Along the Black River outside of Plitvički Ljeskovac
Lika county in its present day borders is located within the blue circle in the below map and its borders are outlined in red. These borders have changed over time, resulting in some villages being in both different counties and countries over time.
Lika county is presently called Lika-Senj County in the country of Croatia. For a long period the county was named Lika-Krbava which related to two major valleys; the River Lika valley around Gospić and the Krbava plain which starts in the north around Bunić and south to around Gračac. The county of Lika encompassed a far greater area including larger population areas around Korenica, Otočac (the valley of Gacka Dolina), Brinje and the south east around Lapac.
The following map shows the main population centres in present day Lika. The current population is around 50,000, which is roughly half of the population before 1995. The present county boundaries in the below map are in pink and the area in vivid green. What was southern Lika is now in the county of Zadar. The town of Gračac (bottom right) used to be a key Lika settlement. Lika extended south of Gračac and to the east to the Bosnian border. Parts of Bosnia to the west and south west of Bihac (middle right of the map) also used to be part of Lika. In the north, the town of Plaški and surrounding area was variously part of Lika and the historic county of Kordun. The are only two towns of any size inland, Otočac (pop.4200) and Gospić (6500) and on the coast only Senj (4800). Some of the once larger Serb villages are missing from the map. The most developed areas are the Plitvice Lakes national park (north east, coloured dark green) and of course the coast.
Which Country was/is Lika in?
Lika county was and is part of Croatia. Until 1918, Croatia was a part of the various iterations of the Hungarian, Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empires for a millennium. Between 1918 and 1995 Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, excepting 1941 to 1945 when it was an independent state aligned to Germany. In 1992 Croatia become an independent country on the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Having been previously under the control of the Croatian nobility, central and southern Lika became part of the Ottoman empire after the major defeat of a Croatian army on the Krbava plain in Lika in 1493. Following this, the remaining part of Lika came under the direct control of the Austrian authorities in 1578 as part of the Empire’s military border strategy to hold back further Ottoman (Turkish) advances. This military border, the ‘Krajina’, stretched from the Adriatic coast to Hungary and roughly along the present day border between Croatia and Bosnia and into Serbia. Lika was the most western part of Krajina.
By the end of 17th century the Ottomans had been pushed out of much of central and southern Lika, which returned to Austrian control. At the end of the 18th century following the final major conflict between Austrian and Ottoman Empires, the most easterly part of Lika came under Austrian control, establishing a new border between the Empires.
For a few years in the early 19th century, Lika was ceded to the French following Napoleon’s defeat of Austrian forces, but returned to Austrian control by 1814.
In 1874, the military border and direct authority was returned to the Croatian civil state although it remained a part of the Empire. Until 1918, Lika county was officially in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and therefore anyone born before 1918 in Lika was an Austrian citizen. Many Lika immigrants to the USA before World War One state they are Austrian (and some as Hungarian) for this reason. The reference to Hungary is explained by the fact that Lika was nominally under the Hungarian crown in the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867 to 1918).
At the end of World War One, the Allies created a new country from the remnants of the Austrian and Ottoman Empires and the independent state of Serbia. In 1918 this new country was named the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was formally changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (translates to ‘South Slavs’) in 1929. It was a deemed a Kingdom based on the Serbian royal family.
The Germans invaded Yugoslavia in 1941 and Croatia declared independence and aligned itself with the Axis powers, collapsing in 1945. After World War Two, Croatia (and Lika) became part of Yugoslavia again under Tito’s communist regime becoming one of the six states of Yugoslavia. With the break-up of Yugoslavia starting 1990, Croatia gained independence in 1992 and shortly thereafter Yugoslavia ceased to exist, replaced by the new countries of; Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia (some areas remain disputed a generation later, namely Bosnian Serb Republic and Kosovo).
Who were the people who lived in Lika?
In the early 12th century, Croatia became part of Hungary and as with the rest of Hungarian lands, Lika county was a feudal society dominated by a relatively few families. In Lika, this was mainly the Frankopans, although they held sway over other counties as well. Given the proximity to the Adriatic coast there was also a number of Venetian population centres which would have contained mixed ethnicities. The Croatian nobility and catholic church in the 14th century noted a population of Morlachs (translated as either black or north Vlahs) living in the Adriatic hinterland that included Lika. The ethnicity of these Morlachs and more generally the Vlahs is much debated, as is the use of these terms. It is unlikely this will ever be resolved as unambiguous fact. The Vlahs are generally identified as of latin origin who were migratory sheep herders and lived across the Balkans.
