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Bosnia and Herzegovina, country situated in the western Balkan Peninsula of Europe. The larger region of Bosnia occupies the northern and central parts of the country, and Herzegovina occupies the south and southwest. These historical regions do not correspond with the two autonomous political entities that were established by the internationally brokered Dayton Accords of 1995: the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic), located in the north and east, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupying the western and central areas. The capital of the country is Sarajevo; important regional cities include Mostar and Banja Luka.
The land has often felt the influences of stronger regional powers that have vied for control over it, and these influences have helped to create Bosnia and Herzegovina’s characteristically rich ethnic and religious mix. Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism are all present, with the three faiths generally corresponding to three major ethnic groups: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, respectively. This multiethnic population, as well as the country’s historical and geographic position between Serbia and Croatia, has long made Bosnia and Herzegovina vulnerable to nationalist territorial aspirations.
Ruled by the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century, the region came under the control of Austria-Hungary in 1878 and subsequently played a key role in the outbreak of World War I. In 1918 it was incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, where it had no formal status of its own. After World War II it became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Following the disintegration of that state in 1991, the majority of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina voted for independence in a 1992 referendum. Much of the country’s Serb population, however, opposed independence and boycotted the referendum.
War soon consumed the region, as ethnic nationalists within Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the support of Serbia and Croatia in some cases, tried to take control of territories they claimed as their own. Horrific ethnic cleansing campaigns between 1992 and the end of 1995 killed thousands and violently displaced more than two million people in much of Bosnia and Herzegovina. International intervention into the Bosnian conflict led finally to a peace agreement, the Dayton Accords, in late 1995. The Dayton agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it also established the country as a fragile, highly decentralized, and ethnically divided state in which an international civilian representative remains authorized to impose legislation and to remove domestic officials in order to protect the peace. Although the vast majority of citizens continue to desire sustainable peace, they hold to different ideas about the best configuration of the state, and some even question its future existence. Britannica QuizGeography Fun Facts
Land
Relief
Physical features of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The roughly triangular-shaped Bosnia and Herzegovina is bordered on the north, west, and south by Croatia, on the east by Serbia, on the southeast by Montenegro, and on the southwest by the Adriatic Sea along a narrow extension of the country.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has a largely mountainous terrain. The Dinaric Alps dominate the western border with Croatia, and numerous ranges, including the Kozara, Vlašic, Plješevica, Grmeč, Cincar, and Raduša, run through the country, generally in a northwest-southeast direction. The highest peak, reaching 7,828 feet (2,386 metres), is Maglić, near the border with Montenegro. In the south and southwest is the Karst, a region of arid limestone plateaus that contain caves, potholes, and underground drainage. The uplands there are often bare and denuded (the result of deforestation and thin soils), but, between the ridges, depressions known as poljes are covered with alluvial soil that is suitable for agriculture. Elevations of more than 6,000 feet (1,800 metres) are common, and the plateaus descend abruptly toward the Adriatic Sea. The coastline, limited to a length of 12 miles (20 km) along the Adriatic Sea, is bounded on both sides by Croatia and contains no natural harbours. In central Bosnia the rocks and soils are less vulnerable to erosion, and the terrain there is characterized by rugged but green and often forested plateaus. In the north, narrow lowlands extend along the Sava River and its tributaries.
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Geologic fault lines are widespread in the mountainous areas. In 1969 an earthquake destroyed 70 percent of the buildings in Banja Luka.
Drainage
Bosna River, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The principal rivers are the Sava, a tributary of the Danube that forms the northern boundary with Croatia; the Bosna, Vrbas, and Una, which flow north and empty into the Sava; the Drina, which flows north, forms part of the eastern boundary with Serbia, and is also a tributary of the Sava; and the Neretva, which flows from the southeast but assumes a sharp southwestern flow through the Karst region, continues through Croatia, and empties into the Adriatic Sea. Rivers in the Karst flow largely underground. Numerous glacial lakes dot the landscape. Bosnia and Herzegovina is also rich in natural springs, many of which are tapped for bottled mineral water or for popular thermal health spas.
Climate
Although situated close to the Mediterranean Sea, Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely cut off from its climatic influence by the Dinaric Alps. The weather in the Bosnia region resembles that of the southern Austrian highlands—generally mild, though apt to be bitterly cold in winter. In Banja Luka the coldest month is January, with an average temperature of about 32 °F (0 °C), and the warmest month is July, which averages about 72 °F (22 °C). During January and February Banja Luka receives the least amount of precipitation, and in May and June it experiences the heaviest rainfall.
