Krošnjarjenje v avstrijskih deželah: primer kitajskih krošnjarjev na začetku 20. stoletja
Peddling in the Austrian Crown Lands: The Case of Chinese Peddlers at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the little-known phenomenon of Chinese peddlers in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Monarchy in the early 20th century and situates it within the broader context of peddling, state regulation of trade, mobility control, and attitudes towards foreigners. Based on police and newspaper sources, the authors reconstruct the routes of Chinese itinerant traders who appeared in Vienna and other cities around 1905. They sold stone and ivory carvings as well as handmade paper flowers, often without valid permits or personal documents. Their movement was facilitated by new global transport infrastructure and Austria’s liberal migration policies, yet restricted by strict peddling laws that granted trading licences only to Austrian citizens. The study situates this phenomenon within the longstanding tradition of peddling in the Monarchy, illustrating how Chinese traders entered an already contested economic field marked by tensions between stationary shopkeepers and itinerant sellers. Simultaneously, they embodied the contradictions of imperial modernity: global mobility and capitalist expansion on one side, and local legal and social frameworks on the other, within which they were sometimes tolerated but more often viewed as troublesome traders and unwelcome foreigners.

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