>FWIW, the tendency in Southern Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo in the
last
>few centuries was to band together in steads/communes of around 50-100
>people, consisting of an extended family headed by the family
patriarch. >The Serbs in that area lived that way up until the latter
part of the
>last century; the Albanians also adopted a similar social structure.
Yup. The Zadruga extended household -- yeah, a very large extended
family grouped together. In fact, you see this throughout the Balkans
(and even Eastern Europe), but usually *only* where there's a lot of
problems with raiders.
Mea culpa; I was thinking of Bulgarian village patterns, which don't fit the Zadruga pattern as closely, I think. And Zadrugas weren't really defensible against a serious threat, but they did make it a lot easier to protect the herds, organize work, and give the menfolk time to drink rakija. ;)
>The impetus for organising that way was because the wane of the Ottoman
>Porte meant there was little law in that area, aside from that you made
Oh, the Zadruga is *much* older, maybe even pre-Roman, and you see it
much more strongly and earlier in Croatia and among the Krajina Serbs
than in southern Serbia, because that was where the Habsburg Military
Border was.
A fascinating system (and another good source of Gloranthan inspiritation): the Habsburgs (and to a much lesser extent the Ottomans) essentially gave "tax breaks" to Croats and Serbs to settle as free soldiers protecting the border. So the pattern was to form little tight-knit communities, raise lots of sheep and cattle, and spend your free time raiding the *other* side. Plus a little judicious raiding of your neighbors on your own side of the border when you could get away with it. A way of life that's a Balkan tradition (or anywhere mountainous, for that matter). ;)
Plus -- and I think it's probably the reason you see the system having lasted longer in Kosovo and northern Albania -- it's a nice system if you're a herder, since it collectivizes the work of running the herds and shares the burden of defending them. I doubt it works as well for intensive farming, because it would be inconvenient managing large acreage from a single, central site. So once it's safe, the farmers are more prone tell Grampa to go bite himself and build a shack next to their own fields. ;) In any case, herding lasted a lot longer Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia -- probably because the soil's pretty crappy.
Hmm. I can't think of a likely spot off the top of my head where we could find this in Genertela, though it seems likely that both "zadruga" communes and a passive defensive system based on free settlements may (have) exist(ed) at some point. The communes are a pretty logical response to raiding problems, and the system is basically a free one for Empires with a population that can be settled on a borderland. Hmm, it almost describes Riskland.
Powered by hypermail