Demographic Circumstances in the Mid-Dalmatian Hinterland in the Early 16th Century

Abstract

This paper is an attempt wishing to give some new indications which will help perceive a more complete demographic situation in the mid-Dalmatian hinterland, roughly between the Cetina and Zrmanja rivers. Although the study sometimes goes beyond that spatial frame and occasionally covers the Lika area as well, the main body of information refers to the area between these two rivers.

The result reached by comparison of some other sources on which some other postulates are based, even those created on the Ottoman origins, indicate a significantly higher population density immediately upon the establishment of the Ottoman rule than shown by the common observations established in historiographic literature. A pale image of population density in the thirties, and even in the middle, of the 16th century is not only a result of the actual thinning of population as the first impression shows, but also of the incompleteness and absence of some sources which would fully reflect the actual state in the filed,as well as of the insufficient degree of their exploration. This is confirmed not only in the case of rural but of urban settlements as well. On the other hand, comparison of these with some other sources discloses certain exaggerations, especially in some reports dealing with the issues of this nature. Their content often departed significantly from the historical reality.

The comparison of the states at the beginning of the two centuries, the 16th and 17th (1530 and 1604), cannot confirm big demographic changes to have taken place in that area in the given time period. At least this cannot be confirmed by the sources used in this study. On the basis of this information and comparison, the overall process of the demographic growth makes an impression of a natural course containing the elements of a natural growth rather than a demographic change produced as a consequence of great migration processes. Somehow by inertia, it was always attributed to big colonisation waves following the Ottomans’ occupation of the area. An impression imposes itself that a considerable number of Vlachs had come to those parts earlier and they were actually found there