Uskoken
With Uskoks (from the Slavic word uskočiti derived, German : "spring" or " desert ") called it a militarized association that mainly consisted of refugees of different ethnic groups from Ottoman ancestral territories and between the spheres of influence of the three great powers Habsburg Empire , the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire operated as irregulars .
history
Most of the Uskoks gathered in Dalmatia on the possessions of the Croatian commander Petar Kružić in Klis and the surrounding area. They were of the Roman Catholic faith. The costume of the Uskoks was based on that of their areas of origin. The trousers, made of coarse white cloth, were narrow to the knee, a little wider at the top. The shirts had wide sleeves embroidered on the edge. The doublet had a double row of buttons. In addition, light strap shoes and a red cap with a crane feather were worn as headgear. The Senj Uskoks were armed with musket , battle ax or mace . There was also a short curved sword (handshare), a pistol and a knife. Their consistently excellent armament was of Turkish or Venetian origin and not infrequently captured in battle.
When the Ottomans conquered Klis in 1537, the Uskoks moved to Senj . There were more than a thousand people capable of weapons, mostly driven from their homeland due to the war. They had sworn to take revenge for their devastated homeland and their oppressed peoples, "equally on Turks and Venetians, always and everywhere". From Senj they waged a bitter struggle against both the Ottomans and the Republic of Venice, especially on the coast of Zadar . The well-preserved Uskoken castle Nehajgrad is located above the city of Senj . Although the Senj Uskoks were repeatedly promised money, food and clothing for border defense by the Austro-Hungarian border generals, archdukes and emperors, there were often years of delays due to corrupt officers and profiteers. The fact that the Senj Uskoks were able to hold out against great powers such as the Ottomans and the Venetians for a long time was due to the geographical location of the place. Senj was difficult to reach by land for a long time and is located in the center of the Bora region. Along the coast and in the mainland, the population sympathized with the Uskoks and warned them with smoke during the day and with fire at night when they sighted enemies.
Due to their great seafaring skills, equipped with agile, smaller boats, the Uskoks were unbeatable, especially in the wind phases of the bora. The strong bora in the Senj Canal was feared by the Venetian captains, as neither large galleys nor warships could offer sufficient resistance. The Uskoks, on the other hand, had up to 30 fast sailing ships with five to twelve pairs of sails and a crew of up to fifty fighters. Sailing and rowing, mostly during the night and often in shallow waters, they operated from Pula , Piran and Monfalcone in the north to the Neretva and the Bay of Kotor in the south. Their mostly unexpected appearance with the ships colored in the "colors of death" black and red was the horror of all enemy ships.
In Senj , the Uskoks, with the tolerance of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, began to raid Venetian ships. The Republic of Venice did not succeed in bringing the Uskoks under their control. Their strengths were incomprehensible to the Venetians: "It seems as if the winds, the sea and the devils had helped them." Around 1600, on the orders of Archduke Ferdinand II , the Uskoks began to be driven out of Senj. The Austrian General Joseph von Discounta, who acted mercilessly and very harshly on the population, became Imperial Commissioner. On New Year's Eve 1601 the situation escalated, the Uskoks penetrated the fort and killed Discounta and his servants. The Senj Bishop Markantun de Dominis -Gospodnetić, however, managed to escape from the angry Uskoks. He had incurred the resentment of the population because he tried by all means to hand over Senj, Podgorje, Vinodol and Rijeka to the Venetians.
In 1612 this gave rise to the Uskok War or “War for Gradiska ” between Austria and the Republic of Venice, which escalated into a massacre by the Venetians in Karlobag on January 10, 1615. The Uskoks were not defeated either on land or on water, but had to submit to the peace made between the great powers in Paris and Madrid in 1617. Senj came under Austrian occupation. The Uskoks involved in the fight were to be resettled inland to Brinje , Otočac , Brlog , Vinodol and Istria, but in 1617 they preferred to move to the Karlovac area and the Kupa , where part of the Uskoks had lived in the Žumberak Mountains since 1524 . All Uskoken ships were burned. In the ongoing struggle with the Ottomans, the Uskoks later formed the core of the military border guards who resisted the Ottomans in the Ottoman-Austrian wars from 1683 to 1699 and from 1788 to 1791.
Well-known Uskoken
- Janko Šajatović (translated Johann Schadowitz; 1624–1704)
See also
- Nehaj Fortress
- Uskoken Mountains
- The red Zora and her gang
- Serbian epic poetry (the Uskoken cycle)
- Johann Schadowitz (Krabat)
literature
- Klaus-Peter Matschke: The cross and the half moon . The history of the Turkish wars. 1st edition. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-538-07178-0 , pp. 254 ff .
- Darja Peitz Hlebec, Renate Nöldeke (update): Istria and Kvarner Golf. Hotels, restaurants, beaches, viewpoints, antiquities, parks, museums, waterfront promenades - with a holiday card . In: ADAC travel guide plus . ADAC-Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89905-295-1 , p. 23 .
Web links
- City of Senj - The Uskoks
- The Uskoken von Senj - Habsburg's watchdogs at the military border on kriegsreisen.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Catherine Wendy Bracewell: The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century, 1992
- ↑ Display boards in the Nehaj Fortress Museum , July 27, 2009.
- ↑ Display boards, Nehaj Fortress.
- ↑ Minnucio according to the display board, Nehaj Fortress.