Voynuks

Voynuks
Active14th to 16th century
AllegianceOttoman Empire
TypeChristian auxiliary force
RoleInfantry

Voynuks (sometimes called voynugans or voynegans) were members of the privileged[1] Ottoman military social class established in the 1370s or the 1380s. Voynuks were tax-exempt non-Muslim, usually Slavic,[2] and also non-Slavic Vlach[3] Ottoman subjects from the Balkans, particularly from the regions of southern Serbia, Macedonia, Thessaly, Bulgaria and Albania and much less in Bosnia and around the DanubeSava region.[4][5] Voynuks belonged to the Sanjak of Voynuk which was not a territorial unit like other sanjaks but a separate organisational unit of the Ottoman Empire.

  1. ^ Ömer Turan (1998). The Turkish minority in Bulgaria, 1878-1908. Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. p. 26. ISBN 978-975-16-0955-7. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
  2. ^ Király, Béla Kalman; Rothenberg, Gunther Erich (1989). War and Society in East Central Europe: The fall of medieval kingdom of Hungary: Mohacs 1526-Buda 1541. Brooklyn College Press : distributed by Columbia University Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-88033-152-4. LCCN 88-62290. Retrieved 11 March 2013. Voynuk: non-Muslim (usually Slavic) auxiliary in Ottoman service.
  3. ^ Vjeran Kursar. OTAM, 34/Güz 2013, 115-161: Being an Ottoman Vlach: On Vlach Identity (Ies), Role and Status in Western Parts of the Ottoman Balkans (15th-18th Centuries). Bir Osmanlı Eflakı Olmak: Osmanlı Balkanlarının Batı Bölgelerinde Eflak Kimliği, Görevi ve Vaziyetine Dair (15.-18. Yüzyıllar). OTAM, Ankara Üniversitesi. pp. 143–144.
  4. ^ Mesut Uyar; Edward J. Erickson (23 September 2009). A Military History of the Ottomans: From Osman to Atatürk. ABC-CLIO. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-275-98876-0. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
  5. ^ John Andreas Olsen; Colin S. Gray (27 October 2011). The Practice of Strategy: From Alexander the Great to the Present. Oxford University Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-19-960863-8. Retrieved 10 March 2013.