!!!Bauern
Bauern (peasants/farmers), traditional term designating self-employed
persons in agriculture and their dependants. Bauern have existed since
the New Stone Age as a distinct social group characterised by regular
field cropping, animal husbandry and a sedentary lifestyle. The
Danubian Culture (approx. 3,500-2,400 B.C.) and subsequent cultures
were mainly peasant cultures. From this time on, the natural landscape
was gradually cultivated. Viticulture was introduced to Austria by the
Romans. The author of the "Vita Severini" stressed that in the Roman
province of Noricum it was common, in the 5%%sup th/% century, for
the land to be cultivated by free cultivators, and not by slaves or
coloni, which is a typical sign of a peasant culture. After a long
series of migrations, invasions, and settlement by Germanic peoples,
the dominating type of peasant in Bavarian tribal society was the
so-called Krieger-Bauer (literally warrior-peasant), free peasants
cultivating their own land and bearing arms. They performed advanced
animal husbandry, and their farmsteads usually consisted of several
buildings. Later on, the free cultivators (so-called Freie) and the
freedmen (freed servi or mancipia) living on their own land ("Huben")
fell into different degrees of servitude with ecclesiastical or
secular landlords at the dawn of the medieval feudal system. The
economic focus shifted from animal husbandry to grain growing
(three-field rotation system). Peasants had to pay rent in the form of
labour, goods or money. The latter was the latest type of payment, but
it was not everywhere the dominant form. Rents in grain or wine to the
ecclesiastical (tithe) or the civil landlord were the most common
forms of payment. Bondage was eased in the 13%%sup th/% century, and
tenure became central for the peasantry. The least advantageous form
of tenure was the Freistift, where the tenant might be ejected by the
landlord at any time, the most advantageous ones were the Erbrecht
(literally, right to inherit) and the Kaufrecht (literally, right to
purchase), where the farmstead could be inherited. Despite feudal
bondage, the peasantry achieved a certain degree of self-organisation
or even autonomy within their parish or village community. Land
cultivation by peasants spread quickly in the 13%%sup th/% and
14%%sup th/% centuries due to the settlement and clearance of new
areas. In the late Middle Ages (14%%sup th/% and 15%%sup th/%
centuries), agriculture underwent a crisis. The price of grain
declined, and vast areas were partially or wholly devastated. During
the crisis, the position of the peasantry stabilised and the feudal
burdens were eased because there were not enough vassals. It is also
likely that housing was improved at that time and farmhouses were
enlarged, and the settlement that remained after the crisis grew. The
crisis caused a shrinking or at least a stagnation of the peasant
population, but it also strengthened its position. This new
self-assurance on the part of the peasants was countered by increasing
claims (since approx. 1490) on the part of the landlords and the
nascent state, which led to sometimes armed conflicts between peasants
and landlords. The suppression of the Peasants´ Revolts ) was
followed by increasing claims by both the state (taxes) and the
landlords (frequently in the form of socage). Under Maria Theresia,
the position of peasants began to stabilise. Following uprisings
against socage, this type of service was for the first time limited,
and all properties held by landlords (Dominicalland) and properties
held by peasants (Rustikalland) were registered in the Maria-Theresian
Cadaster. This limited the practice of withdrawing property from
peasants (Bauernlegen) and even rendered it impossible in 1775. State
properties, estates of landholder's managers (Meierhof) and common
grazing grounds (Allmenden) were frequently parcelled out. By the late
18%%sup th/% century, serfdom had virtually died out and was
definitively abolished by Joseph II in 1781. Under his tax and
land regulation (Steuer- und Urbarial-Regulierung) of 1785, land tax,
feudal rent and socage were newly fixed. The landlords' opposition to
these reforms was successful. What was achieved, however, was the
transformation of rent in labour into rent in money and the voluntary
commutation of feudal burdens ("Abolition"). The so-called
agricultural revolution (which in Austria started around 1770,
introduction of zero-grazing, root cropping and sowing of clover on
fallow land) caused an increased demand for agricultural labourers and
growing numbers of servants. Farmhouses had to be enlarged again, and
the social position of the peasant housefather was temporarily
strengthened, which was an important condition for the political
mobilisation of peasants in the time of conservatism that followed.
