Lukács László (szerk.): Märkte und Warenaustausch im Pannonischen Raum - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 28. (Székesfehérvár, 1988)
Lubica Falt'anová: The Main Directions of Trade from Slovakia
THE MAIN DIRECTIONS OF TRADE FROM SLOVAKIA v ) Lubica Faltanová, Bratislava There is a complexity of aspects concerning the development of trade and its place in the development of folk cultore, and also of possibilities for following them up.The approach to the problems under discussion here was based on selection end narrowing in such a way that concrete examples and data about the possibilities for and the extent of contacts between two historical and geographic regions through exchange of products are indicated. Specifically, the äubject looked at in detail is the ways and means of goods distribution, especially of agricultural products and home-made products, from the territory of Slovakia to the region of Pannonia. It is certain that the rural inhabitants of Slovakia kept up, by means of trade contacts, one of the most intensive connections with a number of non-Slovakian European and partly non- European countries. The distribution of merchandise, however, was not only done directly by folk vendors who sold products from their own production or products obtained by huckstering , but there was also a number of other intermediary factors that played a role in the export of domestic and agricultural products. A considerable part of such Slovakian products reached a non- Slovakian market through the mediation of private vendors, merchants, craftsmen, carters, and various supporting unions or associations as well as through foreign merchants from neighbouring countries. From the network of commercial relations outlined here we try in this contribution principally to delimit those which were undertaken by the majority of the people, and in which the main distribution role was played by the producers themselves or by folk middlemen (hucksters) . Considering the given connections, we deal not only whith the mere economic aspects of the exchange of products, i.e. the types of exported products, and as far as is possible with some quantitative index of export, but also direct attention to some non-economic particularities concerning social and cultural aspects of trading. In the coupe of historical development the exchange of products in Slovakia reached, from this point of view, different stages of organization. In the most developed forms of goods distribution it was not simply an accidental and occasional exchange of goods, but a regular distribution, with stable directions of selling and with firm regions and places of sale. This distribution was often connected with an exact district division according to the individual trading families or trading villages and there was an exact organization of sales at fixed seasons or periods. The getting of the products, their transport and methods of selling were organized, too. Of course, besides the problems of distribution and exchange of products, there were also, from the point of view of the development of Slovakian national culture, problems attracting attention from many other aspects, especially in connection with the employment structure of the Slovakian population. From groups of the trading inhabitants separate types of occupations were being formed among the country population; often these kinds of occupations concerned the majority of inhabitants from one village or from the whole region, which greatly 175
