The Christianised »Turk« Anton Husič and his 316-year-old family line in Pobrežje, White Carniola

Abstract

A letter of privilege that Count Hans Adam Purgstall issued to his serf Anton Husič in 1707 at the Podbrežje Castle in White Carniola standing on the present-day Slovenian-Croatian border, bears the first testimony of the fact that a few Christianised Muslims, mostly Turkish prisoners of war, also settled the Slovenian territory as colonists. This highly rare practice has so far been suggested by a handful of patronymics. Although several tens of christenings of so-called »Turks«, mostly women and children, were recorded until the end of the 17^th century, almost nothing is known about their later lives. Anton Husič, who originally came from the area of the present-day border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, served Count Purgstall in the Military Frontier from his christening onwards (before 1690). Then he received a farmstead in White Carniola with various pertaining benefits as a reward for his loyalty. His example is especially interesting because a part of his estate in Purga near Pobrežje is still home to the ninth generation of his descendants and to the last person with the family name Husič. The latter is more commonly found in the surrounding villages where the side branches of the family settled from the end of the 18^th century onwards.