On Donkey Trails into the Modern Age

A SSEES Southeast European studies seminar with Ruža Fotiadis, co-organised by the British Scholarship Trust

On Donkey Trails into the Modern Age: Transport, Transformation and Living Technologies in Southeast Europe

This lecture will look at donkeys and mules as indispensable draft animals in the Balkans, including Dalmatia and Greece. Until well into the twentieth century donkeys and mules carried loads, ploughed the land, and drove carts. They were used to protect grazing animals, and to supply milk, meat, and leather. Despite this, they remain on the margin of historiographical interest, just like their owners. She argues for a greater inclusion of animal labour in everyday work to provide new perspectives on technological change in the industrial age.

The British Scholarship Trust was founded after the First World War to help Serbian orphans to come to Britain for university education. The scheme was extended to all of Yugoslavia and initially funded university degrees. After the breakup up of Yugoslavia, Slovenian representatives decided to withdraw, but the charity still offers small grants to postgraduate students from the other ex- Yugoslav countries. Nowadays we offer postgraduate funding for library visits or research collaborations. We are very keen to expand the numbers of applicants and UK hosts.

Celia Hawkesworth, Emeritus Reader at UCL SSEES, has been a BST trustee since 1975. We decided to honour her long service and overall contribution to the field with a lecture series. We hope that this can be an annual event and that we can invite scholars from the region or regional specialists every year.

Image credit: Eduard Babić, Prilog poznavanju domaćih primorskih magaraca, Zagreb 1939, p. 57.

Ruža Fotiadis

Post-doctoral researcher and Lecturer

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

She is a historian of 19th and 20th century Southeast Europe and has published extensively on the history of Yugoslavia and Greece, as well as food history. Her current research project focuses on donkeys and mules as indispensable draft animals in the Balkans and argues for a greater inclusion of animal labour in everyday work to provide new perspectives on technological change in the industrial age.