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https://doi.org/10.21857/mjrl3uxg09
Location of the fortress Ribnica from Evliya Çelebi Book of Travels
Šime Vrkić
; Odjel za turizam i komunikacijske znanosti, Sveučilište u Zadru, Zadar, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The paper attempts to determine the location of the Ribnica fortress, whose conquest was described in detail by the famous Ottoman travel writer Evliya Çelebi (1611 - 1682). He did it in his extensive work Seyâhatnâme (travel-book), which once again proved to be an extremely credible source for the history of Croatian countries in the Ottoman period. Assuming that his descriptions and geographical information were relatively authentic, using the Google Earth web service, I found out that the appearance of the Bay of Morinj fully corresponded to the data from the travel book. In other words, Ribnica can definitely be identified with the remains of the Kaštel Andreis (Andreis fortress) in Jadrtovac near Šibenik. Its identification enabled a detailed reconstruction of the Ottoman attack on the Morinj Bay area in the summer of 1660, which so far has only been known from a brief note by the contemporary Šibenik historian Franjo Difnik. This attack took place as part of an Ottoman military campaign launched on a Venetian property by the Bosnian beglerbeg (military and civil governor) Melek Ahmed Pasha. A sudden attack during the grape harvest surprised a large number of pickers who did not manage to shelter in the fort or return to their ships, which had brought them to the bay, so they hid in the surrounding vineyards. Those who remained on the ships anchored in the bay attempted to flee heading for the open sea but were prevented by two military units armed with rifles, which took positions on either side of the narrow channel. Subsequently, most ships anchored off the islet in the middle of the channel, while a smaller number sailed to the fort and anchored along its northern rampart. Numerically superior attackers made makeshift siege devices and conquered the fort relatively quickly. Its defence was commanded by the defector Šarić (Şarik), who is identified with the well-known brigand captain Cvitko Šarić, serdar and commander of the Šibenik Morlaks from the Kandian War. With the remaining defenders, he tried to escape by jumping on the ships anchored near the fort. However, since they could not make their way to the open sea, they were grounded and immediately captured, just like those who remained on the ships anchored near the island. Of the thirty ships that found themselves in the Bay of Morinj, only one managed to escape by fleeing to the open sea, while the remaining 29 were looted and burned in the sea by the near fort. According to Evlija’s testimony, the final war episode took place in a vineyard close to the fort, where 500 people fortified themselves but failed to resist the superior Ottoman invaders. The highlighted possible locations where the final battle took place were the vineyard above the Vlačina area in Žaborić and the hill-fort on the Prigrada peninsula at the entrance to the Morinj bay.
Ključne riječi
Evliya Çelebi; Kandian War; brigand captain Cvitko Šarić; Bay of Morinj; Jadrtovac; Kaštel Andreis; Prigrada
Hrčak ID:
230728
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.12.2019.
Posjeta: 2.221 *