Herzegovina has more affinity to the Croatian region of Dalmatia, which can be oppressively hot in summer. In Mostar, situated along the Neretva River, the coldest month is January, averaging about 42 °F (6 °C), and the warmest month is July, averaging about 78 °F (26 °C). Mostar experiences a relatively dry season from June to September. The remainder of the year is wet, with the heaviest precipitation between October and January.
Plant and animal life
About two-fifths of the country is forested with pine, beech, and oak. Fruits are common; among them are grapes, apples, pears, and especially plums. The country’s rich and varied wildlife includes bears, wolves, wild pigs, wildcats, chamois (goatlike animals), otters, foxes, badgers, and falcons.
People of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ethnic groups and religions
Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to members of numerous ethnic groups. The three largest are the Bosniaks, the Serbs, and the Croats. Continuing efforts by the international community to promote the return of persons forcibly displaced during the Bosnian conflict (1992–95) to their original homes, as well as domestic political sensitivities, blocked the conduct of a census well into the 21st century. Nevertheless, it is estimated that Bosniaks constitute more than two-fifths, Serbs roughly one-third, and Croats less than one-fifth of the population.
Muslims praying at Gazi Husrev Bey Mosque, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The three groups share the same South Slav heritage. The major cultural difference between them is that of religious origin or affiliation—a difference that may be explained in part by the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, which allowed autonomous religious communities to coexist under its rule. Indeed, “Serb” and “Croat” referred first to the people of two South Slav tribes and then mainly to the people of Serbia and Croatia until the 19th century, when nationalist movements in the Balkans encouraged Bosnians practicing Serbian Orthodoxy to be labeled as Serbs and Bosnians practicing Roman Catholicism to be labeled as Croats. The idea of a broader Serb or Croat “nation” was appealing to regional leaders who coveted Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory. Serb or Croat nationalism also appealed to educated Bosnians, who were often excluded from high state positions by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s imperial rulers. (The Ottoman Empire was succeeded by Austria-Hungary, which took control in 1878.) A sense of nationalism later developed among Bosnian Muslims as well. In the 20th century “Muslim” came to be used as an ethnic, not only religious, identifier; it was replaced in the 1990s by “Bosniak.”
The association of religion with national identity has meant that religious identity has remained important. The role of religion within all three populations was elevated by the demise of communism, the revival of nationalism in the wake of Yugoslav disintegration, and the violence of the war. Nevertheless, attendance at church and mosque services continues to be low.
Languages
The mother tongue of the vast majority is Serbo-Croatian, a term used to describe, collectively, the mutually intelligible languages now known as Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian, depending on the speaker’s ethnic and political affiliation. There are some minor regional variations in pronunciation and vocabulary, but all variations spoken within Bosnia and Herzegovina are more similar to one another than they are to, for example, the speech of Belgrade (Serbia) or Zagreb (Croatia). A Latin and a Cyrillic alphabet exist, and both have been taught in schools and used in the press, but the rise of nationalism in the 1990s prompted a Serb alignment with Cyrillic and a Croat and Bosniak alignment with the Latin alphabet.
Settlement patterns
Mountain village of Kladanj, on the Drinjača River, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
More than one-half of the population is rural. The arid plateaus in the southern region are less populated than the more hospitable central and northern zones. Villages are of variable size. Houses are either of an old, small, steep-roofed variety or of a larger, multistoried, modern type.
Sarajevo, Bos.-Her.
An urban-rural divide is a significant part of Bosnian culture, with urbanites tending to view villagers as primitives and villagers often being defensive about this view. Young villagers are frequently anxious to move to town. During the 1960s and ’70s the urban population almost doubled. This shift particularly affected the economic and industrial centres of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Zenica, Tuzla, and Mostar, around which sprawling suburbs of apartment blocks were built. Traditional settlement patterns were disrupted by the postindependence war, with the population of many cities swelled by refugees.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniak women
Bosniak women fleeing the town of Jusići, Bosnia-Herzegovina, following a breakdown in the Dayton Accords, October 2, 1996.
Patterns of ethnic distribution before 1992 created an intricate mosaic. Certain areas of the country contained high concentrations of Serb, Croat, or Bosniak inhabitants, while in others there was no overall ethnic majority or only a very small one. Towns were ethnically mixed. Many larger villages also were mixed, although, in some of these, members of different ethnic groups tended to live in different quarters. Most smaller villages were inhabited by only one group. Much of the violence of the postindependence war had the aim of creating ethnic purity in areas that once had a mixture of peoples. In addition to killing thousands, this ethnic cleansing displaced about half the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina either within its borders or abroad. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of displaced persons eventually returned to their prewar homes, but a significant portion of the displaced population resettled in areas where they were among the majority ethnic group.
