Descriptions of the Forests of Slavonia in Travelogues of the Early Modern Age

Forest history is a relatively new discipline in Croatian historiography. The scale ofexploitation remains the main point of interest for scholars dealing with forest history. Nevertheless,recent scholarship has turned scholarly interest towards another question: Can exploitation (timberconsumption) be the only criterion for the anthropization of forests? The present paper analyzesthree travelogues from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and compares them withquantitative data originating from various historical sources. It shows how travelogues do not onlyoffer a vivid description of a land and its inhabitants but can also be used as a valuable confirmationof historical conclusions based on quantitative historical data. Even more, travelogues may providesome specific data not available elsewhere. In this case, three travelogues (Atanazije Jurjević, OsmanAga of Timişoara/Temesvár, and Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube) give a broader understanding of theanthropization of forests in Slavonia during the early modern period.