THE PRINCIPALITY OF POLJICA*
From its Mediaeval Inception to its Fall in 1807
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Journal
of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of
America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by
permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Among the
many European mediaeval principalities, which after centuries of varying
fortune went under, one after another in the aftermath of the French Revolution,
the Croatian principality of Poljica (pronounced Pol'yeetsa), with its special
brand of rural democracy, occupied a special, indeed unique position. Its most
conspicuous feature was that throughout its long and eventful history, unlike
any other of its sister states, it never developed an urban centres on its
territory. Its economy almost exclusive) depended on animal farming and
agriculture. Although its territory included a good stretch of Adriatic
coastline, shipping never played a significant part in its economy. Nor was
there a concentrated effort to develop fishing. The reason for this, no doubt,
was part) due to the absence of good natural harbours, where ships and small
craft could shelter from weather, but also partly to the fact that the steep mountain
ranges made access to the coast difficult. All the same, there did not seem to
be a great deal of interest in the sea.
However, what set Poljica even more apart from other European
principalities was its political constitution, which was in category of its
own. For although throughout the principality history, its social structure
retained many distinctly feudal feature; the sheer complexity of its political
organisation, the two species of nobility, the unusually large number of
'noble' families in proportion to the size of its population[1],
with no single family ever gaining the position of dominance, and especially
the intricate system of tribal and individual property ownership, made Poljica
unlike any other community in feudal Europe.
In Poljica, it seems, there were no serfs in the more extreme sense of
this term. Instead, there were bonded peasants, who were allowed to own
property of their own, and could in principle leave their masters if they so
wished, provided they surrendered their master's property. Moreover, it seems,
it was accepted that the could leave their masters even without the latter's
consent if the had been maltreated in any way.[2]
There were also independent tenant farmers and free labourers and herdsmen; the
last of these belonging mainly to the tiny minority of surviving Illyrian
tribesmen, descended from the pre-Roman and pre-Slav population of Dalmatia,
and occupying the bottom end of the social scale. Yet despite the social
differences, a general consensus in important decisions was a statutory
requirement. Thus a number of articles of the principality's statute begins
with the significant phrase 'All the men of Poljica together have resolved ...'
or words to this effect.[3]
The prince had to be a nobleman, but his office was not hereditary and both the
prince and the other main officials of the principality's government were
elected to their respective offices for a one-year term only.
THE GEOGRAPHIC POSITION
The territory of the principality - or, as local people often also
called it, 'commune' or 'county'[4]
- occupied an area of approximately 100 sq. miles of mountainous land just to
the south of the town of split, between the rivers Žrnovnica and Cetina, and
except for a relatively short stretch of the ragged open terrain to the
northwest where its border was not marked by any distinctive natural features,
physically it was a fairly enclosed, easily identifiably entity; which is, no
doubt, why its name survives to this day as a geographic concept, even though
administratively it has long been parcelled out and divided among neighbouring
districts. The dominant physical feature of the area is the Mosor massif, which
stretches along the whole length of the principality and whose highest peak
rises to nearly 4,500 ft. The physical shape of the massif is such that it
divides thee area roughly into three distinct regions: Upper Poljica to the
north, between the main Mosor range and Cetina river; Central Poljica,
beginning in the west with a valley, almost at sea level, and rising to a high
plateau between the main mountain range and the Tatter's southern ridges; and
Littoral Poljica, representing a stretch of mostly terraced land, sloping from
the Perun, Vršina and Mošnjica hights down to the sea. For the most part, the
area consists of rocky, unhospitable terrain, with sparse vegetation, and,
except for the middle part and the coastal area, relatively little arable land.
Not surprisingly, the population of Poljica, until the very recent sharp rise
in number due mainly to tourism, remained always fairly small. One of the early
visitors to the county, the classical scholar and writer a geographical topics
Palladius Fuscus Patavinus, who in the second part of the 15th century
(probably not later than 1460), made a exploratory journey down the 'Illyrian'
coast, found that Poljica at that time was inhabited by about two thousand
people, who he noted, lived 'under their own laws and for a long time past ha
not been subject to any external authority.[5] Three and half centuries earlier, when
Poljica first emerged into being as a self governing commune, its population
was probably less than half that number. Gradually the rate of growth picked
up, but not by a large amount. Thus some three and a half centuries after
Fuscui in 1781, a census of Poljica's twelve katuni (villages, or
cluster of hamlets) revealed the population figure of only 6,813; and in 1806,
the French-appointed civilian governor of Dalmatia Vicenzo Dandolo recorded an
even smaller number: 6,566. A hundred and fifty years after this, in 1953, just
before the advent of the modern tourist boom, a census showed an increase to a
little below twelve thousand.[6] Clearly there were limits to the number of
mouths the county could feed with its modest resources.