Demographic trends
When it was a part of the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina had one of the lowest death rates and among the highest live birth rates of Yugoslavia’s republics, and its natural rate of increase in population was high in comparison with most of them. By the early 21st century, however, the birth rate had declined, the death rate had climbed, and the natural rate of increase had fallen below zero. The 1992–95 war had radically altered the demographic situation. Of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced during the war, a significant portion of them emigrated.
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Economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina
As a republic of the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina adhered to the unique economic system known as socialist self-management. In this system, business enterprises, banks, administration, social services, hospitals, and other working bodies were intended to be run by elected workers’ councils, which in turn elected the management boards of the bodies. In practice the level of workers’ control was extremely variable from enterprise to enterprise, since ordinary workers often were not motivated to participate except in matters such as hiring, firing, and benefits and in any case lacked the necessary time and information to make business decisions. In the 1980s Yugoslavia’s large foreign debt and rising inflation lowered the standard of living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the period immediately following the 1991 war in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s official economy collapsed. Huge increases in the price of oil, falling imports and exports, hyperinflation, shortages of food and medicine, insolvent banks, and unpaid pensions all resulted in a swelling black market, or informal economy. In addition, the 1992–95 war (see Bosnian conflict) caused widespread destruction.
International financial organizations were heavily involved in the postwar reconstruction of the economy. As a result, inflation fell, exports increased and were diversified, and the gross domestic product (GDP) experienced growth, at least until a global financial crisis began in 2008. However, privatization was contentious and remains incomplete. Moreover, the number of workers in the informal sector and the unemployment rate both remain stubbornly high. Remittances from Bosnians working abroad continue to be a significant source of income.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a significant agricultural region, with some one-third of its land under cultivation or in pasture. The most fertile soils are in the north, along the Sava River valley. In hillier areas, land is employed for both cultivation and grazing. Principal crops include corn (maize), potatoes, wheat, plums, cabbages, and apples. In Herzegovina and in the more sheltered areas of Bosnia, tobacco is grown. Sheep are the major livestock, although cattle and pigs are raised, and apiculture is practiced. With about two-fifths of the country forested, timber, as well as furniture and other wood products, have been important exports. Fishing potential is increasingly exploited.
Power and resources
Bosnia and Herzegovina has reserves of iron ore around Banja Luka and in the Kozara Mountains, bauxite near Mostar, and lignite and bituminous coal in the regions around Sarajevo, Zenica, Tuzla, and the Kozara Mountains. Zinc, mercury, and manganese are present in smaller quantities. Forests of pine, beech, and oak provide a source of timber. The country possesses considerable hydroelectric potential; there are several hydroelectric and thermal power plants. Britannica QuizGeography Fun Facts
Manufacturing
Manufacturing historically represented a large part of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economy. In the wake of the war, however, the country struggled to reinvigorate industrial production. Metal manufactures, iron and steel, sawn wood and wood products, food, and textiles are among the products produced in various parts of the country.
Finance, trade, and services
The Dayton Accords created a largely autonomous central bank, which has sole authority over monetary policy and the issuing of currency. The national currency, the convertible marka (konvertibilna marka; KM), is pegged to the euro. After the war, fiscal consolidation was strong, and most banks are now privately owned. Foreign direct investment was substantial in the early 21st century, but foreign investors faced serious obstacles, including a complex legal and regulatory framework, less than transparent business procedures, and a weak judiciary. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s largest trading partners are Croatia, Serbia, Italy, and Germany.
The service sector accounts for more than half of the country’s GDP, with retail trade and restaurants being an important component. There have been efforts to revive tourism by attracting visitors to the country’s rich cultural heritage sites, gorgeous mountains, and aquamarine rivers.
Labour and taxation
The largest portion of the labour force is engaged in services, followed respectively by manufacturing and agriculture. Labour unions have been largely fragmented and weak in the postwar economy. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s autonomous entities, the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have different tax policies. The individual income tax rate in both entities is relatively low. Other taxes include corporate tax, property tax, and value-added tax.
Transportation and telecommunications
The major obstacle to transportation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has always been the mountainous topography. In addition, much of the transportation infrastructure was destroyed in the postindependence war. The railway system, begun under Austro-Hungarian rule (1878–1918), connects Sarajevo with major towns to the north and with Zagreb (Croatia) and Belgrade (Serbia). Another line runs south from Sarajevo to Mostar and on to Ploče on Croatia’s Adriatic coast. However, few lines are direct, and as a result roads of variable quality have in many cases been the preferred means of passenger and freight transportation. Scheduled air services connect Sarajevo with other Balkan capitals, such as Belgrade and Zagreb, as well as with other European and international destinations.
