The article analyzes the role of Slovene servants—mostly immigrants from the
surrounding Slovenian basin and nearby Austrian lands—during the 1910 census in
Trieste. The focus is on their autonomous behavior regarding the dependent position
within households and the public pressure of (Slovene and Italian) national elites in
the city. With the public discourse, archival material, and quantitative analysis of a
sample of census polls, the research synthesizes the importance of data such as the
language of communication and the servants’ places of origin. It then interpretively
places them in the context of (national) identity.
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