Sixteenth-Century Poturnak Endowments in the Ottoman Western Balkans: The Boljanić Family

Charitable endowments known as vakıf bolstered the urbanization, Islamization, and Ottomanization of the western Balkans. Some of the wealthiest and the most famous of these endowments were established by Ottoman state officials native to the region. This article focuses on two such officials, Hüseyin Pasha Boljanić (d. 1595) and Kara Sinan Bey Boljanić (d. 1582). These two brothers entered into Ottoman service through the devşirme, a levy of young men from rural and mostly Christian subjects living in parts of Anatolia and the Balkans. Hüseyin Pasha and Kara Sinan Bey are somewhat exceptional because they were Poturnak oğlanları, Muslim recruits for the devşirme. This article examines the motives behind their endowments. It places these motives in the larger context of the brothers’ shared identity as Poturnak oğlanları, their commercial and military interests, their relationship with the republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), and their family’s connection to the famed Sokollus. In doing so, this article elucidates how endowments in the western Balkans reflected the backgrounds, regional identities, and personal interests of their benefactors, as well as how they were shaped by their benefactors’ intisap (political clientage) and kinship ties.