Although Bosnia and Herzegovina has lagged behind its neighbours with regard to citizens’ use of telecommunications, the number of cellular phone subscribers increased dramatically during the first decade of the 21st century. During the same period, the number of Internet users grew exponentially.
Government and society
Constitutional framework
Division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as agreed upon in the Dayton Accords.
The internationally brokered Dayton Accords—the peace agreement negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., in November 1995—established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state composed of two highly autonomous entities, the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The latter is a decentralized federation of Croats and Bosniaks. Each entity has its own legislature and president. The central institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina include a directly elected tripartite presidency, which rotates every eight months between one Bosniak, one Serb, and one Croat member. The presidency, as the head of state, appoints a multiethnic Council of Ministers. The chairman of the council, who is appointed by the presidency and approved by the national House of Representatives, serves as the head of government. The parliament is bicameral. Members are directly elected to the 42-seat lower house (House of Representatives), in which 28 seats are reserved for the Federation and 14 for the Republika Srpska. Members of the upper house (the House of Peoples, with five members from each ethnic group) are chosen by the entity legislatures.
The central institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina are weak, with the bulk of governmental competencies residing in the two entities. Internationally led efforts to replace the unwieldy and costly constitutional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a more functional one, capable of integrating into the European Union, have been opposed by the country’s nationalist leaders.
Local government
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is decentralized; it is administratively divided into 10 cantons, which in turn are divided into dozens of municipalities (općine). The Republika Srpska is relatively centralized and is administratively divided into dozens of municipalities (opštine). Citizens of both entities directly elect mayors and representatives to municipal and cantonal assemblies. Arbitration in 1997 established Brčko, in the northeast, as a self-governing special district.
Justice
The Dayton Accords established the Constitutional Court, which has exclusive jurisdiction to decide any dispute that arises between the entities, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entities, or between the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three of the nine members of the Constitutional Court are appointed by the president of the European Court of Human Rights; the others are selected by the entities. The State Court, comprising administrative, appellate, and criminal divisions, has jurisdiction over matters regarding national law. Each entity also has its own Supreme Court and lower courts. Since its establishment by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has exercised jurisdiction over grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions as well as for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. In 2002 Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national courts gained jurisdiction over cases that did not involve major political and military figures.
Political process
Bosnia and Herzegovina: election, 1996
Resident casting his vote in a local election in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1996, following the signing of the Dayton Accords.
In 1990 the League of Communists of Yugoslavia fragmented, and multiparty elections were held in each of the country’s six constituent republics. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the national parties—the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (Stranka Demokratske Akcije; SDA), the Serb Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka; SDS), and the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica; HDZ)—formed a tacit electoral coalition. The three swept the elections for the bicameral parliament and for the seven-member multiethnic presidency, which had been established by constitutional amendment “to allay fears that any one ethnic group would become politically dominant.” They attempted to form a multiparty leadership, but their political and territorial ambitions (and those of their powerful patrons in Zagreb [Croatia] and Belgrade [Serbia]) were incompatible. The parliament failed to pass a single law, and war was stoked by neighbouring nationalists in the spring of 1992. Following the establishment of peace in 1995, the nationalist SDS, HDZ, and SDA continued to win voter support, although other parties that shared nationalist agendas, such as the Serb Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (Stranka Nezavisnih Socijaldemokrata; SNSD) and the Bosniak Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (Stranka za Bosnu i Hercegovinu; SBiH), gained prominence as well. The institutionalization of ethnicity in the political system has put parties with less ethnocentric agendas, such as the Social Democratic Party (Socijaldemokratska Partija; SDP), at a disadvantage, though the SDP, too, has gained seats in the parliament and the tripartite presidency.
Security
The Yugoslav People’s Army was designed to repel invasion, and, as part of its strategy, it used the geographically central republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a storehouse for armaments and as the site of most military production. Bosnian Serb forces, aided by the Yugoslav People’s Army and fighting for a separate Serb state, appropriated most of this weaponry. Elsewhere the Croatian Defense Council, aided by Zagreb, and the (mainly Bosniak) Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were formed, but cooperation between them soon broke down. The Dayton Accords provided for the state to retain two separate armies, one from the Republika Srpska and the other from the Federation. At the urging of international actors eager to facilitate Bosnia and Herzegovina’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, the army was unified in 2003. Policing, however, remains decentralized.
