IT IS STILL ALMOST HALF A YEAR UNTIL HARVEST: THE RAGING HAIL IN THE POSTOJNA DISTRICT IN AUGUST 1864 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

In Slovenia in the 19th century, poor harvests and consequently the shortage of food and seeds for sowing were a localised and completely normal periodic phenomenon. The weather had a profound impact on the emergence of regional life-threatening crises. Since forever, farmers had been especially worried and afraid of hail. The menacing icy precipitation had the potential of devastating the fields. The Swiss historian Christian Pfister rightfully described it as an exogenous shock that can trigger sequences of events that would otherwise have not happened. The present study focuses on the regionally restricted example of a severe hailstorm that caused enormous damage in the district of Postojna in the summer of 1864, as it almost completely destroyed the crops. During the agrarian crisis, the majority of the peasant population had already barely lingered on in profound poverty. Apart from the unusually cold and rainy weather in 1864, the damages caused by the hail even exacerbated the severe distress, and ten villages in the district faced severe food scarcity. The head of the district turned to the Provincial Presidency in Ljubljana for help, and it provided aid in the usual manner: by collecting donations for the purchase of food and seeds.