Original scientific paper
Social Status and Forced Displacees Belonging to Croatian Noble Families in the Countries They Moved in the Period of the Ottoman Pressure
Ivan Jurković
Abstract
At the time of the Ottoman advance, the whole unoccupied territory of the Kingdom of Croatia-Hungary was in fact one place where the social status of displaced noblemen was not put in question. Precisely because of that factor, the greatest number of Croatian noble refugees/exiles chose unoccupied regions of their own kingdom as places of immigration. Only a smaller number moved to the area of Austrian lands, and that mostly during the period in which still there was no mass migration (prior to the 1510s) and while the borders of these lands were still open. The selectivity practised in the Austrian lands, discriminating between potential immigrants on the basis of such factors as confessional status, during the period of the greatest crisis of the Croatian diaspora (the middle of the sixteenth century) stopped the attempts of the displaced Croatian noblemen to migrate to these lands, because they did not want to reject one element of their identity (confession). In the same way the system of social organisation of the communes of a Mediterranean type hindered the attempts at immigration, because the nobles arriving there had to give up their privileged social position.
Keywords
Croatia; the Early Modern Period; impelled displacees; social status; nobility
Hrčak ID:
7448
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2005.
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