Health, welfare, and housing
The health system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is decentralized, which in practice has resulted in inequitable access to health care and uneven levels of service. Informal payments for care are more common than legally mandated co-payments. The poverty rate in rural areas is about twice that of urban areas. In the early 21st century the country ranked toward the bottom of the “high human development” level of the United Nations’ Human Development Index, which broadly measures quality of life. It ranked lower than virtually all other European countries, excepting some former Soviet republics.
Bosnian conflict: destruction in Sarajevo
Buildings and vehicles destroyed in Grbavica, a suburb of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian conflict (1992–95).
International programs have helped to rebuild housing stock that was significantly damaged during the postindependence war. In urban areas, most citizens reside in apartments privatized after the war, while those living in rural areas largely reside in private homes.
Education
Taken when Bosnia and Herzegovina was still part of Yugoslavia, the 1991 census reported that 14 percent of people aged 15 or older were illiterate, with older women accounting for a significant portion of the illiterate population. In independent Bosnia and Herzegovina citizens have good access to educational opportunities, and it is estimated that the adult illiteracy rate fell to about 5 percent by the early 21st century. However, the current fractured educational system, in which students learn according to ethnically coloured, often biased curricula, has had the effect of creating three separate sets of citizens, each unfamiliar with and distrustful of the others. The higher education system is also ethnically divided, although reforms have been launched to meet European higher education standards. The oldest and largest of the country’s universities, the University of Sarajevo, was founded in 1949. The Universities of Banja Luka, Tuzla, and Mostar were founded in the 1970s.
Cultural life
Cultural milieu
Diverse European and Turkish influences are felt in the cultural life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are considerable variations between traditional and modern and between rural and urban culture as well.
Daily life and social customs
Family ties are strong, and friendship and neighbourhood networks are well developed. Great value is placed on hospitality, spontaneity, and the gifts of storytelling and wit. Summer activities include strolling on town korza (promenades), and throughout the year popular meeting places are kafane (traditional coffeehouses) and kafići (modern café-bars). Bosnian cuisine is a matter of pride and displays its Turkish influence in stuffed vegetables, coffee, and sweet cakes of the baklava type, as well as in the national dish of ćevapi, or ćevapčići. These small rolls of seasoned ground meat, typically a mixture of beef and lamb, are grilled and usually served in a bread pocket. The plums that grow in the country are often made into thick jam or slivovitz, a popular brandy.
The arts
During the 1970s Sarajevo, with a less repressive atmosphere than that of the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade (now in Serbia), gave rise to a dissident rock-and-roll culture. The most popular band of the time, Bijelo Dugme (“White Button”), enjoyed a large following throughout the country. The city has produced other popular musical groups and artists, such as Zabranjeno Pušenje, Divlje Jagode, Elvis J. Kurtović, and Crvena Jabuka. International artists toured the country during the 1992–95 war in the service of humanitarian causes, and they continue to do so, adding to a strong domestic tradition of musical and cultural performance. Folk songs remain popular and well-known.
Sarajevo enjoys an active literary culture as well, with a number of publishing houses releasing contemporary and classic writing from the region. Popular writers include Amila Buturović, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Meša Selimović, and Fahrudin Zilkić. Ivo Andrić, born in Dolac, Bosnia, received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Literature. Andrić’s novels, such as Na Drini ćuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina), are concerned with the history of Bosnia.
In the Yugoslav era Sarajevo was an important film centre, gaining international renown through the work of director Emir Kusturica, whose films depict the private face of Yugoslavia’s history. His Sječaš li se Dolly Bell? (Do You Remember Dolly Bell?) won the Golden Lion award at the 1981 Venice Film Festival. Danis Tanović won an Oscar in 2002 for his film No Man’s Land, about human relationships during the 1992–95 war.
Cultural institutions
The National Museum (Zemaljski Muzej) in Sarajevo offers items from the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age), Roman findings, medieval tombstones (stećci), the Jewish illuminated manuscript known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, and folk costumes. Sarajevo’s National Theatre hosts productions by local, regional, and international groups. The Italian opera star Luciano Pavarotti lent his talent to raise funds for the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar, an institution that offers courses in music, filmmaking, photography, and acting.
Sports and recreation
Bosnians, like many Europeans, share a passion for football (soccer). The country fields dozens of professional and semiprofessional teams, and virtually no Bosnian village lacks a field and a few players willing to populate it. The civil war of the 1990s caused the Bosnian football league to break into three comparatively weak divisions along ethnic lines, with Bosniak, Serb, and Croat teams that rarely played against anyone not of their own allegiance. In 2000 the Croat and Bosniak divisions agreed to interethnic play, joined by the Serb league in 2002. During the Yugoslav era Bosnia and Herzegovina had powerful basketball players, and the sport is still widely popular. However, as with football, ethnic division plagued the sport in the 1990s.