THE NAME 'POLJICA'
Yet the Poljicans tended their meagre fields with meticulous care and
clung to their land with prodigious loyalty and pride than inspired many a
romantic legend. There is a story about the origins of the name of the county
that perhaps owes something to this romantic sentiment. According to the widely
held view the name 'Poljica' draws its root from the small, sometimes
near-circular fields (field = polje) or plots of fertile land, of which there
are a great many in the mountains, and which often have been reclaimed for
cultivation only at great effort by being labouriously cleared of stones,
sometimes boulder-size, that had lain there half buried in the soil and now can
be seen heaped up in mounds or neatly stacked up in dry walls that rim the
fields. Yet plausible though it appears at first sight, this explanation needs
to be firmed up by more evidence if it is to stand up to closer scrutiny. To
begin with, the supposed etymology of the name does not make an impeccable
grammatical sense.[7] But quite apart from this, there are other
similarly named places elsewhere in Europe that point to different linguistic
roots, for example the town of Polizzi (the mediaeval Policium) in Sicily.
Another example is the town of Montepulciano in the province of Siena (the mediaeval
Castellum Politianum) whose citizens still refer to themselves as 'i
poliziani'.[8]
As to how exactly Poljica got its name may never be established with
complete certainty, but perhaps it is not altogether unreasonable to suppose
that its name derives from politia (i.e. the Latin form of
πολτεια) which in the Middle Ages was a term
often loosely applied to any kind of organized community;[9]
or, at any rate, from the italianate versions of politia, such as polizza,
policia, polizia, all of which, incidentally, as well as politia, occur in
mediaeval documents as names of Poljica.[10]
What seems likely is that the county was given its name by foreigners
some time during the 12th, or possible in the early 13th century, when, by all
accounts, its ancient conventions and legal practices were codified in its
first written statute. In earlier times, it was known simply as 'Mosor'
(Massarum) or the 'parish of Mosor.'[11] Moreover the latter designation seems to
have been confined exclusively to Central and Upper Poljica. By contrast,
Littoral Poljica, for a considerable time, seems to have had something of a
special status. Thus in early Middle Ages, possibly as far back as the 8th
century, long before Poljica came into being as a sell governing commune,
Poljica's Littoral seems to have formed part of what was known as Parathalassia
(i.e. Littoral Region or County), which stretched on either side of Split and
included some islands; and which, according to the testimony of the Byzantin
emperor Constantine Porphirogenitus, was one of the eleven 'županijas' into
which Croatia was divided at the time.[12] Parathalassia, or Littoral County, whose
administrative centre was Klis[13],
survived as an administrative entity until well into the Middle Ages, albeit
with varying boundaries. This, added to the fact that Split patricians owned a
great deal of land in Poljica' coastal region, was responsible for the somewhat
ambiguous political status of the Poljica Littoral within Poljica proper. Thus
the heads of the three 'katuni' from this area (Duće, Jesenice and
Podstrana), along with the head of another 'katun' from Central Poljica
(Srinjine), where there was also a considerable number of bonded peasants
working the Split-owned land, were not eligible to stand for election as Prince
or judges, even though they all had full voting rights.
The centre of power in Poljica was always in the mountain interior,
where most of the principality's 'nobility' lived. Annual open air electoral
assemblies were held on St. Georges day (23 April) near the village of Gata in
Central Poljica, in a place called Podgradac. There the twelve 'katunari' or
village headmen, a elected representatives of their respective villages,
together will all the nobility, would gather to elect the new government of the
principality. That a place near Gata was chosen for this all important annual
event was perhaps not entirely accidental, for as a recent archeological
discovery of the remains of a large sixth century Byzantine church in Gata[14]
seems to suggest, this village must have been some kind of centre - perhaps the
administrative as well as market centre - of this region already a long time
before the arrival of the Slavs.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE FREE COMMUNE.
CONFLICT WITH SPLIT
Slav tribes migrating from the north, began settling in the territory of
Roman Dalmatia during the sixth century, but the Croats did not arrive there,
it seems, until the third decade of the seventh century, probably between 625-630.
They came from what is in later sources described as 'White Croatia'[15] ('white' being the colour symbol for
'west'), a region comprising parts of modern southern Poland and eastern
Czechoslovakia. As they made their way to the coast, they engaged in fierce
battle with the Avars, whom they eventually subdued. A large number of the
Croats subsequently settled close to the old Roman towns such as Salona (sacked
by the Avars in 614), the neighbouring town of Split (which grew rapidly due to
the influx of Salona refugees), and the town of Zadar farther up the coast, all
of which at that time were under the jurisdiction of Byzantium. It was this
region that some two centuries later formed the nucleus of the Croatian
mediaeval state.
