Page 145 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

A Dynasty of Mayors and a Member of Parliament

ume). However, it was not just the departure to urban surroundings, most
notably Trieste, that was so characteristic to the Karst in the 1850s; class
distinctions were also becoming more pronounced. As a consequence, so-
cial relations were becoming increasingly restricted. After having succeed-
ed in the political arena and as professionals in Trieste or elsewhere (clerks,
physicians, lawyers and church dignitaries), the Černes must have found
it hard to adapt to the changed surroundings when coming back to the vil-
lage. Social estrangement was magnified by the fact that they managed to
extend their property while still operating in distant places. The case of
AntonČerne,mayor from 1839 to 1849 and adeputyinthe stateand re-
gional assemblies in Vienna and Gorizia, respectively, testifies to this as-
sumption. Yet this alienation from the village setting was not as straight-
forward as it seems. Even though Anton was progressively distanced from
the village with the positions he assumed from 1848 onwards, he managed
to retain his reputation for some time, thanks also to his activities as a
deputy. Therefore, a slight increase in the number of godfatherhoods reg-
istered in 1848 could be attributed to his being a vocal supporter of the
abolition of serfdom without indemnities in the state parliament. He was
at that time lauded by the Slovenian press and, presumably, also by his
fellow co-villagers. Therefore, the significant rise in godfatherhood in 1852
could be interpreted as an echo to his acts of 1848. Anton’s activities during
the fifth decade of the century are not well enough known to interpret the
steady decline (and even the absence in some years, like 1853 or 1855) in
godparenthood outside the Černe family. This was the time of Alexander’s
Bach absolutism when political life was brought to a standstill, so Anton
could not have been engaged in politics beyond the mere local level. Con-
versely, the increase in godfatherhood in the early 1860s was presumably
linked to the acclaim Anton gained thanks to his support for the public use
of Slovene. His unshakeable popularity in the 1860s, reflected also in the
praise he received across the Slovenian press, translated well into elevat-
ed rates of godfatherhood outside the familial circle, reaching a climax in
1869 when his fame as a politician was at its peak. Thus, in the second half
of the 1860s, Černe’s godfatherhoods were an entirely extra-familial affair
(see figure4.2). By the sametoken,the debaclein political arenaAnton ex-
perienced in 1872, when he fell from grace in the eyes of the Karst people,
was also mirrored in his charm as a godfather. Namely, it resulted in the
virtual disappearance of extra-familial godfatherhood which occurred this
year. It could thus be hypothesized that the way in which Anton’s politi-
cal activities were perceived by the Karst people was directly linked to the

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