During the period of Yugoslav rule, Bosnian athletes competed in many Olympic Games, and the Winter Games of 1984 were held in Sarajevo. (Sarajevo’s ski runs built for the Games were later used as firing ranges for Serb and Yugoslav army artillery during the civil war.) Newly independent Bosnia and Herzegovina formed a national Olympic committee in 1992, which the International Olympic Committee recognized in 1993. The country’s first Olympic appearance came in 1992 at Barcelona, Spain. Despite the ongoing war, an interethnic team also participated in the 1994 Winter Games at Lillehammer, Nor. Athletes from the country have continued to participate in subsequent Winter and Summer Games.
Bosnia and Herzegovina features large national parks—Sutjeska, Kozara, and Una—and nature reserves. Mountains and open spaces offer hiking, skiing, and hunting. Hunting is a popular pastime, and assorted hunting societies include thousands of members.
Media and publishing
In comparison with news outlets in much of communist eastern Europe, the news media in Yugoslavia were relatively independent, censorship being achieved more through implicit threat than through direct intervention. The warring factions during the 1992–95 war appropriated most media for the distribution of propaganda. Following the war, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska each began operating public radio and television stations. Numerous private stations also exist. Among the many newspapers, magazines, and popular journals circulating in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the Sarajevo dailies Dnevni Avaz and Oslobodjenje and the Banja Luka daily Nezavisne Novine.Paula Pickering
History of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ancient and medieval periods
Ruins of the walls at Daorson, a Hellenistic city of Illyria, at Osanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
When the Romans extended their conquests into the territory of modern Bosnia during the 2nd and 1st centuries bce, the people they encountered there belonged mainly to Illyrian tribes. Most of the area of modern Bosnia was incorporated into the Roman province of Dalmatia. During the 4th and 5th centuries ce, Roman armies suffered heavy defeats in this region at the hands of invading Goths. When the Goths were eventually driven out of the Balkans by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the early 6th century, the Bosnian territory became, notionally at least, part of the Byzantine Empire.
Slavs began to settle in this territory during the 6th century. A second wave of Slavs in the 7th century included two powerful tribes, the Croats and the Serbs: Croats probably covered most of central, western, and northern Bosnia, while Serbs extended into the Drina River valley and modern Herzegovina. The terms “Serb” and “Croat” were in this period tribal labels; they were subsequently used to refer to the inhabitants of Serbian or Croatian political entities and only later acquired the connotations of ethnic or national identity in the modern sense.
During the late 8th and early 9th centuries, part of northwestern Bosnia was conquered by Charlemagne’s Franks. This area later became part of Croatia under King Tomislav. After Tomislav’s death in 928, much of Bosnia was taken over by a Serb princedom that acknowledged the sovereignty of the Byzantine Empire. The first written mention of Bosnia was recorded during this period by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, who described “Bosona” as a district in “baptized Serbia.” The district he referred to was an area much smaller than modern Bosnia and centred on the Bosna River. Soon after Constantine wrote those words, most of the modern territory of Bosnia reverted to Croatian rule.
During the 11th and 12th centuries, Bosnia experienced rule by Byzantium through Croatian or Serbian intermediaries, incorporation into a Serbian kingdom that had expanded northward from the territory of modern Montenegro and Herzegovina, rule by Hungary, and a brief period of renewed Byzantine rule. After the death of the emperor Manuel I Comnenus in 1180, Byzantine rule fell away, and government by Croatia or Hungary was not restored: a Bosnian territory (excluding much of modern Bosnia and all of Herzegovina) thus became, for the first time, an independent entity.
A Bosnian state of some kind existed during most of the period from 1180 to 1463, despite periodic intrusions from the neighbouring kingdom of Hungary, which maintained a theoretical claim to sovereignty over Bosnia. Bosnia enjoyed periods of power and independence, especially under three prominent rulers: Ban Kulin (ruled c. 1180–1204), Ban Stjepan (Stephen) Kotromanić (ruled 1322–53) of the Kotromanić dynasty, and Stjepan’s successor, King Tvrtko I (ruled 1353–91). Under Stjepan Kotromanić, Bosnia expanded southward, incorporating the principality of Hum (modern Herzegovina). During the reign of Tvrtko I, Bosnia reached farther south and acquired a portion of the Dalmatian coast. For a brief period in the late 14th century, Bosnia was the most powerful state in the western Balkans. This Greater Bosnia of Tvrtko’s final decades was an exception, however: for most of the medieval period, Bosnia was mainly a landlocked state, isolated and protected by its impenetrable terrain.
