Families and Households of the Pribidola in the Municipality of Srebrenica during the 19th Century

Abstract

The turbulent past has marked the entire area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially its peripheral parts, which were often influenced by violent demographic changes, reflecting on various population structures. The wider area of Podrinje was affected by forced migrations of the Bosniak population during the 19th and 20th centuries. The expulsion of Bosniaks from the Principality of Serbia in the early 1830s significantly impacted the demographic structures of the Bosnian Podrinje region, especially the Osat region. This study does not explore various anthropogeographic changes in the settlement of Pribidol, whether they occurred during normal or forced social events, but rather investigates the process of family formation and households during the 19th century. The most important historical sources used for the mentioned research are: the Ottoman census of male household members of the Srebrenica District in 1850/51, the Ottoman cadaster of 1867/75, the list of residential property owners from 1880/84, as well as the land registry books of the Srebrenica District in 1894. This study explored the families that lived in the settlement of Pribidol during the 19th century. These are the following families: Ahmetović, Aljić, Begić, Dervišević, Džananović, Halilović, Husić, Ibišević, Ibrahimović, Janković, Marković, Mešanović, Mitrović, Muminović, Mustafić, Osmanović, Salkić, and Smajić. In the Muslim area of Pribidol, 19 households, or family households, were recorded, with a total of 79 male individuals, with an average age of 20.1 years. In the then-independent settlement of Pribidol, 15 households were recorded, with 59 male individuals, with an average age of 19.0 years. In the Barakovići mahalla, 3 households were recorded, with 14 male individuals, and in the independent settlement of Zgunja, one household was recorded with a total of 6 male individuals. Therefore, the total population of Bosniak Pribidol was around 160 individuals of both sexes. During the conducted census in 1850/51, only two families had a family surname, which changed in the early 1880s. According to the 1879 census in the settlement of Gaj (Turkish Pribidol), there were 171 inhabitants (93 male individuals) all of Bosniak nationality. There were 25 houses and an equal number of apartments in the settlement, with an average of 6.8 individuals per household. The 1895 census recorded 315 inhabitants (158 male individuals). There were 255 Bosniaks and 60 Orthodox inhabitants. There were a total of 50 houses (2 uninhabited) with 50 households - an average size of 6.3 members. Between 1850/51 and 1895, there was a significant increase in the population of the settlement of Pribidol, especially in the last census of 1895. This growth was conditioned by the settlement of Orthodox inhabitants, who constituted 25% of the total population in 1895. The list of residential property owners from 1880/84 identified three new mahallas (Kadrići, Podševar, and Živkovići) compared to the census of 1850/51. These Bosniak families of the settlement of Pribidol persisted throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, either through male or female lines, except for changes in the family surname among married female inhabitants. Some family surnames ceased to exist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, either due to the extinction of their male members or their emigration from the settlement of Pribidol. This particularly applies to families with the surnames Ahmetović, Halilović, and Mešanović. The number of households (families) increased among other Bosniak families until the mid-20th century, and some of their members moved to other settlements in the Podrinje region, primarily around the cities of Bijeljina, Bratunac, and Srebrenica.