Fire and Honour. On the Comparability of Popular Protests in late 19th Century Croatia-Slavonia

In 1897, popular discontent in Croatia-Slavonia exploded in a long series of rural disturbances. These disturbances differed in intensity, from protest involving only minor incidents, to cases which resulted in several deaths. In the following, I will put these events into a broader comparative framework, as part of an on-going process of "political apprenticeship" by the rural subaltern classes, analogous to similar events which happened in the resto of Europe in that fin de siècle. Furthermore, the use of fire and of the notion of honour prove to be intimately linked. This chapter gives an insight into the symbolism, the informal rules and the aims of this linkage.