Work Organisation in the Home Affairs Department of the Land Government (1869-1914) with a Special Focus on the Economy

Abstract

A constitutional autonomy of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia was provided for within the scope of the 1868 Croatian-Hungarian Settlement. The Land Government was established as the Kingdom’s highest executive body and sanctioned by a Legislative Article of 20 April 1869. It comprised three departments that were autonomous and mutually independent. The internal work organisation in the Government’s departments was in the remit of the Croatian Ban, who was the head of the government. The Home Affairs Department had the broadest competence since it encompassed all the other Land administration affairs that did not fall within the scope of the Department of Religion and Education and the Justice Department. Unlike the other two Departments that had a relatively coherent scope of work, the organisation of the Home Affairs Department with a large number of diverse tasks and a constant increase in the volume of work was, as it would turn out, a much more complex task. Based on archival material, published sources and relevant literature, the paper analyses and presents frequent reorganisations of work in the Home Affairs Department undertaken by the Croatian Bans. They ordered the reallocation of tasks among existing sections, established new sections, sub-sections and groups within sub-sections. The paper covers the period from the founding of the Land Government in 1869 to 1914. In the latter year, economic affairs, which were considered the main source of problems in the work of the overburdened Home Affairs Department, were separated from its jurisdiction and assigned to a newly established fourth Government’s Department of National Economy.