Naslov
Letter to the Editor: The Role of the Akinji in the 15th Century Massacre in Čepin, Croatia

Autori
Šlaus, Mario

Izvornik
American journal of physical anthropology (0002-9483) 143 (2010), 1; 162-162

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, pismo uredniku, stručni

Ključne riječi
Croatia; Čepin; perimortem trauma; akinji

Sažetak
As one of the initiators of the joint Smithsonian-Universityof Zagreb scientific project ‘‘Development of a Forensic Data base at the University of Zagreb’’ and a member of the multidisciplinary team of forensic experts commissioned by the Croatian Government to recover and identify victims of the war that followed the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia (Šlaus et al., 2007), I know how hard it is to reconstruct events that happened in a war-torn country just 15–20 years ago. The problems multiply exponentially when the event in question happened almost 600 years ago. It is therefore possible that we have made a mistake and that other parties were responsible for the attack on Cepin, although unfortunately, neither of the candidates mentioned are reasonable suspects. The Hungarian Kingdom could not have attacked Croatia because from 1102 to 1527 Croatia was part of the Hungarian Empire (Budak and Raukar, 2006), while the Habsburgs were, except for a short two year period during which time they ruled the joint Hungarian-Croatian kingdom, not involved in this area until 1527 when Croatian nobles offered them the throne in exchange for protection from further Turkish onslaughts (Kann, 1974). It is of course possible that other, unidentified, military contingents attacked Cepin but we stand by our original arguments that: 1) there is no reason why this attack would not be mentioned in historical sources while the 1441 akinji raid was, and 2) if such (undocumented) attacks were the norm rather than the exception one could expect similarly high frequencies of perimortem trauma in other skeletal series, and analysis of 2, 123 temporally congruent skeletons from the Balkans do not support this. The statement concerning the lifestyle of the akinji during peacetime is true but not relevant to our article that deals with their actions during wartime. In this there is little doubt. Countless contemporary sources show that the akinji raided neighboring countries for slaves—an institution of vital significance for Ottoman society that could maintain itself only through constant importation (Inalcik, 1979), terrorized, and dispersed local populations prior to the arrival of regular Turkish army troops. This was done to prevent the opposing side from fortifying this area and to allow their own army easy maneuvering and uninterrupted access to supplies (Olesnicki, 1941–42). The allegation that we stated that the akinji tried to depopulate Croatia is not true. We stated that the purpose of their actions was to terrorize and disperse local populations from very small, strategically important areas. Finally, I think it is important to point out that the cruelty displayed by some soldiers of the Ottoman Empire almost 600 years ago is by no means specific or unique to this culture. Similar atrocities were perpetrated by numerous other contemporary European countries and going back to my own experiences, modern countries just 15–20 years ago.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Arheologija

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