Islam Grčki is located in the Ravni Kotari area, 23 kilometres (14 mi) away from Benkovac and 20 km (12 mi) away from Zadar. The village is also only 3 km (1.9 mi) away from the Adriatic Sea but it does not play a major role in the villages economy.
Name
The original name of the village was Saddislam, meaning "The wall of Islam" in Ottoman Turkish which marked the final frontier of the Ottoman Empire.
In the 18th century, when the village split in two, the name changed to Islam Grčki. While Islam stayed from the original name, the adjectiveGrčki (meaning "Greek") stands for the religion of the villagers - Orthodoxy. The other part of the split up village, Islam Latinski, got its name from the religious belief of its settlers - Catholicism.[citation needed]
The history of Islam Grčki goes back to the Middle Ages. The village was an Uskok stronghold in the 16th and 17th century.
The most notable Uskok leader Stojan Janković got possession of the village after the Cretan War. He built the villages most notable object - the Janković Kula.
The Orthodox Church of St. George, Janković-church, built in 1675.
During World War II the village, a Serb enclave surrounded by Croatian villages, was a firm Chetnik militia stronghold. Some villagers also joined the Italian collaborationist Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia.
A big part of the villages population fled during the war and the village itself suffered a lot material damage. Janković Kula, for instance, was destroyed in the shelling of 1993 but was being rebuilt as of 2012.[4]
Demographics
The village is predominantly ethnic Serb,[5][6] and as of 2011 has 150 inhabitants.[7] This represents 13.17% of its pre-war population according to the 1991 census.
The 1991 census[8] recorded that 87.00% of the village population were ethnic Serbs (991/1139), 9.39% were Croats (107/1139) while 3.61% were of other ethnic origin (41/1139).
Village of Islam Grčki: Population trends 1857–2021
