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DOI: 10.34298/9788677431488135

UDC: 316.728:94](497.11)“1882“

pp. 135–156

language: serbian

Radomir J. Popović

FROM KARANOVAC TO KRALJEVO (Contribution about everyday life in the varošica in 1882)

Summary

The history of everyday life is a historiographical approach primarily advocated by the French Annales school. It developed during the 1960s in particular, owing to Fernand Braudel, and was later embraced by the German Alltagsgeschichte school. Based on preserved sources, the paper sheds light on everyday life in Karanovac/Kraljevo during a calendar year. The year 1882 was selected as it was then that varošica’s name was changed pursuant to an official government act – the decree of King Milan of 1 May 1882. In the hitherto works on the past of Kraljevo, this event is considered a milestone moment for the town’s history. In 1882, Karanovac/Kraljevo was a varošica in Serbia and the seat of the Karanovac/Kraljevo district in the Čačak county. The district comprised 45 settlements in six municipalities. According to the 1884 census, Kraljevo had 691 households and 2,692 inhabitants, i.e. 1,504 men and 1,188 women. The everyday life of Karanovac/Kraljevo was strongly influenced by laws and regulations governing social-economic relations. Based on regulations adopted at the level of the Belgrade Metropolitanate, the Church also stipulated the rules on weddings, lent, confession, communion, celebration of holidays, funerals etc. Below the legally regulated order that may be partly glimpsed from the preserved historical sources, there was a realm of customs and habits subsumed under the general term of “national culture” and ritually practiced during children’s births and baptisms, marking of saint patron days and other holidays, weddings, funerals, medical treatments etc. The paper elucidates the social structures and institutions which existed in the varošica and came into life as a result of long duration, but also indicates the changes which in 1882 altered the existing order (establishment of the tools factory of Vasić and Bogdanović, and of the Agricultural School). It is indicated that the rhythm of everyday life in 1882 was shaped by the ratio of working days (290) to holiday days (75). The working day hours of primary school pupils and civil servants in Karanovac/Kraljevo have been reconstructed. The lent periods played a significant role in the inhabitants’ everyday life as lenten food was consumed in the course of two thirds of the year. A focus is also placed on the exceptionally high mortality of children and youth in the varošica and the marginalised groups.

Keywords: Karanovac, Kraljevo, 1882, everyday life, guilds, nutrition, holidays.