Mobilization of Manpower at the End and during the Change of Empires in the Multi-Confessional Borderland "Sandjak" (1900s-1920s)

The main aim of this historiographical approach is to examine a mobilisation process of the local population from the ’’Sandjak’’ region (BHS. Sandžak, Ger. Sandschak) - which is nowadays located between Serbia and Montenegro - into the military and to investigate the relationship between the state and local population between periods of peace and periods of war/conflict. By seeing the conscription as a ’’continuing process’’, I will be analysing the drafting into the military of various state systems. Precisely, I plan to research the recruitment into the Ottoman, Serbian, Montenegrin, Austro-Hungarian, and Yugoslav armies. Beginning from the late Ottoman period and ending with the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, I will be able not only to investigate recruitment efforts of the aforementioned states before and during a war in one particular region, but also to see a social and integration dimension of the military after a war is ended.

Besides doing a regional study of the region that was ruled by five states in very short period of time, I want also to investigate in my dissertation something that we could call ’’discontinuity and re-emerging of loyalty’’. In other words, loyalty to the previous state changes as soon as a new state arrives in the region. Even available literature written in English, BCS, German, and Turkish gives us interesting examples of the conscription process as well as military-civilian relations, an in-depth investigation is necessary in order to avoid the shortcomings of a methodological nationalism and to shed new light on recruitment efforts and social dimensions of the military in the multi-confessional context. The proposed research represents the first attempt to address the military mobilisation by studying it in different state systems. The findings are expected to contribute to a better understanding of the social dimensions of the military

First Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hannes Grandits

Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nora Lafi

• Jovo Miladinović, ’’Jedan osmanlijski izvor o vojsci Kraljevine Srbije iz 1915’’, Vojnoistorijski glasnik 1/2014, str. 253-273 (’’One Ottoman Source on the Serbian Military in 1915,’’ Military History Review, 1/2014, p. 253-273).

   

• Jovo Miladinović, ’’Srpska vojska u osmanlijskim štampanim i rukopisnim izvorima (1881-1915)’’, Vojnoistorijski glasnik 2/2015, str. 54-76 (’’The Serbian Army in the Ottoman Printed and Manuscript Sources, 1881-1915,’’ Military History Review, 2/2015, p. 54-76).