Safe Haven: The Town of Cajnice, Hercegovina

The mountains of southern Bosnia and Herzegovina would seem to be an unlikely place to seek trans-Mediterranean flows of exchange. This paper, using the remote settlement of Čajniče as a case study, examines the importance of road towns in remote locations as the building blocks of flexible networks of overland travel. A small piece in a much larger system, Čajniče was an important stopping place located in a wild and rugged area. Travelers moving in caravans between Istanbul and the Adriatic coast frequently lodged here, finding security from natural and human threats. Many reports marveled at the town's precarious position on a high ridge between steeply plunging river valleys. Čajniče grew due to is strategic position between population centers and also as a result of two distinct waves of patronage. The first was undertaken by Sufi orders, groups whose lodges often served as the seeds of settlement in inhospitable areas. The second wave was led by a local Ottoman official, Sinan Bey Boljanić. His lead-roofed mosque and caravanserai complex imprinted an imperial and Sunni identity on Čajniče, while also catering to the needs of travelers and local townspeople. Too often dismissed as backwaters or barriers to movement, mountains and mountain towns in the Ottoman Balkans could be well-connected places where multiple languages were spoken and goods from distant lands were exchanged. Čajniče shows the confluence of environment, commerce, and faith in the development of an Ottoman mountain road town.