Podkoren. Prispevek h geografiji Zgornje Savske doline

Abstract

All centres of population in the Upper Sava Valley show certain common features whi h come to light in the physiognomy of the landscape itself, f t is true that the Upper Sava Valley got its first settlers only in the late
Middle Ages (in the 14th century), yet we must bear in mind that the population together with its habits of living was almost wholly dependent on Koroška (Carinthia) from where the colonization across Karavanke had taken
place. Only after the World War I, when the Austrian-Yugoslav border was
delineated along the Karavanke Mountains and along the watershed at
Rateče, the population became compelled to rely more and more on the new urban centres of Jesenice and Radovljica as substitutes for the now lost Villach or Tarvisio.
Podkoren is one of the most typical settlements in the Upper Sava
Valley that has down to the present day preserved its old character in its
physiognomy. It is situated on a huge fan of Karavanke under Koren.
Koren is one of the most important mountain by reason of the road leading
here acros Karavanke. In fact, Koren is an almost two kilometres long and
a fairly wide dry valley lying crosswise to the orographic line of Karavanke. It obtained much of its present for m through the glacier shifts in the Pleistocene period as it was the joint-place of the Drav a River glacier and
that of the Upper Sava Valley. In the late Middle Ages a route from Ljubljana to Villach for horseback traffic was built. That route was just a section of the long Alpin e road which connected the districts near the
Adriatic , the Dinaric Alps, and Pannonian districts with the central Alpine
regions. Towards the end of the 18th century, the route was improved for
a road. The course of the new road avoided now many a steep slope which
had not formerl y obstructed the old type of traffic .
Podkoren is the first, respectively the last village before a steeper rise
across Karavanke (from 840 to 1073 metres) and it is thus understandable
that owing to> the road its significance has been constantly growing. Podkoren
was the place where people engaged in horseback traffic and where later
waggoners rested for the night. The local people from Podkoren helped them
by the changing of horses, supplying additional ones when heavy loads or,
later, waggons were to be transported across the saddle. The road traffic has
influenced the character of life and the whole physiognomy of the place.
With its old types of houses and other buildings, al l of them connected
b y their function wit h the growth of road traffic , Podkoren has preserved
its traditional features. In today's changed social and economic conditions,
Podkoren represents an extremely interesting relic of the past, which has
resisted the decades of industrial and urbanizing influences that have affected the rest of the Upper Sava Valley. By analyzing some of the more important economic and population factors (those that effect the transformation of inhabited places) the author has tried to point out the reasons for
the rather unchanged state of today's Podkoren.
The external features of the older part of Podkoren suggest a division
into two basic groups: a) the peasants' houses are situated, along today's
road across Koren, and b) the homes of the village cottagers and of the
poor are gathered on the alluvial little plain of Krotnjek . By now the
peasants have reached considerable economic improvement and some changes
for the better have occurred also to the smallest landowners (possessing from
0,5 to 2,5 hectares of land) who work no longer on the fields only with the
chance work offerred by road-traffic , but who have found full-time employment in various urban jots. In 1781 there were in Podkoren altogether 67 landowners, but in 1827 the number was already raised to 81. in the
year 1886, when the common land and pastures were divided among the
landowners, the number was 78; the year 1962 shows the number 88. All
this clearly indicates a very slow growth of the number of landowners in
Podkoren.
Despite the increase in the number of landowners, the average estate
was augmented fro m 7,45 hectares i n 1827 to 9,78 hectares i n 1962. This
augmentation is largely accounted for b y the division of the common land
and pastures in 1886; later it occurred onl y occasionally that someone bought
another little tract of forest or meadow.
In 1827 there were only 10 peasants from the neighbouring villages that
had any tracts of fields, meadows, pastures or forest withi n the boundaries of
the cadastrial communit y of Podkoren. By 1962, however, there were already
79 people ownin g land i n Podkoren but not permanently living there.

