3 - Borderland (1450–1800)

Summary

Although the Ottoman conquest is traditionally interpreted as a violent break with the past, this chapter demonstrates that it was enabled by diplomacy as much as warfare. The chapter discusses the early modern Serb society, which formed in the imperial borderlands and was shaped by migrations and wars fought between Christian coalitions led by Hungary and Austria and the Ottoman Empire. Other main topics discussed include the restoration of the Serbian church in the sixteenth century, conversion to Islam of the local population, and migrations to the north of the Danube, following which a Serb plurality was established in southern Hungary. Orthodox Serbs also settled, alongside Catholic Croats, in the Habsburg Military Border, while others were recruited by Ottoman and Venetian armies. During this period, Serbian Orthodox patriarchs became de facto proto-ethnic leaders. A rich oral tradition preserved, and invented, a collective memory of medieval Serbia, while in the eighteenth century educated Serbs embraced the Enlightenment ideas and began to think of Serbs as a modern nation.