Venetian travellers in the 18th century continued to identify people in the Adriatic hinterland as Morlachs, however by this time Lika was already populated by large numbers of Orthodox peoples from Ottoman conquered territories. The term ‘Vlah’ continues to be used by some historians to describe the Orthodox people who settled in Lika. If these people in Lika were not Serbs or otherwise not of slavic origin they very quickly learned Serbian, adopted Serbian names and customs.
Ottoman advances in to the Balkans in the 14th century precipitated migrations of christians northwards. The subjugation of Bosnia by the Ottomans during the mid-15th century resulted in further migrations. Rothenburg writes, “Corvinus [Hungarian leader 1458-1490 ] now undertook to establish a system of frontier defense. The Turkish advance had driven thousands of Serbian refugees, generally of the Greek Orthodox faith, into Hungary and Croatia. They were given land and promised religious toleration; in return they undertook to form a frontier guard against Turkish raids. The strongest settlements were established in Lika and Krbava.“
These Orthodox peoples came from Serbia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, Montenegro and various other smaller ethnic groups migrated such as Vlahs, Greeks, and Albanians amongst others. Ottoman advances across South East Europe resulted in numerous migration upheavals over the centuries and together with Ottoman forced resettlement it created mixed ethnic groups particularly around border areas.
With the death of Corvinus in 1490, the Ottomans realised further gains. In 1493, the Ottomans defeated the Croatian nobility at the battle of Krbava field in Lika causing major upheaval and migration in Croatia; many fled north leaving the conquered and bordering areas depopulated.
By the early to mid 16th century the Ottomans were settling central and southern Lika including Orthodox peoples from other parts of the empire. A new border was established just to the south of the town of Otočac, to the east in Vrhovine and further east to the north of Korenica. Bihać a town in north west Bosnia not far from Korenica remained in Hapsburg hands until 1592, although effectively surrounded.
The new Austrian/Ottoman border in Lika gave way to an environment of cross border raiding. On the Austrian side these raiders became known as Uskoks (skok meaning ‘to jump’). They comprised Catholics, Orthodox and even a few Muslims. Similarly, Ottoman raiding parties attacked Austrian territory in a similar fashion. Raiding mainly consisted of theft of cattle and foodstuffs and the destruction of property. Ottoman raiders also enslaved large numbers of people to be sold across the Empire while the Uskoks adopted a ransom approach as slavery was not economically viable.
The border area had been mainly managed by Croatian and Slavonian nobles (under the leadership of Hungarian Banus), but mainly financed by Austria. However in 1578 Archduke Charles took full control of the border region. In western Croatia a fortress was built as headquarters for the western part of the new Military Border ( Krajina ) and was named Karlstadt (later Karlovac). The Austrians reignited Corvinus’ strategy of settling Orthodox peoples in depopulated border lands and similarly promised land, ‘freeman‘ status (Croatia was a feudal society) and freedom of religion. In return, settlers defended the border; soldiers first, farmers second. This Austrian strategy, while providing an effective and inexpensive bulwark against the Ottoman threat, also served to keep the catholic and orthodox communities separate although the discipline of the Austrian army mainly maintained order. The removal of the Austrian Empire from the equation after word war 1 led to the near inevitable carnage during world war 2.
This initial period of direct Austrian military rule from the late 16th century and for the next 100 years saw the greatest influx and settlement of Orthodox peoples to the counties of Lika and Kordun in the western Krajina. Anecdotal evidence suggests some of these people moved from central and northern Bosnia although this had been only a temporary home. Many Lika people believe their origins are from Serbia particularly Kosovo, Montenegro and Hercegovina. Almost certainly, groups from Ottoman Lika also moved north into Austrian Lika. In the general turmoil of the extremities of the Ottoman Empire anything was possible.
When the Ottomans failed for a second time to capture Vienna in 1683, Lika Graničari (Grenzers) and Uskok groups took the opportunity to push the Ottomans out of Lika. This resulted in a land grab with many arriving from other parts of the Austrian empire. Together with those that remained (including muslim converts), Ottoman Lika was settled from Austrian Lika by both Croatians and Serbs and almost certainly by Orthodox peoples from Bosnia which remained under Ottoman rule.