One consequence of this isolation was the development of a distinctive Bosnian church. After the schism of 1054 divided Western (Latin, or Roman Catholic) and Eastern (Eastern Orthodox) Christianity, most of the Bosnian territory (excluding modern Herzegovina) was Latin, but during the long period of isolation from Rome the Bosnian church fell into its own de facto schism, electing its own leaders from among the heads of the monastic houses. A combination of poor theological training, lax observances, and Eastern Orthodox practices led to frequent complaints from neighbouring areas, beginning in the 1190s, that the Bosnian church was infected with heresy. In 1203 a papal legate was sent to investigate these charges, and Ban Kulin gathered a special council at Bilino Polje (near modern Zenica), where the church leaders signed a declaration promising to undertake a series of reforms. Most involved correcting lax religious practices; in addition, however, they promised not to shelter heretics in their monasteries. The extent to which these reforms were observed is very uncertain, since over the following century the church in Bosnia became increasingly isolated. Occasional complaints from the 1280s onward still referred to “heretics” in Bosnia, and, by the time the Roman Catholic Franciscans began to operate there in 1340, the official view from Rome was that the entire Bosnian church had fallen into heresy, from which its members needed to be converted.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, many historians argued that the Bosnian church had adopted the extreme dualist heresy of the Bulgarian Bogomils. Evidence for this view came from the papal denunciations of the Bosnians, which sometimes accused them of Manichaeism, the dualist theology on which Bogomil beliefs were based. In addition, Italian and Dalmatian sources referred to the Bosnians as “Patarins,” a term used in Italy for a range of heretics including the Cathari, whose beliefs were linked to Bogomilism. However, later scholarship suggested that the authors of those denunciations had little or no knowledge of the situation inside Bosnia and that confusion may have been caused by the existence of genuine dualist heretics on the Dalmatian coast. Furthermore, the surviving evidence of the religious practices of the Bosnian church shows that its members accepted many things that Bogomils fiercely rejected, such as the sign of the cross, the Old Testament, the mass, the use of church buildings, and the drinking of wine. The Bosnian church should thus be considered an essentially nonheretical branch of the Roman Catholic Church, based in monastic houses in which some Eastern Orthodox practices also were observed.
During the 14th century the Franciscans established a network of friaries in Bosnia and spent more than a century trying to convert members of the Bosnian church to mainstream Catholicism. In 1459 this campaign received the full support of the Bosnian king, Stjepan Tomaš Ostojić, who summoned the clergy of the Bosnian church and ordered them to convert to Roman Catholicism or leave the kingdom. When most of the clergy converted, the back of the Bosnian church was broken.
The final decades of the medieval Bosnian state were troubled by civil war, Hungarian interference, and the threat of invasion by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Ottoman armies began raiding Serbia in the 1380s and crossed into Bosnian-ruled Hum (Herzegovina) in 1388. King Tvrtko I sent a large force to fight against them alongside the Serbian army at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in the following year. Tvrtko’s successor, Stjepan Ostoja, struggled for possession of the crown against his brother Tvrtko II, who was supported first by the Turks and then by the Hungarians after Ostoja’s death. The nobleman Stefan Vukčić also engaged in tactical alliances against the Bosnian rulers, establishing his own rule over the territory of Hum and giving himself the title herceg (duke), from which the name Herzegovina is derived. Ottoman forces captured an important part of central Bosnia in 1448, centred on the settlement of Vrhbosna, which they developed into the city of Sarajevo. In 1463 they conquered most of the rest of Bosnia proper, although parts of Herzegovina and some northern areas of Bosnia were taken over by Hungary and remained under Hungarian control until the 1520s. Vukčić and his son were gradually forced out of their domains, and the last fortress in Herzegovina fell to the Turks in 1482.
Ottoman Bosnia
Bosnia was rapidly absorbed into the Ottoman Empire and was divided into military-administrative districts, or sanjaks (from the Turkish sancàk, meaning “banner”). In 1580 a broad area covering modern Bosnia and some surrounding areas of Croatia and Serbia was given the full status of an eyalet, or constituent province of the empire. Bosnia enjoyed this status as a distinct entity throughout the rest of the Ottoman period. The Bosnian eyalet was governed by a vizier and administered through a network of junior pashas and local judges. Land was distributed according to the Ottoman feudal system, in which the holder of a timar (estate) had to report for military duty, bringing and supporting other soldiers. A wide range of taxes was imposed, including the harač, a graduated poll tax on non-Muslims. Also introduced was the notorious system called devşirme, under which Christian boys aged 10 and above were taken off for training in the imperial administration and the Janissary corps, an elite army division. In all these respects, conditions in Bosnia were similar to those in the other conquered areas of Europe.
