Firewood and timber. The meaning of the forest common rights in the everyday life of peasants in Austrian Galicia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article sets forth an exhaustive analysis of the importance of natural resources in the daily lives of peasants in nineteenth-century Austrian Galicia during a period of socio-economic upheaval. These resources included firewood and timber, and were gathered by peasants under their common rights to access manorial forests. Against the background of a changing Galician countryside, the everyday existence of peasants dependent on these resources was transformed. Forest resources symbolised wealth, and at the same time the goal of meeting the existential needs of peasants. By giving a direct voice to the rural population, as contained in unique manuscripts, it was possible to recreate and reconstruct this part of life, seen through the eyes of the poorest social group struggling with the trials of everyday life, such as poverty, hunger, shortages of fuel for cooking and heating and maintaining basic hygiene in dilapidated buildings.