The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic

by Wendy Bracewell

In this highly original and influential book, Catherine Wendy Bracewell reconstructs and analyzes the tumultuous history of the uskoks of Senj, the martial bands nominally under the control of the Habsburg Military Frontier in Croatia, who between the 1530s and the 1620s developed a community based on raiding the Ottoman hinterland, Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, and shipping on the Adriatic. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including the archives of the Dalmatian communes under Venetian rule and military frontier records, Bracewell provides the first comprehensive analysis of the uskoks as a social phenomenon, examining their origins, their military and social organization, their plunder economy, their mental world, and their relations with other groups in this borderland between three empires. The uskoks lived on the Christian-Muslim frontier, and they invoked Europe’s struggle against Islam to justify their often bloody deeds. As Bracewell demonstrates, however, their actions were also shaped by the maze of local political and economic rivalries, social conflicts, and confessional antagonisms. In a book that tests the concept of the social bandit, the author analyzes the motives that guided the uskoks and distinguishes these from the factors that impelled various elements of the local population to support them.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Astor Teller]

Got to page 176 (The Rural Population of Dalmatia).

Somewhat dry treatise, but very informative about the Uskoks who were forced to plunder and raid for upkeep because they weren’t paid as border troops (and when they were, the paymasters speculated in their salary).

The book shows the Uskok’s raiding as a part of life and an economic venture that the major powers Venice, Habsburg and Ottomans tried to either exploit or prevent, all due to their diplomatic stance towards the two other powers. Because of the raiding, communities were uprooted and peasants turned into uskoks, agricullture declined and stockherders moved in, which was good for uskok’s raiding as cattle and slaves were movable goods (along with all the merchants and their goods along the Adriatic coast).

The reason why I stopped was that I was looking for a good story, but this was more of an academic read (but still with an easy language for a layman like me).

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very specific, rather academic text that I bought and read for reasons I can't remember. In any case I enjoyed it thoroughly. There were not a few occasions where I exclaimed something like, "that's basically a payday loan scam!" So, despite the specificity, still applicable to modern life.