The territory of Poljica, or rather its mountainous interior, it seems,
did not at first attract many settlers among the newcomers, and in early
documents a significant proportion of it was regularly referred to as terra
regalis, the crown property. Some of this land was donated by the various Croat
princes to the Split Archdiocese, partly no doubt in an attempt to secure the
good will of the local hierarchy and smooth out the often tense relations with
a city which was still largely populated by Latins, and partly as a means of enhancing
their own prestige. This, however, later became a constant source of friction
and hostility between the Poljicans and the Split Church, especially after
repeated attempts were made by the Archdiocese to extend its possessions in
Poljica on the basis of forged title deeds. Violent clashes were a frequent
occurrence, and in one tragic incident that took place in August 1180, the
Archbishop Rainerius, who came to Poljica to repossess some disputed land, was
attacked and stoned to death by local peasants.[16]
This
conflict over land was exacerbated by the fact that the Split Church
represented the powerful Latin culture, which with its enormous prestige and
superior literacy was increasingly penetrating into all aspects of social life,
and was feared by the Slav population as a threat to their own identity. This
was the main reason why, for example, there was a continuing and stubborn
resistance, notably in Poljica itself, to the Church's attempts to replace the
Croat vernacular by Latin in church liturgy. This was also the reason why the
Croats insisted on retaining their own Glagolitic script. The Glagolitic, and
later the specifically Croatian version of the Cyrillic, became important
instruments of cultural self-assertion in face of the Latin 'threat'. The
Church, for a long time, tried unsuccessfully to break this resistance,
particularly where liturgy was concerned, and it was not until 1750 that the
Split Archdiocese, no doubt with a tacit agreement of the Vatican decided to
come to terms with the situation and establish the first 'Glagolitic' Seminary
for training of young priests in the Poljica village of Priko. It should be
mentioned at this point that the statute of Poljica was itself written in
Croatian Cyrillic. This version of the Cyrillic, described in the statute
itself as 'Croatian' but more widely known as Bosančica, remained in use
in parts of Southern Croatia until the 19th century, when it increasingly began
to yield ground to the Latin alphabet and soon all but vanished. The Glagolitic
too slowly went into a decline, and was eventually dropped by church
authorities as a liturgical script, even though old Glagolitic texts continued
to be used by individual clergy for some time afterwards. In 1927 the old
paleo-Croatian (Old Church Slavonic) Roman Missal written in Glagolitic
characters, that ha been in use hitherto, was re-issued for the first (and
only) time is a Latin transcription, and since then no new liturgical books
have been printed in Glagolitic. This transcribed Missal remained in us until
the Second Vatican Council when the paleo-Croatian, as well as Latin, were
finally abandoned in favour of modern vernacular.
The term Bosančica indicates a connection with Bosnia, an in
Poljica in particular the ties with Bosnia are deeply rooted in history. The
local tradition in Poljica links the origins of the commune with the arrival
there, probably in 949 AD, of the three son of the Croatian king Miroslav -
Tješimir ('Tišemir' in the local dialect) Krešimir and Elem[17]
- following the murder of their father at the hands of the Bosnian banus
(governor) Pribina during the civil war that flared up, it seems, over the
rights of succession and the question of regional autonomy, shortly after the
death of Krešimir I. who had died four years previously.[18]
It was these princes and their families that, according to the local tradition,
were the originators of the three ruling clans of Poljica, which are mentioned
by name in Article 3 of the oldest surviving copy of the Statute. They were
Poljica's old gentry, the didići as the Statute calls them (did
= grandfather).
THE TREATY OF ZADAR OF 1358 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR POLJICA
The commune increasingly asserted its internal autonomy, and for the
next four hundred years or so it was effectively ruled by the didiči,
even though during lengthy periods in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it
was formally under the jurisdiction of the Priors (or Princes) of Split. Later
on, the didići were joined by a second species of nobility, the
so-called vlastela. The arrival of the vlastela can be traced to
the ascendancy of the Hungarian power around the middle of the 14th century
under Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary and (from 1370) of Poland. Croatia had
been formally united with Hungary in a personal union in 1102, following the
expiry of the Croatian royal line after the death of Zvonimir. The Hungarian
claim to the Croat throne arose from the circumstance that Zvonimir's wife was
a Hungarian princess. The union of the two countries was eventually set up, but
not before the Hungarians had waged a military campaign against the
anti-unionist forces in Croatia and managed to defeat them in a decisive battle
on Mount Gvozd in 1097. The opposition to the Hungarian rule, however, continued
to simmer under the surface, and this was perhaps nowhere more so than in
Poljica itself. On one notable occasion the Poljicans with a deliberate display
of defiance gave their full support to their arch-enemy, Split, when the city
fathers decided to deny sanctuary to king Bela IV, who had fled to Dalmatia
during the Tartar invasion in 1242.
However, there were other powers who competed with the Hungarians for
the control of Dalmatia, and chief among them was Venice. Whereas in northern
Croatia the Hungarians gradually succeeded in consolidating their rule,
southern Croatia, what with continuing local resistance, the constant
incursions of Venice and the devious political machinations by the Byzantium
(later to be replaced by the Turks), remained very much a disputed territory.
