Page - 352 - in Der griechisch-orientalische Religionsfonds der Bukowina 1783–1949 - Kontinuitäten und Brüche einer prägenden Institution des Josephinismus

352 Die Institution: Struktur & Werte However, the processes of institutional change in the Greek-Oriental Religious Fund go beyond the national question of the crown land sketched above and its development. There was also strong interdependence between regional (economic) modernisation in the Bukovina and the Fund. Overall we can say that the Religious Fund contributed decisively to an improvement of the economic structure of the crown land by using its growing means and opportunities in a variety of ways. These ranged from the not en- tirely voluntary takeover of the dilapidated mines in Jakobeny to occasional targeted support of Jewish communities, which comes as a surprise from a historical viewpoint. Hackmann’s understandable initial doubts about the mines and bishop Repta’s automatic promise of free material for a small village synagogue stand for another facet of this change, which goes beyond pure economy and is closer to an awareness of the country as discussed below. This interdependence became clear in the context of the agrarian reform policy (Grundentlastung) in the wake of 1848. In structural terms, the economic dominance of the Fund as a very large land owner (which meant that the state policies could affect all levels down to the local one) furthered this reform. All you need is a look at the neigh- bouring crown land of Galicia and Lodomeria, where the implementation of the agrarian reform was held up for decades by split-up property rights and land titles. In social terms, the Fund as major land owner in the Bukovina also gave the state an opportunity to im- plement reforms which would have met with great resistance from private land owners or, at least, to exert sufficient pressure for change via the Fund. Here the policies issued from Vienna, aided by the clout of the Fund, strengthened the position of municipalities (es- tablished in Austria from 1849) vis-à-vis the manorial areas. Moreover, in 1875, the Bu- kovina Religious Fund, in an effort to improve the internal organisational structure, had created an estate administration, which provided an additional decision-making forum alongside state bodies, bishop and consistory. With some gradual adaptations this de- veloped into a stable and comparatively efficient administrative structure, which greatly furthered the considerable economic development of Fund and crown land until 1914. The state cleverly invested the resources produced by the Religious Fund in construc- tion projects. These benefitted the Greek-Oriental Church and at the same time reduced costs for the crown land and the national budget, considerably in the latter case. The most striking examples of this economic and structural policy involving the Fund in- clude the construction of the cathedral, the metropolitan residence, the estate admin- istration and the creation of the Francis-Joseph University in Chernivtsi. In economic more than in political terms, there is a close involvement of the Religious Fund in the education system of the crown land, from primary schools to university. After 1918 there was indeed a general will to reform the economy of the Romanian Kingdom, but many of the measures could not be implemented in anything like the en- Open Access © 2020 by BÖHLAU VERLAG GMBH & CO.KG, WIEN