In a similar timeframe, an uprising against the Ottomans in Serbia encouraged by the Austrians failed. This resulted in a large migration of Serbians and others into mainly Hungary from 1690 (present day Vojvodina in Serbia and in western Hungary and Romania), but also caused migration ripples across to western Krajina.
Given the history and its pivotal position through centuries of conflict it is unsurprising that the people of Lika have a mixed heritage. However, as the Ottoman threat waned the Lika populous coalesced around two communities namely, catholic Croats and orthodox Serbs, irrespective of their historic ethnic origin. In the main, these two communities mainly married within their religious grouping.
18th to 20th Centuries
Military actions and skirmishes along the long border continued during the 18th century culminating in the final major conflict between Austrian and Ottoman Empires, the war of 1788 to 1791, which concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Sistova. In Lika, this resulted in additional land being handed to the Austrians and included the key villages of Petrovo Selo, Srb, Lapac and Drežnik in Kordun county. Although already likely populated with christian peoples, additional peoples arrived from Ottoman Bosnia.
The Austrians restructured the military border organisation in 1748 such that the Graničari were formally incorporated in to the Austrian army. In the west, four new regiments were established based in Gospić, Otočac, Ogulin and Slunj. This change resulted in detailed records being maintained for the Graničari and included their village of origin, their religious affiliation and even their children’s names. These records provide an insight in to makeup of the Lika population from the mid-18th century onwards, for example, the 1807 Austrian Army census shows that the Otočac based regiment was comprised of roughly 50% Orthodox soldiers. For a short period from 1809 to 1814 Lika became part of the French Empire following Napoleon’s defeat of Austria.
From the early 1800s farmable land in a mainly upland terrain that characterises the majority of Lika became increasingly scarce due to population growth. Following the Hungarian uprising of 1848 some Lika people migrated to eastern Croatian (Slavonia and likely Srem) where good quality farmland became relatively cheap, so much so that it was also settled by Czechs, Germans and Italians.
As the Ottoman threat faded and its control of northern Bosnia quickly reducing Lika people started to migrate in to this part of Bosnia which became a flood after the Ottomans left. By 1878, the Austrian Empire took de facto control of all Bosnia, which essentially triggered the long march to World War One as Serbia claimed authority over Bosnia given the majority of the population was orthodox peoples.
The massive migration from Europe to the USA leading to World War 1 included thousands of Lika men, women and children. Many settled permanently in the industrial and mining centres across the USA.
Following World War 1, there were again Lika migrations into Slavonia and interestingly also to Kosovo and Macedonia (today the country of North Macedonia). In Slavonia, new villages were established such Licko Novo Selo (Lika New Village). The same pattern followed after World War 2 as Yugoslavia under Tito looked to populate lands on the eastern border with Hungary part of which had been confiscated from the historic ‘volkdeutsche’ settlers along the Danube. Close to the new Hungarian border a number of villages were established comprising many Lika migrants. A largish group of Lika Serbs (known as četniks) who had been fighting Croatian fascists and then Tito’s partizans left Lika towards the end of World War 2 and were re-settled by the Allies in mainly the UK, Canada, USA, and Australia.
With Tito breaking from Stalin in the 1950s, Yugoslavia signed agreements in the late 1950s and early 1960 with various counties, in particular Germany and Sweden, allowing Yugoslav citizens to work in these burgeoning economies. This had a significant positive impact on the Lika economy by the 1970s, however as relations relaxed more and more Lika workers settled permanently in these countries. The reducing Lika population was compounded by the major trend of young people moving from rural Lika to Yugoslav cities to, for example, Zagreb, Belgrade and the towns along the Adriatic coast, which by the 1970s had become a major tourist destination for mainly Germans.
The breakup of Yugoslavia starting in 1990 lead to the mass exodus of Lika Serbs in 1995 (estimated at 40,000), settling mainly in Serbia and some in the Bosnian Serb Republic. While a few old people had stayed and some returned to Lika a few years later, the official Serb population in Lika as of 2011 was 13% compared to around 50% prior to 1990. The reality is that this percentage is reducing quickly as the largely old Serb population dwindles away and it is expected that within a generation will have essentially disappeared.
Lika Ancestors 