Ottoman Military Administration in Eighteenth-Century Bosnia.

• Author: Cigar, Norman
• Position: Review

By MICHAEL ROBERT HICKOK. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. xxiii + 176. HFl 145, $90.75.

Michael R. Hickok's contribution to Brill's series "The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage" sheds considerable new light on Ottoman Bosnia, whose history - or rather legends of "Ottoman despotism" or unabated "one thousand years of conflict" posing as history - has been used recently to instruct international policy or to justify excesses. Hickok takes on these and other more scholarly theories which have become conventional wisdom and succeeds in providing alternate interpretations that are backed by impressive research in the Ottoman records.

The recurring theme in this book is that the nature of Ottoman rule in Bosnia, far from being exercised by force (the "Ottoman yoke") or through a narrow "collaborationist" stratum, was a more complex process and that during the period under study - the eighteenth century - it relied on a broad consensus based on shared objectives and expectations between the central Ottoman state apparatus and the local population. Indeed, it was the local Bosnians themselves who provided the armed militia needed to defend the province and to maintain public order in cooperation with the Ottoman central government.

While the entire book can be seen as a case study, Hickok also uses the analytical approach of several embedded mini case studies focused on how the Ottoman governors - which Hickok identifies as the pivotal institution - dealt with specific challenges such as the Habsburg military threat, elite dissidence, the turbulence of Montenegrin clans in league with the Russians, and corrupt government officials. This problem-oriented approach provides a useful concrete context in which to examine how the Ottoman government functioned when dealing with key issues in defense, fiscal policy, and local administration. Hickok's focus on the victorious campaign of 1737 against the invading Habsburg Army, for example, shows that the local militia was not an independent force but, rather, was controlled by the Ottoman governor through his power of the purse, which also entailed involvement by the latter in central aspects of recruitment, promotions, and maintenance of this military force. What is more, the author makes a convincing case that this local militia was competent, merit-based, and cost-effective in defending the province from outside attacks, and emblematic of what - again contrary to received wisdom - was for most of the...