BOSNA I NJEN NAROD

the South Slavic country which has existed in various constitutional forms for around 1000 years. Slavic tribes migrated in large numbers in the 7th century and settled in this area. For the previous five centuries the region, known as Illyria, had been a part of the great Roman Empire, which had imposed its classical civilization on the Illyrians - the orginal inhabitants of this part of the Balkan Peninsula.

Very little is known about the Slavs in BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA during the early Middle Ages. However, research shows that, while the Slavs imposed their language and culture on the Illyrian-Romans, they in turn affected the paleo-Balkan and Illyrian-Roman influences. This heritage found expression in the cultural and spiritual life of BOSNIA in the Middle Ages, and continued even after the Bosnians were convereted to Christianity. They joined the Western Christian civilization some time after it reached the coastal and Panonian regions of Croatia.

It is known that BOSNIA was first mentioned in "De administrando de imperio" , the work of Constantine Porfirigenet, the 10th century Byzantine emperor and historian. With an undefined level of political independence, BOSNIA was at various times under the domination of either Hungary or Byzantium. However, in the first half of the 12th century, a Byzantine author, Ivan Kinamos wrote: "And Bosnia is not subordinated...it is on its own; a nation living its independant life and governing itself..." From the days of ban Kulin (1180-1204) one of the greatest and most important rulers in the history of BOSNIA, the country developed parallel with the neighbouring South Slavic states of Serbia and Croatia.

Early Bosnia probably covered the central territories around the upper course of the river Bosna, where the towns of Visoko, Sarajevo and Zenica stand today. The reign of ban Kulin saw the start of a period of political and economic growth, the expansion of trade and flourishing of cultural life. Indeed, the first mention of "heresy" and the well-known event of 1203- public renunciation of heresy- were connected with the name of ban Kulin. At the same time, despite the established rivalry of Hungary and Byzantium over BOSNIA, the Roman curia became directly involved in the country's politics.

The entire 13th century (under the rule of Matija Ninoslav, Prijezda, Stjepan Kotroman) was marked by political oscillations and dynastic conflicts mostly by Hungarian intervention. There was also a brief, destructive attack by the Tartars in 1242.

The reigns of bans Stjepan II Kotromanic (1322-1353) and Tvrtko Kotromanic (1353 as a ban, 1377-1391 as a king) covered a period of overall development for BOSNIA during which the country reached the climax of its political and territorial power. Tvrtko I gained power and respect that made him the greatest ruler of the Slavic south. BOSNIA contained all the lands from the river Sava in the north to the river Drina in the east, and reached the Adriatic Sea in the southwest, including the long stretch of land from Kotor to Biograd-at-sea and the islands of Korcula, Brac and Hvar.Tvrtko united all the major South Slavic ethnic regions.

After Tvrtko's death, powerful feudal lords took control of the regions. Two of these were the grand dukes Hrvoje Vukcic Hrvatinic and Sandalj Hranic Kosaca. The former ruled in the northwest with his seat in the glorious town of Jajce; the latter in the south at Hum, the present Herzegovina. This was also the time of the first clash with the rising Ottoman power, which took place in 1386 in the valley of the river Neretva. Stjepan dabisa, Jelena, Stjepan Ostoja, Tvrtko II, Stjepan Ostoja again and Stjepan Ostojic succeeded one another rapidly on the throne. Meanwhile, Ottoman influence over BOSNIA increased, although it was to take it 150 years - until the fall of Jajce in 1528 - to complete its conquest. After the great victory of the Ottoman army over Hungary in the battle of Doboj in 1415, Turkish influence became dominant. Indeed, during the reigns of Stjepan Tomas (1443-1461) and Stjepan Tomasevic(1461-1463) BOSNIA turned to the Roman curia for assistance against the threathening Ottoman.

However, at the crucial moment, in the spring of 1463 , Pope Pius II failed to form a European army to prevent Turkey from conquering Bosnia and invading Europe further. The Ottoman army, led by the sultan Mehmed II, seized all the main Bosnian towns and fortifications. King Stjepan Tomasevic was beheaded and the Bosnian Kingdom ceased to exist.

BOSNIA WITHIN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE - Ivan Lovrenovic

BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA remained within the Ottoma Empire for four centuries, until the Austro-Hungarian occupation in 1878. During this time, the Ottoman power changed from the glorious era of sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent (1520-1566) to a period of overall decadence in the second half of the 19th century. The turning point was at the very end of the 17th century, after the Ottoman defeat at Vienna and the establishment of the state border on the river Sava. Throughout this period, BOSNIA stood in the most vital part of the Empire touched "the other world" - Europe and Christianity.

The Ottoman administration always showed respect for the position of BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA, together with a number of its existing traditions. This is illustrated by the fact that, in 1465, they proclaimed the territory they had conquered to be "the Bosnian Kingdom". This was an exception to their usual practice. They also named Matija, son of Radivoje, as "the Bosnian king" and even made sure that he was from the ruling dynasty of the Kotromanices.

In the 16th century BOSNIA finally became a province totally administered by the Ottoman Empire. The Bosnian pashadom (later known as beylerbeylik and eyalet) was formed in 1580. Its first seat was in Banja Luka, moving in 1639 to Sarajevo, then to Travnik in 1697 and back to Sarajevo in 1850. Following the Viennese war, the borders of the Pashadom were almost identical with those of present-day BOSNIA& HERZEGOVINA. Unlike other parts of the Empire, the Ottoman recognized the inheritance rights of Bosnia's feudal lords and in time the Muslim feudal lords in the region enjoyed considerable independence. Due to this, the Muslim leaders rebelled in the 19th century against the reforms coming from Istanbul and sought Bosnian autonomy. The strongest expression of this rebellion was the uprising of Captain Husein Gradascevic in 1831, when the Bosnian army fought grave battles against the Ottoman forces. That rebellion continued for some years, until it was supressed in 1850 by the Sultan's marshal, Omer-pasha Latas.

