Culture of Disobedience on the Military Frontier in the 18th Century: Survival of Ringleaders Simeon Filipović and Todor Kijuk

The paper investigates the development of the culture of disobedience on the Military Frontier. Based on a number of sources related to two rebellions on the Ban’s Frontier or Banska krajina (1730/1731 and 1751), the paper analyzes a gradual change in the methods of protest, like long-term negotiation and lobbying, that the frontiersmen increasingly used instead of physical violence in order to protect and preserve their legal and social status. The early modern Habsburg state, on the other hand, began to deploy more lenient and educational measures instead of brutal physical punishment in order to control disobedient frontiersmen and further their interests. As a result, the ringleaders of two rebellions, Simeon Filipović and Todor Kijuk, escaped capital punishment, while the frontier society became more homogeneous and stable, as well as more responsive to Habsburg military needs.