Page 213 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Urban Opportunities

natural growth was curtailed by emigration. Such a tendency characterized
the whole district of Sežana, to which Tomaj belonged administratively at
that time, where the population increased by only 18.8 percent between
1869 and 1910. In comparison, the population of the entire Goriška region
grew by 37.9 percent (Kalc 2013, 668−9). Within the curacy of Tomaj, the
impact of emigration was even more pronounced, resulting in a popula-
tion growth of only 0.8 percent. While emigration in the Sežana district ac-
counted for up to 65 percent of the natural balance in the period 1869−1910
(Kalc 2013, 667), it absorbed 92 percent of the natural balance in the Tomaj
curacy, nearly nullifying the natural reproductive effect.
Table 7.2 illustrates that from the 1790s, the migration balance remained
consistently deeply negative, except for a brief period in the 1820s and
notably in the 1830s, when substantial positive population growth oc-
curred. This growth was attributed to immigration, alongside natural fac-
tors. However, during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the
1850s, the 1870s, and the 1890s, the outward migration was significant-
ly higher than the natural increase, resulting in population decline. Until
the 1870s, periods of heightened emigration coincided with the aforemen-
tioned crises, which also contributed to increased mortality. From the mid-
century, and especially from the 1880s onwards, emigration can be paral-
leled with the general expansion of migratory movements in the Austro-
Hungarian monarchy (and in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe). This
phenomenon manifested as a significant redistribution of the population
from rural to urban areas within the country and abroad (Steidl et al. 2017;
Fassmann 1994; Bade 2000; Cattaruzza 1979; 2002). Internal and interna-
tional emigration continued to shape the demographics of Tomaj after the
First World War, contributing to the rapid decline in population from the
second half of the 1920s onwards. This trend persisted, albeit slowing, in
the first decades following the Second World War. During both the inter-
war period and the immediate post-World War ii years, emigration ceased
to be solely a systemic element of socio-economic processes, instead in-
creasingly influenced by political conditions and motives.

Emigration between Need and Opportunity
Migration has been underrated in mainstream historiography concerning
the Karst region, if not entirely neglected. Socioeconomic analyses have
failed to consider migration as a constitutive factor in the socio-economic
strategies of the population. Instead, it has often been viewed as induced
negative consequences of large-scale socio-economic transformations or

211