Professional paper

THE CAVES OF SENJ’S USKOKS

VLADO BOŽIĆ

Abstract

Although there have been written quite a lot of papers related to Senj’s Uskoks, there are only a few related to the caves where they temporarily hid. The Uskoks were refugees from southern Croatian regions who, escaping from the Turks, first found shelter in Klis and when in 1537 Turks took this castle, the Uskoks moved to Senj. Senj was their centre until 1624 when their activities stopped. Although they were fearless and brave on the sea as on the coast, they were rational enough to leave in front of much stronger enemy, mostly the Venetians, when they then hid in hills and caves. The most difficult time for them was at the beginning of the 17th century when the notorious Captain Rabatt became Senj’s Imperial Deputy. He demanded their complete obedience. Whoever did not accept this, was killed or had to leave Senj. Some Uskoks were hiding in hills. In literature we can find notes about some karst caves, especially the Orlovo Gnijezdo (Eagle’s Nest) cave.
Hrvoje Cvitanović, Jasmina Osterman and Vlado Božić formed a team and researched the terrain of Senj’s hinterland on the 24th and 25th November 2004. They explored three caves: Orlovo Gnijezdo, Orlovac in the cliffs of Orlovo Gnijezdo, 5 kilometres from Senj and the Senjkinjica cave only 800 metres from the Senj’s town’s walls. It was found out that the Orlovo Gnijezdo cave (which is in the middle of the Orlovo Gnijezdo cliffs) makes a chain of three semi-holes. Only in one of them were traces of fires found but it was not established how old those traces are. In the Orlovac cave in the west foot of the Orlovo Gnijezdo cliffs no human traces were found. There were many human traces found in the Senjkinjica cave (more fire layers and bones) in the layers of the cave floor.
This short research did not give unambiguous answers to the question of where the Uskoks hid. To obtain more results it would be necessary to carried out a history and archaeology research of all of the settlements in Senj’s hinterland and systematic potholing research in this region.

Keywords

cave; uskok; Senj

Hrčak ID:

17830

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/17830

Publication date:

30.12.2004.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

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