This situation changed in 1358, when Louis managed to gain control over
the whole of Dalmatia by a treaty concluded with Venice and signed on February
18 that year in Zadar. By his marriage, five years previously, to Elizabeth
Kotromanić, daughter of the Bosnian banus Stjepan Kotromanić, Louis
had secured for himself a wide measure of support throughout Croatia, and in
1358 even the independent republic of Dubrovnik, in a gesture of solidarity,
voluntarily placed itself under his suzerainty.[19]
Having forced the Venetians out of Dalmatia, Louis immediately proceeded
to make a number of new administrative appointments, one of which was that of a
royal commissioner for Poljica, The commissioner - a man by the name of Juraj
Rajčić - arrive there, it seems, in June of the same year. Since he
was in the king' service and came from a region in the north that was
officially regarded as part of Hungary, even though himself ethnically Croat he
became known locally as 'the Hungarian'. It was his descendants, who eventually
settled in Poljica and largely inter-married with the then most prominent
Poljican family of Dražoević,[20]
that represented Poljica's second species of nobility - the so-caller vlastela.
The arrival of the vlastela entailed some constitutional change
in the internal political structure in the county, and this inevitably caused a
great deal of friction. The relations between the vlastela and the ancient
'tribal' nobility, the didići, were never easy especially since the
vlastela tended to insist on their superior rank and demanded for themselves
the positions of power in the commune. Eventually a power-sharing formula was
devised whereby the didiči chose the prince from the ranks of vlastela,
while the vlastela chose the duke, or vojvoda, from the ranks of didiči.
The vojvoda was in charge of military matters, and was responsible in
particular for law and order. In addition, the magistrates and the procurators
were also elected from the ranks of didiči. This arrangement, with
the exception of the periods during which the commune was forced to accept the
prince of Split as their titular ruler, remained in force until the late
eighteenth century, when the didići finally re-established their
position of dominance and restored their right to stand for prince, as well as
the other offices in the principality.
THE RELATIONS WITH VENICE
Louis died in 1382, and the period that followed was market by a power
struggle and political turmoil, as a result of which the Hungarian influence,
especially in littoral Croatia, went into a sharp decline, from which it never
entirely recovered. For a short period Bosnia, under king Tvrtko (who was a
nephew of Stjepan Kotromanić and Queen Elizabeth's first cousin) filled
the power vacuum and assumed the dominant role in Balkan politics. In 1385
Poljica readily recognised Bosnian suzerainty, whereas notably Split, at least
initially, declared its allegiance to the German/Roman emperor Sigismund, who
in March of that same year succeeded to the Hungarian/Croatian throne.
Sigismund
was never much liked, however, and he had an uphill struggle trying to
establish his authority. In southern Croatia, in particular, such support as he
was able to drum up for himself, even after Bosnia's influence in the region
had waned, was patchy and short-lived. The local magnates opposed him,
naturally enough, primarily because they resented his interference and wanted
to protect and expand their own fiefdoms, but their opposition found a wider
echo among the local population, who nursed a long standing grudge against the
enforced tutelage by the meddlesome northern neighbour.
However, the opponents of Sigismund, though fairly numerous, were not
strong enough to unseat him, and they appealed for support - with ruinous
consequences, as it turned out - to Ladislaus of Naples, who was a distant
relative of Louis I. Eventually, Ladislaus was persuaded to come to Zadar,
where on 5 August 1403 he was crowned by the rebels as king of Croatia and
Hungary. It was a political gesture that many of them soon had a cause to
regret. For when a few years later Sigismund's luck turned, Ladislaus decided
that it was not worth his while to pursue his doubtful claim to the Hungarian
throne and withdrew from the conflict, having sold, in 1409, his Dalmatian
possessions (the towns of Zadar, Novigrad and Vrana, and the island of Pag)
together with all his rights to Dalmatia to Venice for one hundred thousand
ducats. This unsavoury deal was to remain for a long time in the memory of the
local people as a supreme act of treachery. It enabled Venice, almost exactly
fifty years after the Treaty of Zadar, to return to Dalmatia, and to entrench
itself firmly along most of the Croatian Adriatic coast (the only significant
exception being Dubrovnik) where it remained in continuous occupation for the
next four hundred odd years, until its own demise in 1797.
The Venetians did not move in unopposed, however, and it took them some
time before they were able to crush the armed resistance they encountered in
various parts of the country. They first occupied major towns, from which they
mounted military expeditions into the surrounding territory. At the end of
1443, their navy invaded littoral Poljica, and the following January the
neighbouring town of Omiš, one of the last remaining free strongholds,
surrendered to their forces. This placed Poljica in an impossible position,
and, after much heart-searching, the Poljica's leaders decided they had no
option but to agree to accept Venetian suzerainty in exchange for a recognition
of their ancient privileges. A deal to this effect was struck in Split on 29
January 1444, and was officially approved, with minor alterations, by the doge
on March 3rd. It is generally believed that the oldest surviving manuscript of the
Statute of Poljica was prepared specifically for the purpose of these
negotiations, although this cannot be established with certainty.[21]
The relations with Venice, initially, were extremely uneasy with the
Poljicans jealously guarding their internal autonomy, and looking for possible
alternatives to the Venetian connection. However, with the Turkish menace
drawing ever nearer, the Poljicans found themselves increasingly relying on
Venice, both for arms supplies and such protection as the Venetian diplomacy
was able to afford them. A major Turkish detachment crossed the river Cetina
into Poljica for the first time in 1500, taking one hundred and fifty people
prisoner. From then on incursions and acme clashes were a daily occurrence.
