Grad janjičara – Društvena previranja i nemiri u Mostaru tokom 18. stoljeća
The City of Janissaries: Social Turmoil and Rebellions in Mostar in the 18th Century

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the political changes in the city of Mostar in the 18th century. The functionality of the Mostar captaincy as well as the legality and authority of its commander are being questioned. The paper indicates the social influence of local janissaries (bashas) and their involvement in numerous rebellions and incidents that represented a form of resistance to new tax claims, but also negation of the authority of the Bosnian Wali and his representatives. The importance of Mehmed Pasha Kukavica’s futile military campaign to Mostar from 1760 is emphasized. That event is marked as an important turning point in the political life of the city, after which the captain definitely loses his primacy in relation to the janissaries from whose ranks the future ayans came. The arbitrary and illegal behaviour of Mostar bashas did not abate even in the following period. On the contrary, everything indicates that it even increased. The author notes that the functions of serdar and ayan in Mostar were unified only at the end of the 18th century, when the janissary leader Ali Aga Dadić, defying Istanbul, established an authoritative and autonomous government in all of Herzegovina. Shortly after the collapse of his family’s political power (1814), the Sublime Porte took decisive steps to establish a new administrative system in the entire Bosnian Eyalet. Thus, the janissary chamber was finally eliminated in Mostar and the captain’s service with the institution of the ayanluk were abolished.

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