Rural life in the Upper Sava Valley in the 18th and 19th centuries

Abstract

The area of the Upper Sava Valley is a vast and diverse one and, according to the Gams’s landscape-ecological classification, also includes the alpine valley of the Sava Dolinka River. Drawing on old land records, the paper at hand discusses the area stretching from Bela Peč to Jesenice, which was once strongly affected by the mining industry, with its traces still visible today. Land was poor for the basic agricultural activity and most appropriate for cattle farming, with microclimatic conditions slightly varying from one cadastral municipality to another. The climate throughout the entire area under discussion is more or less high-mountain and rather unfavourable for agricultural activity. In the past, the lives of those living in high mountainous areas were considerably constrained by geographical remoteness.