Often Poljicans were forced to fight beyond their borders, chiefly but not
exclusively in surrounding Dalmatian and Bosnian districts, as part of the
Venetian troupe to which they were obliged by treaty to contribute five hundred
men.
UNDER TURKISH SUZERAINTY
However, as the military situation deteriorated, it soon became obvious
that Venice was unable to offer any effective protection and the Poljicans came
reluctantly to the conclusion that the only way to save their country from
total destruction and secure some semblance of peace was to place themselves
formally under Turkish suzerainty. It was a traumatic change of policy, which,
as it turned out, did not produce the results they had hoped for. Very little
is known about the actual negotiations they conducted with Turkish
representatives, or the contents of the final treaty. However, from a report
submitted to the Venetian Senate by the prince of Split in February 1514, it
transpires that by that time the Poljicans had already agreed terms with the
Turks, involving, among other unspecified, conditions, a payment of an annual
tribute. In return the Turkish Sultan apparently gave orders to his military
commanders in the area to treat with civility his newly acquired subjects.[22]
The agreement never worked, and for the next two hundred odd years
Poljica led a precarious existence, often fighting at the edge of extinction.
This was without a doubt one of the most difficult periods in its entire
history. It was not until 1699, when the Treaty of Karlovac was concluded, that
Poljica was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Following the heavy defeat of
their armies at the hands of the Austrians at Zenta on the Tisa two years
previously, the Turks were forced to agree to peace terms, involving, among
other things, a re-drawing of the borders in Dalmatia, whereby the territory of
Poljica reverted to the Venetian jurisdiction. From the Poljicans point of
view, a complete independence would have been preferable, but the Venetian rule
was definitely lesser of the two evils.
There was no question that the Turks, mainly because of their sheer
physical proximity and notorious ferocity, were regarded as the main enemy. The
extreme severity of the penalties that the principality's statute decrees for
anyone who might be tempted to collaborate with them, testifies to the strength
of the feeling in the community on this issue. The battles that the Poljicans
fought with the Turks were numerous and savage. Often the Poljicans themselves
provoked armed clashes by refusing to pay the heavy tribute imposed on them by
their masters. They tended to use any political or military reversal that the
Turks suffered elsewhere as an excuse to stop payment of the tribute, whereupon
the Turks would mount a punitive expedition and there would be a bloody battle,
with numerous casualties on both sides. Most of these clashes occurred in Upper
Poljica close to the north-eastern approaches to the county, but skirmishes and
even full-scale battles in the interior of the county were not uncommon. On
these occasions many acts of prodigious heroism were performed, later to be
sung about and recounted in countless folk songs and folk tales. One such act
of heroism due to a young woman by the name of Mila Gojsalić ingrained
itself particularly deeply on popular memory and is celebrated to this day as a
symbol of Poljica's spirit of resistance in numerous poems, plays, and at least
one modern opera.[23]
When in 1530 a large Turkish force invaded Poljica, Mila Gojsalić, by all
accounts a striking local beauty, walked into the Turkish camp on the pretext
of wishing to offer herself to the Turkish commander, and used the occasion to
set the gun powder alight, whereupon the Poljicans launched an attack and
routed the invaders. A life-size statue of Mila by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović
was erected close to the place where these events took place as recently as
1967.
THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS
The Treaty of Karlovac of 1699 liberated Poljica from the Turkish
dominion, but the Turks remained in the neighbourhood and one more savage round
of fighting was still to come. The Turkish resentment at the humiliating terms
they were forced to accept at Karlovac finally came to the boil in 1715, when
they launched a new offensive against the Venetian-held territory in Dalmatia
and elsewhere. Initially they scored some successes, but then the campaign ran
into severe trouble, especially after they became en broiled in an additional
war with Austria the following year. At the end, mainly through the mediation
of England and Holland a peace agreement was signed in Požarevac in 1718, with
Turkey once again being compelled to give way and relinquish some of its
previously held territories. It was on this occasion that the line separating
the Turkish occupied Bosnia from the Venetian-held Dalmatia was finally
settled. This line, with minor alterations, still marks the border between the
two provinces.
Although most of the fighting on this occasion took place we outside
Poljica's own territory, the Poljicans took part in some of the fiercest
battles as part of the Venetian army. As always when fighting the Turks, they
fought with bravery and distinction, which earned them much praise, but very
little else. Once the fighting was over, there were still the Venetian taxes to
be paid, which, in view of the total impoverishment of their county as a result
of the ravages and devastations of continuous wars, represented a heavy burden.
