem of the zadruga, see P. E. Mosely, “The peasant family: the zadruga, or communal joint-family in the Balkans, and its recent evolution,” The Cultural Approach to History, edited by Caroline F. Ware (New York, 1940), pp. 95–108.

2 Data collected on August 27 and 28, 1938. The present tense refers everywhere to the year 1938. The field-trip was made possible by a Grant-in-aid of the Social Science Research Council.

3 For the genealogical structure of the household, see Appendix I. Each member is identified in the accompanying table by generation (Roman numeral) and by placing within the generation (Arabic numeral).

4 Deviations from literary Croatian express the actual words of the informants; a few unusual accentuations are indicated by the acute accent.

5 For a description of the parcels, see Appendix II.

6 In the nearby Military Border (Krajina) the standard holding for “border-peasants” (graničari, Ger. Grenzer) was a Viertelsession of eight and one-half “new” yoke; Hermann Haller, “Neu-Pasua und Neu-Banovci, zwei Schwabensiedlungen in Syrmien” (Auslandsdeutsche Volksforschung, I [1937], 49).

7 Kriškovič, V., Hrvatsko pravo kučnih zadruga; historijskodogmatski nacrt (Zagreb, 1925) pp. 31–34 Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., pp. 96, 100.

9 For the detailed listing of the fields included under dedovina and kupovina and their division in 1900, consult Appendix II.

10 Cf. Kriškovič, op. cit., p. 96; Articles 23 and 33 of the Law.

11 This runs directly counter to Kriškovič's assertion (op. cit., p. 90) that wooden buildings are usually treated, in the partition of a zadruga, as movable property. If this were the case, they would have been divided according to “souls” with a double share going to each “soul” of sixteen or over, and Marko and Mišo would have received one-half, instead of two-twelfths, of the buildings by value. The discrepancy in Kriškovič's statement of the law is all the more striking in that Marko and Miso actually treated their shares in the buildings as movable property by dismantling them and setting them up in new locations.