Great Serb Migrations - Number of Migrants

Number of Migrants

Sources are providing different data regarding the number of people in the first migration:

• Two statements from Arsenije himself survive. In 1690 he wrote "more than 30,000 souls", and six years later he wrote that it was "more than 40,000 souls".
• more than 60,000 people led by the Patriarch from Belgrade to the Kingdom of Hungary, according to Cardinal Kolonić (Kollonich) in 1703. Nevertheless, Kollonich may have been inclined to exaggerate the number of Serbs that had moved to the Habsburg territory.
• 37,000 families into Habsburg Monarchy, according to a manuscript at Šišatovac monastery written by monk Stefan of Ravanica 28 years after the First wave.
• 37,000 families, according to a book by Pavle Julinac, printed in 1765.
• 37,000 families led by the Patriarch, according to Jovan Rajić, published in 1794-5.
• 37,000 families led by the Patriarch, according to Johann Engel, published 1801.
• Émile Picot concluded that it was 35,000 to 40,000 families, between 400,000 and 500,000 people. "It is a constant tradition that this population is counted by families, not by heads" also insisting that these were large extended families (see Zadruga).
• The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, supports the figure of 37,000 families.
• Tatjana Popović, cites as many as 60,000 Serbian migrant families for the First Serbian migration alone.
• at least 30,000 people, according to Stevan K. Pavlowitch.
• 20,000-30,000 people, according to "Teatri europei".

Data that states that 37,000 families participated in this migration derives from a single source: a Serbian monastic chronicle which was written many years after the event and contains several other errors. Some researchers (for example Frederick Anscombe) maintain that the migrations never took place (or never in such a large scale), and describe the events as a "myth" created to lay claim to the territory of Kosovo in the 19th century.