In 1705 the taxes were set at three hundred Venetian gross per every property
owner per year, payable in four quarterly instalments. Moreover the Venetians
decreed that everyone who owned land in Poljica, however small the possession,
had to pay the same amount, even if the owner had long left the county and had
settled elsewhere.
Yet what with the general feeling of war weariness and the desire to
rebuild their commune, the Poljicans were not in a mood for a new fight, and
the relations with Venice actually improve in the remaining decades of the
century. The Venetians, provide they received their taxes, were happy to let
the Poljicans order the: lives as they pleased. As a result, as years went by,
the economy of the county began to show real signs of improvement. Fields were
tilled again, houses were rebuilt, and the Poljicans began to build up an
increasingly profitable export trade with their wine, olive oil and fruit,
especially the small black 'maraschino' cherry, which grew there in abundance
and was sold mainly as a raw material, for the world famous liqueur of the same
name produced at Zadar.
However, no sooner they had begun to enjoy a taste of modest prosperity
than the threat of a new war suddenly appeared on the horizon. The French
Revolution broke out in 1789, and as its shock waves began to spread throughout
Europe, in Dalmatia, as elsewhere, there was a great deal of agitation,
especially by the Church, against the 'godless Jacobins'. Napoleon's victorious
Italian campaign propelled the fears of the conservative establishment to a new
pitch, and when Venice herself came under threat, there was a frantic attempt
by the local administration and some sections of the clergy to whip up support
for her by portraying her as a defender of the faith against the French
'Antichrist'. This did not fail to make an impression on God-fearing Poljicans,
who immediately offered to send voluntiers to Venice, even before the official
recruitment campaign got under way. As it happened, it all ended in a farce.
The ruling oligarchy of the 'Serene Republic' realised that time was up, and
gave in without a fight, and Venice as a state ceased to exist.
Following the fall of Venice, most of its former possessions in Dalmatia
were annexed by the Austrians, but when in 1805 Napoleon routed the Austrian
armies at Austerlitz, they were forced to surrender Dalmatia to France, and in
February 1806 the first French military contingent arrived in Zadar, the
administrative centre of Dalmatia. For a great many local people, but
especially for the ruling nobility, the arrival of the French was a traumatic
experience. The Poljicans, in particular, had a good reason to be apprehensive
about their future. Suddenly they found themselves at the mercy of a new master
who was much more powerful than any of the others they had to contend with in
the past. But more worrying still was the fact that the French had brought with
them the new revolutionary ideas, which the spectacular victories of their
armies gave a powerful impetus throughout Europe. A confrontation at the social
as well political level was inevitable. The French looked at Poljica, at first,
with wry amusement, but soon lost patience when the Poljicans began to insist
on their privileges. The new administration set about introducing new judicial
and fiscal measures, as well as launching a recruitment drive for the army,
without paying much attention to local interests and local sensitivities. This
inevitably caused a great deal of alarm and resentment among the population.
Before long, the whole of Poljica was astir.
Changes were very necessary, but the habits were centuries old.
Unhappily the manner in which the new administration went about implementing
the new measures was such that they upset more people than they otherwise might
have done. To make things worse, the Russian warships, which had been cruising
off the Dalmatian coast, keeping an eye on French military movements, and,
whenever the opportunity presented itself, harassing French garrisons, suddenly
turned up off the coast of Poljica. A contact was established with the local
leaders, and the Russian admiral Sinyavin lost no time in trying to encourage
the Poljicans to rise against the French, promising help in men and material.
Eventually, after a stormy meeting of Poljica's leaders in the Glagolitic
Seminary in the village of Priko, it was decided to begin armed resistance
against French troupes. In view of the circumstances, it was a hopeless and
futile gesture, as the Russians, in particular, must have known.
The dissenters were very much in a minority. According to an eye-witness
report, one of the dissenters, the 'Glagolitic' priest and professor at the
Seminary Marko Kružičević, who had travelled through Italy and
happened to be in Venice when the French troupes marched into that city,
apparently made valiant efforts to persuade his compatriots to change their
mind, but to no avail. The plan went ahead, and, predictably, ended in
disaster. Admiral Sinyavin, at first, made a show of support by landing some of
his marines,[24] but when a
large detachment of French infantry came on the scene and began attacking him
from the surrounding mountain heights, he quickly withdrew his men back to his
ships and sailed off. The French suppressed the rebellion with extreme
savagery, wreaking terrible vengeance upon the local population. The Russians,
for their part, disembarked most of the rebels who fled with them on the
neighbouring island of Brač, and after some more unsuccessful attempts to
encourage anti-French resistance further down the coast they eventually sailed
for home, taking with them the last prince of Poljica. He died in St.
Petersburg in 1816.
