Bosnian culture

Historically, Bosnians were a pretty tolerant lot, their land peopled with practitioners of Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism and a host of other religions and ideologies. Their art and architecture reflected this diversity, as did their cuisine.

Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims are all South Slavs of the same ethnic stock. Physically, they are indistinguishable. Dialects notwithstanding, the people of Bosnia and Hercegovina speak the same language, though that language is called 'Bosnian' in the Muslim part of the Federation, 'Croatian' in Croat-controlled parts and 'Serbian' in the Republika Srpska. The Federation uses Latin script, while the Serbs use Cyrillic. There are over 30 letters in the alphabet, many of them pronounced as they are in English. Bosnia takes its name from the Bosna River that runs through it, Hercegovina from the herceg (duke) who ruled the southern portion of the region until the 15th-century Turkish conquest.

Removing one's shoes is customary in Muslim households; the host family will provide slippers. In general, the Bosnian people are incredibly friendly toward visitors, but when conversation turns to politics, your best strategy is to listen. People are eager to talk about the war but are generally convinced that their side is right.

The country's Eastern background is evident in its cuisine of grilled meats, bosanski lonac (a stew of cabbage and meat), baklava (a Turkish sweet) and the ubiquitous servings of burek and pida (layered cheese or meat pies). Vegetarians have fewer choices, but there's always sirnica (cheese pie) or zeljanica (spinach pie). Tufahije is an apple cake topped with walnuts and whipped cream.

Bosnia's best known author is Ivo Andric, the Nobel prize-winning author of Bridge over the Drina, the first of a trilogy of historical novels. Another thing the country's famous for, it may surprise you to learn, is basketball, Bosnia's most popular sport. What may surprise you further, in case you hadn't heard, is that their players are really good.

A brief history of Bosnia-Herzegovina

The territories of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina were part of Illyria and later part of the Roman Empire (provinces Dalmatia and Pannonia). After the fall of Rome, the area was contested by the Byzantine Empire and Rome's successors in the West. Slavs settled the region in the 6th century. The first mention of the term Bosnia is in De Administrando Imperio, a book by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Byzantine emperor and historian. The kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia split control of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 9th century. The 11th and 12th centuries saw the rule of the region by the kingdom of Hungary.

The medieval banate of Bosnia gained autonomy by the end of the 12th century, and grew into an independent kingdom in 1377 under king Tvrtko Kotromanić. Bosnia remained independent up until 1463, when Ottoman Turks conquered the region and established the Province of Bosnia. In these times there also lived a certain amount of adherents to the so-called Bosnian Church (variously referred to as krstjani, bogumili, etc) which belonged neither to the Western nor to the Eastern Christian churches.

During the four centuries of Ottoman rule, many Bosnians dropped their ties to Christianity in favor of Islam, including most of the faithful of the Bosnian Church. Bosnia was under Ottoman rule until 1878, when it became a colony under Austria-Hungary. While those living in Bosnia were from 1908 officially in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, South Slavs in Serbia and elsewhere were calling for a South Slav state; World War I began with the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Behind the assassination plot was the "Black Hand" organization. The cell which carried out the assassination was made up of Croats, Bosniacs and Serbs, but the fateful shots were fired by the cell's Serb nationalist — Gavrilo Princip. Following the war, Bosnia became part of the South Slav kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed to kingdom of Yugoslavia).

When Yugoslavia was invaded in World War II, all of BH was ceded to Nazi-puppet Croatia. Many of the Bosnian Muslims collabarated with the Croatian fascists to try and wipe out Serbs, Roma, Jews and other "undesirables" in the region, a fact that the Serbs never forgot. The Cold War saw the establishment of the Communist Yugoslavia under Tito, and the reestablishment of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a republic within its Ottoman borders.

The Bosnian-Herzegovinian declaration of sovereignty in October of 1991, was followed by a referendum for independence from Yugoslavia in February 1992 boycotted by the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Serbs. Talks between the leaders of the three peoples of Bosnia (Bosniac leader Alija Izetbegović, Croat leader Stjepan Kljuić and Serb leader Radovan Karadžić) broke down after Serb fears of a Croat/Muslim alliance would lead to a repeat of the aggression against Serbs in the 1940's. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs responded shortly thereafter with armed attacks on Bosnian-Herzegovinian Croats and Bosniaks aimed at partitioning the republic along ethnic lines and joining Serb-held areas. The UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force) was deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in mid-1992. 1992 and 1993 saw the greatest bloodshed in Europe after 1945. Each nation reported many casualties in the three sided conflict, in which the Bosniaks reported the highest number of deaths and casualties. However, the only case officially ruled by the U.N. Hague tribunal as genocide was the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. At the end of the war more than 200,000 had been killed and more than 2 million people fled their homes (including over 1 million to neighboring nations and the west).

On November 21, 1995, in Dayton, Ohio, presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegović), Croatia (Franjo Tuđman), and Serbia (Slobodan Milošević) signed a peace agreement that brought a halt to the three years of war in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the final agreement was signed in Paris on 14 December 1995). The Dayton Agreement succeeded in ending the bloodshed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it institutionalized the division of Bosnia-Herzegovinia between the Muslim, Croat and Serb peoples.

The enforcement of the implementation of the Dayton Agreement was through a UN mandate using various multinational forces: NATO-led IFOR (Implementation Force), which transitioned to the SFOR (Stabilisation Force) the next year, which in turn transitioned to the EU-led EUFOR at end of 2004. The civil administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina is headed by the High Representative of the international community, Lord Ashdown.

The political face of Bosnia

Although the Croats and Muslims still maintain a loose alliance, known as the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the country has more or less been split along ethnic lines, with only a relatively small federal canton, surrounding the national capital Sarajevo, remaining quite ethnically mixed. The country is governed by a federal presidency, which rotates between the presidents of the Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs respectively. The current federal president is Bosnian Serb president Borislav Paravac.

Federal territory

Population: 432.672