Peddling in the Austrian Lands: The Case of Chinese Peddlers at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51663/pnz.66.1.07

Keywords:

Austro-Hungarian Empire, Chinese peddlers, peddling, treatment of foreigners, migration control

Abstract

The article explores the little-known phenomenon of Chinese peddlers in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Monarchy in the early 20th century and situates it within the broader context of peddling, state regulation of trade, mobility control, and attitudes towards foreigners. Based on police and newspaper sources, the authors reconstruct the routes of Chinese itinerant traders who appeared in Vienna and other cities around 1905. They sold stone and ivory carvings as well as handmade paper flowers, often without valid permits or personal documents. Their movement was facilitated by new global transport infrastructure and Austria’s liberal migration policies, yet restricted by strict peddling laws that granted trading licences only to Austrian citizens. The study situates this phenomenon within the long-standing tradition of peddling in the Monarchy, illustrating how Chinese traders entered an already contested economic field marked by tensions between stationary shopkeepers and itinerant sellers. Simultaneously, they embodied the contradictions of imperial modernity: global mobility and capitalist expansion on one side, and local legal and social frameworks on the other, within which they were sometimes tolerated but more often viewed as troublesome traders and unwelcome foreigners.

Author Biographies

  • Aleksej Kalc, ZRC SAZU

    Aleksej Kalc je diplomiral iz zgodovine na Univerzi v Trstu in doktoriral iz zgodovinske antropologije na podiplomski humanistični šoli Institutum studiorum humanitatis v Ljubljani. Zaposlen je kot raziskovalec na Inštitutu za slovensko izseljenstvo in migracije ZRC SAZU in kot profesor na Oddelku za zgodovino Fakultete za humanistične študije Univerze na Primorskem. Raziskovalno se ukvarja z družbeno, kulturno in politično zgodovino 18., 19. in 20. stoletja s poudarkom na zgodovini migracij in diaspor, zgodovini mest, vprašanjih mejnosti, družbenih in etničnih odnosih, demografskih in migracijskih politikah. Posveča se metodološkim vprašanjem zgodovinopisja, problematiki pristopov, virov in epistemoloških vprašanj pri preučevanju migracij.

  • Martina Bofulin, ZRC SAZU

    Martina Bofulin, geografinja in sinologinja, je doktorirala iz etničnih študij na Fakulteti za družbene vede Univerze v Ljubljani in je zaposlena kot raziskovalna sodelavka na Inštitutu za slovensko izseljenstvo in migracije ZRC SAZU. Ukvarja se z različnimi vidiki mobilnosti in migracij med Ljudsko republiko Kitajsko in Evropo, vprašanji umeščanja migrantov v Sloveniji ter prepleti med migracijami in ustvarjanjem dediščine.

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Published

2026-06-23

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Vol. 66 No. 1 (2026)

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