The rebellion lasted seven days. The first shots were fired on 4 June
1807, when an attack was made on a small detachment of French soldiers
escorting a shipment of supplies from Split to Omit. Seven days later, on June
11, it all ended in ignominy when the Russians turned tail and made off. On
that same day the French administration issued a public statement announcing
the abolition of Poljica's old privileges and statutes, and its full
integration into the French legal and fiscal system. In addition, Poljica's
territory was to be split up and divided between the three neighbouring
districts. This decision was given the force of law on 21 September of the same
year, and the political history of Poljica as an autonomous principality, going
back seven centuries, was thereby brought to an end.
Within only a few months, the only other free Croatian principality on
the Adriatic, the republic of Dubrovnik, suffered a similar fate. After a year
and a half of occupation, and de facto abrogation of its sovereignty, the
French formally abolished it on 31 January 1808. It is interesting to compare
these two principalities. Although situated only about a hundred miles apart,
they could not have been more dissimilar in their political organization and
style of life. One was typically city-based, very much like the majority of
western European principalities at the time; the other was exclusively rural.
In its heyday Dubrovnik was renowned for its extraordinary achievements in literature,
art, science and architecture, as well as for its wealth and commercial acumen.
By contrast, Poljica was poor, little known beyond its borders, and could
hardly boast a similar record of achievements in the field of culture. Living
as they did, in a geographically and politically highly exposed position and
having to fight daily for bare existence, the Poljicans had no time to build
fine cathedrals or write leasurly verse. Yet they were by no means culturally
inactive, and their mediaeval monks in particular initiated a tradition of
education which was kept alive even during the darkest periods of Poljica's
history. The Benedictine abbey of St Peter of Gumay established in the eleventh
century in the village of Selo (the present day Sumpetar), the cartulary of
which survives to this day[25]
played an important part in promoting general education in the area during the
two and a half centuries of its existence. However, it was Poljica's
'Glagolitic' clergy and the religious, who were mainly responsible for
continuing the educational effort and maintaining the tradition of indigenous
culture. Throughout its history Poljica identified itself closely with the
'Glagolitic Movement', fostering and furthering the 'Glagolitic' tradition as
an instrument of national self-assertion in the face of the powerful Latin
culture, and it was in Poljica that the majority of 'Glagolitic' priests
working in this part of Dalmatia received their training. The famous
illuminated 'Glagolitic' Missal of Hrvoje was in all probability designed and
executed by Poljican monks around 1404.
But the most remarkable and unusual document to come out of Poljica is
its statute. In its surviving version it represents a collection of rules and
regulations spanning several centuries. It provides a fascinating record of the
fortunes of a small community of peasant farmers, who tried to organize their
lives as best they could in uniquely adverse circumstances, and survived on
little more than the love of their country and faith in each other.
* This paper was presented at the 19th National
Convention of the American Association for Advancement of Slavic Studies
held in Boston, November 5-8, 1987.
[1] A document
from 1799, prepared at the behest of the new Austrian administration, following
the fall of Venice, for the purpose of settling the dispute over ancient titles
and privileges, lists 79 such families, plus a number of other living outside
Poljica, but descended from its gentry.
[2] For a bondsman to leave his lord 'secretly', or
without going through the prescribed procedure, was a punishable offence, but
not, it seems, if there was a good cause. Thus the article 89c of the statute
of the principality states explicitly: … different cases should be treated on
their merits. A man is free to flee from evil if he can.
[3] Cf. articles 21, 23a, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29 of
the Statute.
[4] The
Croatian terms used were općina (commune) and župa (in its older sense,
which was indistinguishable from that of županija, i.e. 'county', rather
than in its more restricted modern sense of 'church parish'), as well as knežija
(principality).
[5] 'Ea [Poljica -
E.P.) vicatim tantum habitata ad duo millia virorum continet, qui suis iuribus
viventes nulli externo diu paruerunt'. See Palladius Fuscus Patavinus, De situ orae llyrici, reprinted
in Thesaurus Antiquitatum, ed. Joannus Georgius Graevius, Leyden 1725,
p. 454. Fuscus, who taught rhetoric at Justinopolis (the Istrian town of Koper)
is said to have 'floruit in humanioribus' around 1445, and 'claruit' cca. 1470;
and it would seem that he made his journey some time between these two dates.
His reference to the Poljicans not being subject to 'any external authority' is
particularly interesting, since it seems to indicate that the Venetian
suzerainty which - if other sources are to be believed - Poljica was acknowledging at the time was little more than a
business arrangement whereby Venice undertook to provide such protection as she
could from external enemies in exchange for a suitable annual tribute or tax;
with Poljica enjoying full autonomy in internal matters.
[6] cf.
Ivo Rubić: Poljica, in Poljički Zbornik, Vol. II,
Zagreb 1968, p. 29.
[7] The
diminutive form of the Croatian word 'polje' is 'poljence' or 'police'; which yields
the plural 'poljenca'/'poljca' - never 'poljica'.
[8] The famous
15th century humanist and poet Poliziano (1454-1494) came from this town.
