Page 199 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

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Urban Opportunities: Demography

and Mobility in a Rural Community
(Tomaj, Eighteenth-Twentieth Centuries)

Aleksej Kalc
Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts,
and University of Primorska, Slovenia

© 2025 Aleksej Kalc
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-486-6.197-224

Introduction
This article examines the demography of the Karst region of Tomaj from
a long-term perspective. The focus is on the historical population trends
within the parish of Tomaj, with particular attention to specific segments
of its territory. The area under investigation is situated within the so-
called ‘mother Karst’ region in the western part of today’s Slovenia and
encompasses all the natural geographical features of the karstic environ-
ment (Melik 1960; Panjek 2006). The territory of the Tomaj parish lies in
the most prolific part of the ‘mother Karst’ region. Thanks to favourable
pedological and climatic conditions, prosperous activities such as viticul-
ture and fruit growing have thrived in this area, alongside agriculture and
farming husbandry (Moritsch 1969, 75).
Another characteristic of the Tomaj area is its neighbourhood with the
municipality of Trieste and its relative proximity to the city of Trieste, the
main seaport and one of the largest urban agglomerates in the Habsburg
Monarchy. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the Karst region, which
forms the immediate hinterland of Trieste, belonged administratively to
the land lordships of Devin, Senožeče and Socerb (in the Kranjska region)
and Rihemberk, Švarcenek and Novi grad (in Goriška county). In the time
of the Republic of Venice, most of the Karst area economically gravitated
more towards Gorica, as the main trade outlet to the Venetian territory,
rather than towards Trieste. The influence of Trieste was more linked to the
Triestine noble families who held the Karst manors and to the area’s eccle-

Panjek,A.,ed.2025. Upland Families, Elites and Communities: Long-Run Micro
Perspectives on Persistence and Change. University of Primorska Press.