The social tumult in the 19th century spread among both the Orthodox and the Catholic populations. The Orthodox were affected by the Russian-Balkan policy and the rebellions in Serbia, while the Catholics were influenced by the liberating mission of Austria and the revival of Illyrism in Croatia.

BOSNIA WITHIN THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY I.Lovrenovic

In the young principality of Serbia, during the first half of the 19th century,there were already strong tendencies towards national expansion, which would later become the basic ingredient of the Serbian Balkan policy. That policy was shaped in 1844, in the secret document "Nacertanije" ("The Plan") of the Serbian minister of internal affairs, Ilija Garasanin. The idea of Pan-Serbian hegemony found support in the "linguistic nationalism" of Vuk Karadzic. His work propagated his formula regarding the ethnic unity of the Serbs - "The Serbs-all together and everywhere"- and maintained that the only difference among the people was in their religion - Orthodox,Catholic or Muslim At the very foundation of the centuries-long Serbian hegemony was their aspiration to become a maritime state. The political circumstances of Balkan history, and the creation of nations surr- ounding Serbia, prevented them from reaching the Mediterranean. Therefore, they were forced to look to the Adriatic. However, there were other "brotherly" South Slavic countries in that direction - Croatia, BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA, Montenegro. This, then was to be the main cause of all the conflicts in the South Slavic region from the mid-19th century until the present day.

At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Austro-Hungary obtained a mandate to occupy and govern BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA. In the summer of that year, the Austro-Hungarian army entered BOSNIA, encountering an unex- pectedly fierce and lengthy armed resistance. That invasion removed BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA from Islamic-Turkish-Oriental control, and brought it under Western European influence. After four hundred years, the change was dramatic and painful, especially for the Muslim people. However, Austro-Hungarian administration was sensitive to the need to retain BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA as a single state, and after much debate it was decided that Bosnia should not belong to either Austria or Hungary, but should become the third state within the monarchy - a corpus separatum.

BOSNIA WITHIN THE YUGOSLAV MONARCHY Ivan Lovrenovic

One of the most remarkable achievements in the history of BOSNIA& HERZEGOVINA was the speed withwhich it overcame the initial shock of the change of the government from Ottoman to Austro-Hungarian, and the way it quickly began to assimilate European influences. Due to later ideological obstacles, this area of development was not researched until the present day.

The entire process, however, was stopped dead by the murder of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia in Sarajevo in 1914 and the ensuing World War.

For centuries, the idea of political integration had been fermenting among the South Slavic peoples. A comprehensive illustration of this was the Illyrian program of Croatian national revival, which percieved the integration as a cultural and political union of the regions from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. The most prominent advocate of South Slavic unity was the humanist bishop of Djakovo, Josip Juraj Strossmayer. The end of the World War I saw the dismantling by the international community of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the formation of Yugoslavia, which was to be one united state, encompassing the South Slavic territories. However, the new state did not live up to its ideals and the way was opened for the realization of Garasanin's "Nacertanije" ("The Plan"), under the reign of the Serbian dynasty of the Karadjordjevices. The main obstacles to the plan for a united state were the prominent historic, cultural and national identities of the individual South Slavic countries. This was the problem that the governments tried to solve by forcibly creating regional units, thereby, attempting to destroy the individual identities of each nation. This happened to BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA for the first time in its long history. Firstly, it was broken up into several administrative regions. Later, when the conflict between serbia and Croatia intensified, BOSNIA& HERZEGOVINA was divided into 13 administrative units by the famous Cvetkovic-Macek agreement in 1939. These were then added to the newly-formed regional unit of Croatia.

BOSNIA IN THE WORLD WAR II

BOSNIA WITHIN THE SECOND YUGOSLAVIA AND AFTER?...

I.Lovrenovic

During World War II, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia disintegrated. In April 1941, the Government capitulated and, together with the court fled abroad. The country was occupied and divided among Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria. BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA became a part of the Independent State of Croatia, created under the German occupation. During this time, the concept of a federal Yugoslavia prevailed among the leaders of Tito's partisans. within this Yugoslavia, BOSNIA& HERZEGOVINA was to become a separate federal unit, equal in status to the others: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Such status belonged, historically, to BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA. This status was not only in acknowledgement of BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA'S large number of casualties during the anti-occupational and civil war (it had more victims than any other South Slavic country); this status was in actual recognition of the historical existence of BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA.

However, after the war the centralist and unitarian policy prevailed. It relied on the totalitarian communist ideology and brought about renewed national and inter-republic tensions at the end of the 1960's. In order to resolve these tensions, the regime used a bizarre combination it strengthened ideological repression, dragging society back-wards and affirmed the independence and integrity of individual federal units by the Constitution of 1974.

As can be seen from the latest events in Yugoslavia, this combination was the main reason for the revival of Serbian expansionism after 1980 and Tito's death. This time it appeared in a pronounced agressive form, with the full participation of the federal army, and under the pretext of preserving Yugoslavia. After the emancipation of Slovenia and Croatia and the analogously expressed will of Macedonia, BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA remains the last desperate stronghold against the plans for a great Serbia. And even if the whole of BOSNIA&HERZEGOVINA could not be annexed, at least the division, according to the alleged national "right" over certain parts of the country, could be executed. The idea was to divide BOSNIA& HERZEGOVINA... This division would be politically and culturally primitive, and phisicaly and administratively impossible...