Austro-Ugarska Monarhija i “konjunktura stomaka” – krompir kao indikator politike prehrane prema pisanju Sarajevskog lista (1914–1918)
The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the “Stomach Conjuncture”: Potatoes as an Indicator of Food Policy According to the Sarajevo Newspaper (1914–1918)

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the food policy of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy during the First World War, with a focus on the distribution of potatoes to the population of Sarajevo. This issue was primarily a consequence of the government’s lack of a systematic and rational economic strategy for the development of agriculture in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and secondarily of the poor narrow-track railway and equally inadequate road network. These were key factors which have, under the conditions of a wartime economy and state regulation, along with the mobilization of manpower, the reduction of transport capacity for civilian needs, and a ban on trade within Bosnia and Herzegovina, ultimately turned Sarajevo into a city under a kind of siege. The wartime economy, enforced through repression, requisitions, and restrictive government measures, also involved the establishment of provisioning boards intended to control prices and ensure fair food distribution. However, in practice, numerous malversations of food supplies, along with corruption and other wartime hardships, brought the population to the brink of starvation. The paper also presents the measures the government attempted to implement in order to prevent a total collapse in the supply of essential foodstuffs.

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