Those of the present landowners come no longer from the neighbouring villages only ; a considerable number of them comes from major Slovene or Yugoslav towns. These landowners have bought in Podkoren sites to build there weekend houses. As early as 1935 the first people from Zagreb and Beograd were buying land in Podkoren, where they later on put up weekend houses for their families. Farming is nowadays in Podkoren an economic branch of little significance, it provides livelihood for only 5,3 % of the inhabitants. The considerable height of the Upper Sava Valley above sea-level (800—860 metres), together with an expressly Alpine climate limit the number of different sorts of corn to be grown there. Amon g the cornplants, rye is the most important ; wheat and barley do not flourish whereas maize was grown only during the wartime and its crop ran almost every time the risk of getting destroyed by frost either in spring or in autumn. The sandy soil and the fresh summer days favour the growth of potatoes. In peasants' fields bean has been kept on as one of the most typica l products of autharchic economy. The process of turning fields int o meadows has been accelerated by the urbanization. Because of the shortage of farm-labourers man y field areas are sown with various kinds of clover and similar plants, as they do not call for much wor k in the fields. It would  be wrong to suppose that cattlebreeeding is carried on a higher, commercialised level of the Koren economicy. Cattle-breeding likewise suffered from the new state boundary because most of the peasants of Dolina had pastures in the highlands that became with the new border Italian. The general economic progress demanded the decline of sheep-breeding which was in the previous century a very significant branch of peasants' economic life in the upper Dolina. Wool was produced not only for sale in wool-works but likewise for home-spun cloth which was used by some people as late as at the beginning of Worl d War I. Cattle-breeding is as well in the decline and in the present century the areas of land used for cattle-breeding have been decreased for 40 %. (pastures for 55 % and meadows together with meadows in the highlands for 22%). This change, which is also due to a shortage of hands on the farms, has contributed to the decrease i n the number of domestic animals. Almost every landowner in Podkoren possessed some forest. Nevertheless forests did not exercise a major economic influence on the growth and strengthening of the peasants' estates. Areas of woods are of unforeseen significance for the tourist attractiveness of the upper Dolina, which has the best conditions for the development of summer and winter tourism. The summers are fresh and only the considerable number of rainy days per summer-month (10—14 days) prevents more numerous visits. Podkoren is one of the most important tourist places in the upper Dolina, of all the places in Dolina it has the most favourable conditions for winter-sports, the days with plenty of snow being here the most numerous. For more than 114 days per year the earth has 1 centimetre of snow, and for more than 63 days per year it has 30 odd centimetres of snow. From 181? to 1962 the number of inhabitants in Podkoren practically did not change. A more detailed analysis has shown that between 1857 and 1962 the number of people who left Podkoren for good was onl y for 224 higher than that of people who came to live for good in Podkoren. The author has payed special attention to the migration; he wanted to find the chief reasons that were inducing people to come to or to leave Podkoren. 15,9 %, of those that left Podkoren till 1890 had married into peasants' families in the neighbourhood. 10,2 % of them married into other families, 43,2 % of those forming the first generation found employment in industry or in manual trade, 13,4 % in traffic , and 18,2 % of them took up work of domestic help in the peasants' families in the neighbourhood. In the second generation (the inhabitants of Podkoren born between 1891 and 1910) it was only 4,3 %. of those who married into peasants' families outside Podkoren, 50,9 % married into families other than peasants', and 43,6 of the emigrants found employment i n industry. The third generation of the emigrants (born between 1910 and 1930) shows the number of people employed in industry still growing — 39,6 %. Many of the emigrants of the first and of the second generations emigrated to the Northern America from where there were only very few that came back. In recent time Podkoren is becoming a real immigran t settlement. The present inhabitants of Podkoren come from 75 different places, having their birth-place in 101 places. Du e to inheritance or houses on sale, Podkoren has grown fo r 22,8 % of emigrants from the neighbouring population centres. Free flats in Podkoren have drawn 19,6% of the immigran t population, marriages into not-peasants' families have brought 18,4 % of immigrants into the village, 20 people came to work as domestic help on the fields, and 14,4 % of the immigrants found other kin d of wor k but only 10 persons came to live in Podkoren by marrying into peasants' families. Til l 1918 8,9 % of the present immigrant s came to Podkoren, in the period between 1919 and 1941 the percentage was 25,3% and between 1941 and 1948 it was 20,9 %. Afte r 1948 the remaining 44,9 % of the present immigrants followed. On the ground of al l these data, the author considers the cosequences as they appear i n the abrupt changes in the professional structure of the population, in the daily travel to work in Kranjska gora, Hrusica, Jesenice etc. Al l this is reflected in the economic life of the Koren peasants. As the emigration of the native population has been stronger than the immigration of foreign population, the number of inhabitants in the last hundred years (1857—1962) went down for t%7 %. In 1910 Podkoren had only 348 inhabitants, which means 27,8 %, less than in 1869. From 1910 to 1962 the population grew for 25 % but taken together for the period 1869 to 1962 it decreased for 9,6 %, Ther territorial growth of the place has been influenced by the following: railway , which was built in 1870, tourism, which called forth in the last years before World War II . the weekend houses, and in recent times local non-agrarian people building their homes on the outskirts of the old settlement. The physiognomy of the central part of Podkoren has in the main remained unchanged. This is accounted for by the bad economic circumstances of the local population, by the continuous emigration of young people who came back only when they had earned their old-age pension. Finally we must not forget outbreaks of fire, which had never spread over larger parts of the village. The fire of 1822 burnt down the eastern part of the village, and that of 1929 its central part. With al l this it must be borne i n min d that centres of population in the upper Dolina are becoming "satelite" or "dormitory " settlements of the industrial Jesenice. This function which is being accepted through the last decades is connected with the favourable communication means of the railway . Besides, one must take into account the stronger development of tourism, not only the stationary one, but also and above all the mobile one. That is particularly true of Podkoren as it is the crossing of the two important roads leading to Austria and Italy . New forms of tourism are coming on with the small border traffic and they likewise will soon have to be met by the inhabitants in Dolina.