Lukács László (szerk.): Märkte und Warenaustausch im Pannonischen Raum - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 28. (Székesfehérvár, 1988)
Lubise Kaspar: Wax-Chandlers and Honey-Bread Men in Karlovac at Fairs and Church Feasts Past and Present
WAX-CHANDLERS AND HONEY-BREAD MEN IN KARLOVAC AT FAIRS AND CHURCH FEASTS PAST AND PRESENT L i b u 3 e Kaspar, Karlovac The city of Karlovac founded in 1579, has its first records of the existence of wax-chandlers and honey-bread men from the year 1812, when a Frenchman Alfonso Dikenoa, who settled during the Nepoleonic wars, and started waxworking and making honey-bread in this city. He also ran the soap-works. In 1830 he gave up the workshop to his son-in-law Ivan Reicherzer who worked till 1350. The business continued to be run by a wax-chandler and honey-bread man fluro Wendauer, who had started working independently already in 1845. Wendauer was of Hungarian origin. Beside producing honey-bread and wax objects he also ran a bakery, a general dealing shop and a wholesale business for wines and spirits. We can see that these first wax-chandlers and honey-bread men also concerned with other kinds of trade besides their own one. It was understandable because the sale of their products, especially honey-bread, depended exclusively on villagers as customers, who used to buy them at fairs and church feasts mostly during the summer. In 1863, Edo Lukinic, who was born in Karlovac, started to work there after gaining skill in honey pastry making and waxworking around the world. He had worked in Hungary and in Austria, in the town of Fürstenfeld where he met his future wife Marija Melk (1844-1913) - a doughter of a head man and innkeeper of the town. Her name was to be given to the factory later on. It was difficult at the beginning to compete with fluro Wendauer, but Lukinic soon achieved a higher level of production and in 1873 Wendauer sold his workshop to him. Wendauer kept the general dealing shop, the bakery and the sale of drinks for himself. Lukinic thus gained possession of the oldest workshop for honey-bread and wax-candles in Karlovac. About the same time, in 1863, Slavoljub Grahovac also started producing honey-bread and waxcandles, but his business did not go very well and after a year he sold his workshop to Edo Lukinic also. Edo Lukinic paid more attention to making honey-bread then to producing waxcandles, because it was more profitable at that time to deal with honey-bread. He was doing rather well for 30 years, when he suddenly died. The business was taken over by his widow Marija Lukinic and his younger son Rudolf, born in 1377. The name of the firm was "M.Lukinic". From 1896 Rudolf Lukinic worked almost independently. He especially improved the manufacture of waxcandles by acquiring a steam boiler for distilling and heating wax in 1900. The getting of improved equipment for better production was stimulated by the fact that at that time in Croatia there were practically no other manufactories of candles made of beeswax (which were required for use in churches according to the liturgical rules). 73
