engleski

The population of the Ottoman Bosnia in the eighteenth century according to the poll-tax records: methodological issues

The most important source for estimations of the size of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the eighteenth century are documents dealing with the poll-tax (cizye), either as surveys, or as imperial orders and related documents containing totals of the tax receipts (evrak). In the historiography it was almost unanimously believed that the injunctions of the “reform” from 1691 had been actually put in vigor and maintained until the abolition of the cizye in the mid-nineteenth century. This would mean the abandonment of the per household principle in favor of the rigoristic şeriat view, i.e., establishing the per adult male basis, the taxpayers being divided into three classes depending on their wealth. Yet the reexamining of the sources at hand, old and new ones, in particular those which might shed some light on the “practice on the ground”, has shown that the basic fiscal unit was hitherto consisting of the peasant’s farm housing hypothetically a head of household plus two coresidents liable to taxation. In such a way a balance was found between the age- old practical realities and the newly stressed ideological requirements.

Ottoman Bosnia, 18th century, poll-tax receipts, tax assessment

nije evidentirano