engleski

Mars wandering the city: foreign soldiers in the service of the Republic of Venice garrisoned in the city of Zadar during the War of Crete (1645–1669)

During almost 400 years of Venetian governance in Dalmatia, the city of Zadar was a cultural, administrative, economic and military capital of the province. Therefore, together with the residents and local people from the city district, its urban area was a rather dynamic scenery of all kinds of people of various professions, from all over Europe. Both high and low representatives of the Church, rich and petty merchants, artisans, mariners, suspicious vagabonds, all of them reached Zadar, some of them never to leave it again and some just passing through. Of course, the military factor, from highest rank officers to an ordinary soldatesque, was omnipresent in the city as well, especially during the times of war. Although, on a large scale thanks to its modern fortifications, never directly besieged by the Ottoman army, the city was up to the War of Crete constantly endangered by military operations in the hinterland. Thus, the presence of soldiers on the streets of Zadar was a part of its daily life and since the Republic of Venice recruited the troops not only from its possessions, but from many European lands, ethnic and cultural differences were highly visible. This can be clearly seen, among other sources, in the public notarial scripts where soldiers are constant actors in all kinds of businesses. The main goal of this paper is hence, through the analysis primarily of the aforementioned sources, to show which ethnic military groups or individuals were present in Zadar and to what extent, what were soldiers' modes of interaction with the civil residents together with the level of their acceptance in the local circles, and in which economic and social ranks they were present in the city. Mapping soldiers within the material of almost 2500 documents produced by the Zaratine notaries active in the period of interest will surely bring some new light on diverse ethnic, social and cultural groups in a city on one of the European early modern borderlands, on a large scale influenced exactly by millitary affairs and frequent warfare.

military history, urban history, Venetian army, War of Crete, Dalmatia, Zadar

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