Kurjak in the Austro-Hungarian Military Maps

As noted in a previous post - the Austro-Hungarian Empire made maps of the area as part of their military surveys.  There were three military surveys.  Here are the close up (or at least somewhat close up) shots of the area in and around Kurjak for those three military surveys:


1st Military Survey (1774-1775):

2nd Military Survey (1865-1869):

3rd Military Survey (1869-1887):

Hungarian Kingdom Map (1869-1887):

There are several fun things to be learned from these maps.  Here are a few highlights:

1)  GRADINA (The ancient hilltop fortress in Kurjak) 

As I have written before, an important part of Kurjak's history is that there was an ancient fortress located in the village.  (Read the early post for more on that!)  That fortress shows up in these maps.  If you look at the 1st military survey, they actually draw pictures of buildings on the map. All of the red are buildings: houses (the squares), churches and fortresses/ruins.  The fortress (gradina) is located in the middle of the map.  Here's a close up view of it too:

(This was drawn before the American revolution.  Awesome!)

In the map from the second military survey you see that the word Gradina is actually located on the map in order to mark its location.  (The 3rd military survey has the work "Baštine" and a little building drawn by it.  That is about the correct location for the fortress.  Is that a word for fortress? I don't know, but that's my guess).  Finally, the Hungarian Kingdom map lists gradina as "malica gradina".  "Mali" is Croatian for small.  I think the is noting that it is a small fort.  This makes sense because the hill where it was located isn't particularly large.

2) Churches in the area

There are two important indicators about the presence of the church.

First, the 1st military survey (circa 1774) has them drawn on the map.  As the map shows there was no church in Kurjak.  Instead there are churches located in the surrounding villages of Srednja Gora, Komich and Mutilich.  If you look you should be able to find all of them.

Second, the 1st and 2nd military surveys mark where the head priest of the area lives (look for the word "Popova", which means priest).  In the first military survey, he lives in Srednja Gora.  In the second survey he lives in Kurjak.  This fits with the other information we have.  Based on this book - a church was finished in Kurjak in 1871.  This puts the chief priest living there at least a few years before (possibly overseeing the final construction?).

3) The "Kljaić" area is shown on the map!

In the 3rd military survey, they included the names of the families living in the area.  The tradition (as I understand it) of the time was that the wife left her family and moved to her husband's family.  Thus the area would stay in the same family for generations.  In the map you can see the name "Klaić".  I have been to the property where Andrew was born and it is indeed in that area.

4) The Opalić family!

Andrew's (Jandre) mother was Stana Opalić.  On the map you'll see their area map too - just across the road from the "Kljaić" area.