ABSTRACT
The territorial scope of the concept of “Central Europe” may be defined in various ways. This chapter discusses the territory east of the Elbe River and the Alps up to the Nemen River, the marshes of Polesie and the Ukrainian steppes, and from the Baltic up to the Rivers Drave and Mures. The agrarian relations in southeastern Europe within the borders of the Turkish state were also different; there taxes in kind and tributes dominated and although slavery existed, neither personal nor judicial serfdom took shape, demesne farms were of limited importance, and a system of military fiefs was still to be observed. In the various parts of the large area of Central Europe changes connected with the Industrial Revolution did not take place simultaneously. In Central Europe before the Industrial Revolution, the exploitation of natural resources was primitive and narrow, and materials produced by agriculture, in the broad sense, dominated.