The income of the farmers increased considerably around 1800, partly
due to the wartime economic upswing. A bad crisis from approximately
1815 to 1835 was followed by another stabilisation phase, but the
traditional opportunities to earn part-time incomes (e.g. through
textile production or in transport) diminished in the course of the
Industrial Revolution. The farmers became exclusively agricultural
producers. The Revolution of 1848 brought about the abolition of all
burdens pressing upon vassals ( Emancipation of Peasants ), and
farmers became citizens with equal rights. Before 1848, there had been
2.6 million vassals and 54,000 manorial estates. Now farmers
could sell land, if it was their property, they could let it, devise
it and use it to secure debts. Farmhouses at that time acquired the
appearance which was later designated "old" or "traditional". Many
were changed or re-built, and storeys were added. Following the
Easement Act of 1853, traditional rights of use of manorial forests or
pastureland, mostly enjoyed by farmers, were regulated or commuted for
payment, which meant financial ruin for many of the "forest-farmers".
In game law, too, former landlords were given privileges which farmers
did not enjoy. In 1868 liberalism gave farmers the freedom to contract
debts, and many of them ended up with excessive debts after reckless
borrowing, for instance to pay off heirs. Over-indebtedness rose
sharply from the 1880s, and many farming estates fell victim to forced
sales. Farmers founded self-help institutions in the form of
co-operatives, which were intended to guarantee small and medium-sized
agricultural producers fair producers' prices; the Raiffeisenkassen
secured credits for indebted farmers. Other measures were taken, if
only on a small scale, in the initial phase: Agricultural training
schools for further education were founded, plots of land were
consolidated, and soil drainage and agricultural management was
improved. Farmers and landowners began to organise themselves
politically. Landwirtschaftsgesellschaften (agricultural societies)
were dominated by the powerful landowners. The first was formed in
Vienna in 1807 and based on similar institutions in the 18%%sup th/%
century. The small farmers were represented from roughly 1870 by
various agricultural and political associations. Out of the struggle
against liberalism, the archetypical picture of the "Bauer" emerged:
the conservative and often nationalistic farmer who was loyal to his
homeland (Heimat), resisted change and remained on his land (Scholle),
and formed the basis of a folk culture that was as unchanging as the
Bauer himself ( Folklore Studies ). The first (anti-liberal) farmers'
assembly for the province of Lower Austria (Bauerntag) took place in
1896 in Vienna, and was soon followed by the foundation of new
farmers' associations (Austrian Bauernbund, in 1904 in the province
of Tirol, in 1906 the province of Lower Austria. In 1897, the first
general Austrian farmers' assembly (Bauerntag) took place. After World
War I, the first Chambers of Agriculture were established under
public law as interest groups with compulsory membership.
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The percentage of farmers in the overall population has been
decreasing steadily since the Industrial Revolution. It was approx.
45 % around 1900, approx. 30 % in 1934 and about 6.6 %
in 1997. Traditionally, the farming population had a high degree of
self-sufficiency, also in non-agricultural products such as clothes
and tools, but today farmers depend almost exclusively on the market.
At present, farmers are suffering from the late 20%%sup th/% century
agricultural crisis and from a price gap between industrial and
agricultural products, the price of which has been steadily declining
since World War II. This has been met by swift structural changes
that started in the 1960s: Farmers dispensed with the traditional
hired-labour structure, farms closed down, part-time farming (to a
greater of lesser extent) increased, farm estates were enlarged
through concentration, more profitable branches of production and
market niches were opened (such as organic farming. All these
developments led to far-reaching changes within the farming
population, and the proportion of farmers in the population is
expected to decline further in the future. This trend is likely to
further intensify in view of the market-oriented agricultural policy
of the European Union, of which Austria has been a member since 1995.
!Literature
E. Bruckmueller, Landw. Organisationen und ges.
Modernisierung, 1977; idem, Sozialgeschichte Oe, 1985; idem (ed.),
Raiffeisen in Oesterreich, 1998.
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