The Uskoks of Senj

"Yes, Senj is an island and Uskoks is the name of this particular group of pirates. You can think of this book as a treatment of a group that is like another group which has been studied much more in the Mediterranean, the Barbary corsairs, as the pirates of North Africa were known. But it is a far more sophisticated treatment of a group that defines itself in terms of Muslim-Christian antagonism than you normally get. The Uskoks are a Christian group and the Barbary corsairs were Muslims. Often when you get these pirates who define themselves in religious terms people say, well, they were just opportunistic bandits using religion, or, no, they were filled with religious fervour. She shows how they were both. They were on this little island and they needed to raid in order to sustain themselves, but they justified everything they did in terms of religion and really believed that they were Christian warriors. They also gained currency with the outside world through that ethos. That is not that dissimilar to what the Knights of St John did when they were on Rhodes before they went to Malta in the early 16th century. There they are sitting in Rhodes, a small island surrounded by various Muslim principalities. They have to trade with the Muslims in order to get enough wheat for the island. But, in order to keep the money pouring in from Europe, they present themselves as carrying on the holy crusade against Islam. So with these groups it is not a question of ‘either or’ and I liked that about the book. She shows how their mentality works. As I do with my books, she takes apart this overly simple idea of Muslim versus Christian enmity. She shows that these are Catholic pirates but the Venetians hate them as much as the Ottomans do. She also shows how people along the border, including the Uskoks and Ottoman commanders right across the border in the Balkans share a common culture despite their religions, and how that puts them at odds with the metropolitan centres. The Uskoks and the Ottomans capture each other. There is a lot of ransoming going on – they capture each other and sell each other back to the other side to make some money. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The Venetians and the Ottomans and Hapsburgs say this is terrible, what are you doing; if you capture someone from the other side, kill them. This is a war. On both sides they send letters back saying, yes of course, and then carry on as before. This is the border mentality of people who need to make money, ignoring the metropolitan centres! So the book is very much a study of borderlands and their complicated relationship with the metropolitan centre. She shows that thinking about the Mediterranean in terms of Christianity versus Islam is too simplistic."