Kodžadžik

Kodžadžik (Коџаџик; Kocacık), is a village in the municipality of Centar Župa, North Macedonia.

Name
A former Ottoman fortress existed at the location of Kodžadžik before the end of the first half of the 15th century. Scholars such as Smiljanić and Hadži Vasiljević stated that a battle between Skanderbeg and the Ottoman Turks took place in the area, and that the name of the village derives from the Ottoman Turkish expression kocacenk, which means big battle.

History
According to historians, the village was first mentioned in 1385 and the name of the village means Great Battle. It was known as Svetigrad before the Ottoman conquest in 1448, in which Ottoman forces captured it from forces of the League of Lezhë after sieging it for three months.

After the Ottoman conquest, according to Turkish historiography, Kodžadžik was settled by Ottoman soldiers and Turkish nomads (Yörüks). The local church was converted to an Ottoman mosque, and Kodžadžik, as part of the sanjak (district) Debra-i Bala, became a center that connected the southeast with Albania and the Adriatic Sea. The fortress of Kodžadžik is recorded in the Ottoman defter of 1467 with 51 household heads being attested who were exempt from paying the haraç tax as long as they maintained the upper fortress. The personal names recorded are of a mixed local Albanian-Slavic (and more generally Christian) character, although the Slavic onomastic element predominates. No Turkic settlers were recorded.

The carpenters of the upper castle, who were also exempt from taxes, were: Gjin Drodgjeri; Bogiçe, son of Gjin; and Aleko, son of Gjin.

During the Ottoman era, the local population converted to Islam and adopted a Turkish identity. Kodžadžik is known for the house of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's parents. The memorial house of Kemal Atatürk's father was reconstructed in Kodžadžik.

On his ethnic map of Northwestern Macedonia in 1929, Afanasy Selishchev marked Kodžadžik as a mixed Bulgarian-Turkish village.

Demographics
The village is inhabited by a Turkish speaking population consisting of Turks.

According to the 2002 census, the village had a total of 275 inhabitants, who all are Turks. As of the 2021 census, Kodžadžik had 146 residents with the following ethnic composition:
 * Turks 141
 * Persons for whom data are taken from administrative sources 5