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DOI: 10.34298/9788677431488077

UDC: 94(497.11):82-992“17/18“

pp. 77–92

language: serbian

Nedeljko V. Radosavljević

KARANOVAC IN FOUR TRAVELOGUES FROM THE LATE 18TH AND THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Summary

At the time of the Habsburg Kingdom of Serbia, Karanovac was a village of only eight houses, belonging to the prnjavor of the Kalenić monastery. After Serbia fell under Ottoman rule anew in 1739, Karanovac’s importance grew as it became a kasaba located on strategic roads. This is also evidenced by travelogues written by persons of different professional and ethnic backgrounds. In 1784, Habsburg sub-lieutenant Joseph Paul Mitesser left testimonies about the access roads to Karanovac from the direction of Kruševac, and the description of the place, an Oriental kasaba at the time. Later, in the 1820s, two travel writers passed through Karanovac – a Serb from Hungary Joakim Vujić, and Prussian officer Otto Dubislav Pirch. In 1826, Vujić left invaluable data on events around Karanovac in the war period of the Serbian Revolution, including its setting on fire and restorations, and a number of data about sacral geography, agrarian relations and social history of the time. In 1829, Pirch accurately defined the position of Karanovac; he, however, did not describe the place, but placed a focus on its environs. The fourth important travel writer, a professor at the Belgrade Lyceum Janko Šafarik, visited Karanovac in 1846, at the time when the Principality of Serbia existed for 16 years already. He also left an important description of this place, which, in the liberated national state, experienced a transformation from an Oriental kasaba into a centre subject to increasingly stronger European influences. Šafarik also devoted more attention to the environs, notably the Žiča monastery. These travelogues testify to the growing importance of Karanovac over time, also supported by the geopolitical changes in the Balkan peninsula.

Keywords: Ottoman Empire, Principality of Serbia, Sanjak of Smederevo, Karanovac, Ibar, village, kasaba, travelogues.