Acta Musealia

This study examines the emergence of new settlements during the period of Raabization in Moravia. Raabization was a land reform carried out in the Czech lands between 1775 and 1820. The nobility divided their manors into smaller plots among various tenants, who established their own farms on the hereditarily leased land. As a result of the reform, new settlements emerged, the population grew, and the region experienced economic development. However, it has not yet been clearly established how many settlements were established in connection with the Raabization, where they were founded, and what factors prompted their establishment, with the literature varying significantly in its estimates of the number of new settlements. The aim of this study was to collect, analyze, and statistically evaluate data on the establishment of new settlements during the Raabization period in Moravia and Silesia based on available literature and to compare these results with existing data cited in the literature. Based on excerpts from historical topographical descriptions, a total of 291 settlements were identified, which were established in various ways, with the most common method being the subdivision of a farmstead. The highest intensity of settlement establishment was recorded in the years 1784–1789, which corresponds to the period of the greatest expansion of land reform. New settlements sprang up throughout Moravia and Silesia, with the highest concentration in what is now the Olomouc Region. The number of newly established settlements identified during the Raabization period in Moravia and Silesia is more than double the figures previously cited in the literature. Despite the interpretive limitations of working with historical sources, the study offers a new perspective on the scope and spatial distribution of settlement processes during the Raabization period and suggests directions for further research into the development of the Moravian and Silesian landscape prior to the onset of the agrarian revolution.

Keywords: land reform, subdivision of farmsteads, new settlements, 18th century, historical topography