Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the involvement of the local population in the construction of a regionally and imperially structured hydroelectric power plant in Carniola (a region of today’s Slovenia) at the beginning of the 20th century.

Paper long abstract:

In addition to mill wheels, which used the energy potential of water for centuries, machines for harnessing waterpower were already gaining ground in the last decades of the 19th century. For Slovenia, or more specifically the land of Carniola, this was still the period under Austro-Hungarian rule. With the turn of the century, the question of general electrification was a burning issue throughout the monarchy. The prevailing opinion was to use the empire's own natural energy resources, especially the abundant hydropower of its Alpine rivers. The desire of a faster and more comprehensive electrification of the peripheral parts of Carniola led to the initiative of the Regional Committee for Carniola to gain electricity from the region’s rivers and streams. The main actors for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Završnica stream were, besides the Regional Committee, the Ganz & Comp. machine factory in Leobersdorf and the Ministry of Railways in Vienna. When these three parties negotiated the necessary concessions for the construction of such an energy-infrastructure, complications and conflicts arose, especially with the inhabitants of the riverine villages. In my paper I want to examine these conflicts and thus also address the communal participation possibilities within a regionally and imperially structured infrastructure system. What freedom of action existed for peripheral communities in the early period of hydropower development in the south-eastern Alps and to what extent were the inhabitants of the surrounding villages involved in the construction of the Završnica hydropower plant? This research question allows me to show how imperially aligned energy systems were negotiated and constructed on a communal level in peripheral Europe during the age of high modernity.