engleski

The role of forests in the spread of revolts and banditry in Ottoman Slavonia in the 16th and 17th centuries

The state of forests of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries and their socioeconomic and cultural importance is still a sparsely researched topic. It is difficult to research the state of forests because the majority of Ottoman sources are silent when it comes to forests in the mentioned period. This presentation will focus on Ottoman Slavonia, i.e. the three Ottoman sancaks: Sancak of Srijem (Sirem), Sancak of Požega (Pojega), and Sancak of Pakrac (Pakraç, Bakriç, Zaçasna, or Cernik). The aim of the paper is to describe the importance of forests for the local population of Slavonia, which used forests for hiding in the time of frequent wars in the proximity of the Habsburg-Ottoman border. In peacetime, Slavonian forests were a good place to hide if you were a hayduk or a bandit resisting the Ottoman rule. Dense Slavonian forests were often impassable and uncontrollable territories, and this is why a more than average number of pass keepers and bridge keepers populated the territory of Slavonia and had a duty to drive away hayduks and bandits who used to reside in forests. The paper is based on published and unpublished Ottoman tax registers for the three mentioned sancaks and on the bibliography on the situation on the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Ottoman Empire; Slavonia; revolts; banditry; forests

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