Sotla, the Tiny Water

River Sotla as a Natural, Political and Ideological Border in the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Century

Abstract

The author analyzes discourse about the river Sotla in Slovenian newspapers from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The Sotla river marked both the border between Styria and Croatia and that between the Austrian and Hungarian provinces. At the same time, it was the border between Slovenians and Croats. The first part of the article is dedicated to the problem of natural borders in history and geography. In the second part, newspaper articles are used to develop a thesis about the Sotla as a “natural border” between Slovenians and Croats. In the then-valid Slovenian value system, the Sotla was a river that connected and divided; however, it was a border that connected more than it divided. Slovenian and Yugoslav sentiments were an integral component of Slovenian national ideology; this is why Slovenian nationalists favored an alliance with Croats and an open border on the Sotla. They also emphasized the connective role of the Sotla in historical and ethnographic discourse. Despite a certain antipathy to the idea, Slovenian and Croatian patriots had to take into consideration the fact that the Sotla represented a strong state-political border within the Hapsburg Monarchy. In geopolitical discussions about the relationship between the Germanic and Slavic worlds, the Sotla represented the final frontier of direct German influence: the province of Styria was politically dominated by Germans. Although politicians often coopted it, the Sotla cared little about politics. The river flooded fields regardless of their owners’ political affinities; for this reason, the population demanded that it be regulated. However, regulation required cooperation with both the central authorities in Vienna and the Croatian authorities, resulting in long bureaucratic harmonization procedures. In the final section of the article, the author examines the Sotla river border from the point of view of everyday life: the close proximity of the neighboring province with a different legal and economic situation provided human resourcefulness with countless opportunities (trade, contraband and theft).