[9] Any kind of
'regimen' or 'administratio' seemed to have qualified as 'politia'. (Cf. Du
Cange). Palladius Fuscus, incidentally, says explicitly that Poljica was called
Politia by the natives ('ab indigenis Politia vocatur'). Op. cit.
(See footnote 5).
[10] See Ivan
Pivčević: 'Nekoliko poljičkih isprava iz XV. stoljeća';
Supplement to 'Bulletino di archeologia e storia dalmata' 1908.
[11] One of the earliest references to 'Massarum' occurs
in an endowment deed by the Croatian duke Trpimir in 852. 'Massarum' is also
mentioned in a similar deed by king Zvonimir in 1078, and again in the
Cartulary of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter of Gurney 1080-1187; cf.
English edition (ed. E. Pivčevič, Bristol 1984) p. 75. The Split
historian Archdeacon Thomas (1200-1268) in his Historia Salonitana (cf.
facsimile reprint with translation by V. Rismondo, Split 1977, pp. 46
and 236) in an eleventh century context speaks only of the 'parish of Mosor'
parochia Massarum). It is only when recounting some events that took place in
1239 that he seems to make an oblique reference to Poljica, viz. by briefly
mentioning a certain Tollen Polizian(us), who, it transpires, was an
'implacable enemy of the Split people' and who, to the latter's evident relief,
suddenly died that year (see pp. 112 and 330).
[12] See De
Administrando Imperio, Greek and English, Greek text edited by Gy
Moravcsik. translation by R.J.H. Jenkins, Budapest 1949, p. 145.
[13] A fortress
in a mountain pass between the Mosor and Kozjak mountains controlling the
access to Split from the interior.
[14] See Frane
Mihanović: 'Arheološka istraživanja oko crkve i u crkvi sv. Cipri jana u Gatima', in Poljica, No. 1(10),
1985, p. 51. See also J. Jeličič: 'Ikonografiji ranokrščanske
lunete iz Gata', in Prilozi Povijesti Umjetnosti u Dalmaciji, Vol. 25
Split 1985.
[15] See De
Administrando Imperio, chps. 30 and 31.
[16] This incident
is recounted by Archdeacon Thomas in his Historia Salonitane (see
footnote 11) p. 68.
[17] The last of
these was probably a nickname derived from 'Velimir' or 'Velemir'.
[18] The murder
of Miroslav by banus Pribina is referred to by Constantine Porphirogenitus in
his account of Croatian history. See De
Administrando Imperio ch. 31.
[19] The humiliating withdrawal of the Venetians from
Dalmatia imposed on them by the Treaty of Zadar - although, as it turned out,
their withdrawal was only temporary, for they came back fifty years later - was
celebrated at the time throughout the land as a great national event, and Louis
and his Croatian Queen were feted as national heroes. Louis came to Zadar for
the signing of the Treaty, and his entry into the city is depicted in a relief
on the silver sarcophagus of St Simeon, the patron Saint of Zadar, which was
specially commissioned by Queen Elizabeth from local craftsmen. The sarcophagus
was completed in 1380.
[20] For more
details about the Dražoevič family see: Rafo Ferri, 'Prilog ispitivan ju
porijekla osnivača Poljičke republike', in Poljički zbornik,
Vol. II, Zagreb 1971 pp. 35-41. See also: Tomislav Heres,
'Poljički knez Žarko Dražoević u povijesti književnosti', in Poljica,
Vol. IX, Gata 1984, pp. 25-43. According to these writers the family of
Dražoević belonged to the 'Tišemir' clan of the didiči-nobles.
[21] The
manuscript has suffered some damage, and in particular one of the letter
symbols indicating its date of origin appears to be missing. Only the letter
symbols signifying the year 1400 are clearly visible. According to V. Jagić, the
missing letter symbol was probably M (40), which would mean that the manuscript
originate in 1440. However, if this conjecture is correct, then (contrary to Jagić's
own speculation) the connection between this particular copy of the statute and
the negotiations with Venice becomes extremely tenuous, for it is not clear why
the Poljican needed to prepare a copy of the statute for the negotiations which
did not take place until four years subsequently. The manuscript, incidentally,
contains in its heading an explicit reference to an earlier, unfortunately
lost, version of the Statute. Cf. V Jagić, Poljički statut, in
'Monumenta historico-juridica slavorum meridionalium' Vol. IV, Zagreb 1890.
[22] Cf. Ivan
Pivčević, Povijest Poljica, Split 1921, p. 61.
[23] The opera,
by the composer Jakov Gotovac, was first performed in 1952.
[24] According to the French military governor of Dalmatia
Marshal Marmont (cf. 'Memoirs du duc de Raguse de 1792 a 1832', Paris 1857), Sinyavin landed a thousand men, but Marmont, who came
to Poljica to take personal charge of the French military operation, is clearly
exaggerating in order to magnify his own victory in forcing the Russians to
beat a hasty retreat, without himself suffering any serious losses. Local
sources put the number of Russians at five hundred, which is probably closer to
the mark.
[25] See footnote 11 for details of the English edition.