Did an Administratively Independent Ottoman War Frontier Exist in Bosnia (1448-1463)?

Abstract

In this paper it is reexamined the claim that in Bosnia existed an Ottoman military-administrative independent war frontier province in the period 1448-1463. For the first time, the claim was formulated by Hazim Šabanović in 1955, while he repeated it in a series of his publications which were published in the interval 1957-1964. Besides, Šabanović emphatically concured with Mihailo J. Dinić’s proposal from 1940 according to which the Ottomans possessed no permanent strongholds in Bosnia proper before 1448. Two main arguments for his position Šabanović believed to have found in a charter issued by Herceg Stjepan Vukčić-Kosača on 19 July 1453 as well as in the summary register of the Skopje war frontier of 1455. In this paper it is undertaken a detailed philological-cumhistorical critical analysis of all known sources for the question. It is established that there was no any military-administrative independent war frontier in the Ottoman Bosnia in the period 1448-1463. Rather, the Ottoman strongholds in Bosnia in the given period belonged administratively and militarily to the war frontier province of Skoplje or Üsküp. Equally, it is demonstrated that the view how the earliest Ottoman strongholds in Bosnia predated a lot to 1448 is more sounder. The questions when and how Kingdom of Bosnia became the Ottoman tribute payer needs to be utterly reexamined once more.