In one crucial way, however, Bosnia differed from the other Balkan lands (except, later, Albania): a large part of the native population converted to Islam. This was a gradual development; it took more than a hundred years for Muslims to become an absolute majority. There was no mass conversion at the outset, nor mass immigration of Muslims from Anatolia. The fundamental reason for the growth of such a large Muslim population in Bosnia may lie in the earlier religious history of the Bosnian state. Whereas neighbouring Serbia had benefited from a strong, territorially organized national church, Bosnia had seen competition in most areas between the Bosnian church and the Roman Catholic Church, both of which operated only out of monastic houses. In Herzegovina a third church, the Serbian Orthodox, had competed. Christianity was thus structurally weaker in Bosnia than in almost any other part of the Balkans. The motives that inclined Bosnians to adopt Islam were partly economic: the prosperous cities of Sarajevo and Mostar were also mainly Muslim, and it was not possible to lead a full civic life there without converting to Islam. Other motives included the privileged legal status enjoyed by Muslims and, possibly, a desire to avoid the poll tax on non-Muslims, though Muslims were subject, unlike Christians, both to the alms tax and to the duties of general military service. But the traditional belief that Bosnian noblemen converted en masse to Islam in order to keep their estates has been largely disproved by modern historians.
Another way in which Bosnia differed from other parts of the Ottoman Balkans is that, for most of the Ottoman period, Bosnia was a frontier province, facing some of the empire’s most important enemies— Austria, Hungary, and Venice. To fill up depopulated areas of northern and western Bosnia, the Ottomans encouraged the migration of large numbers of hardy settlers with military skills from Serbia and Herzegovina. Some of these settlers were Vlachs, members of a pre-Slav Balkan population that had acquired a Latinate language and specialized in stock breeding, horse raising, long-distance trade, and fighting. Most were members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Before the Ottoman conquest, that church had had very few members in the Bosnian lands outside Herzegovina and the eastern strip of the Drina valley. There is no definite evidence of any Orthodox church buildings in central, northern, or western Bosnia before 1463. During the 16th century, however, several Orthodox monasteries were built in those parts of Bosnia, apparently to serve the newly settled Orthodox population there.
Süleyman I (the Magnificent), detail of an engraving of a panel by Pieter Coecke van Aelst showing a procession through Istanbul, 1533.
Major wars affecting Bosnia took place almost every two generations throughout the Ottoman period. Bosnia was an important recruiting ground for Süleyman I’s campaign to conquer Hungary (1520–33). There was fighting on Bosnia’s borders during his final Hungarian campaign of 1566. And the large-scale Habsburg-Ottoman conflict of 1593–1606 was sparked by fighting in the Bihać region of northwestern Bosnia. This war left Bosnia financially drained and militarily exhausted. A Venetian-Ottoman war, beginning in the 1640s and lasting until 1669, involved heavy fighting and destruction in parts of western Bosnia. In the Habsburg-Ottoman war of 1683–99, Austria reconquered Ottoman Hungary and Slavonia, sending a flood of Muslim refugees (mainly converted Slavs) into Bosnia. In 1697 a small Austrian army under Prince Eugene of Savoy marched into the heart of Bosnia, put Sarajevo to the torch, and hurried back to Austrian territory, taking thousands of Roman Catholic Bosnians with it. In the next major war (1714–18), Austria joined forces with Venice, and in the Treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac, Serbia) in 1718, Venetian-ruled Dalmatia was allowed to extend its territory inland, reaching a line that since then has formed part of the southwestern border of Bosnia. Austria invaded Bosnia again in 1736 but was repelled by local forces. In the subsequent peace settlement (the Treaty of Belgrade, 1739), Austria gave up its claim to the territory south of the Sava River. This settlement formed the basis of the northern border of modern Bosnia. Austria seized more territory after invading Bosnia again in 1788, but it yielded up its gains at the peace settlement in 1791.
The chronic fighting weakened Bosnia. War necessitated increased taxation, causing tax revolts. Forced conscription and frequent plague epidemics led to a relative reduction in the Muslim population, which contributed its manpower to Ottoman campaigns throughout the empire and may have suffered disproportionately from the effects of plague in the cities. In the 18th century there was strong growth in the Christian population; by the end of the century the Muslims were probably no longer in the majority. The social consequences of war also included a change in the system of land tenure: increasingly, the old feudal timar estates were converted into a type of private estate known as a çiftlik, in response to the imperial treasury’s need for cash instead of old-style feudal service. The conditions of work demanded of the peasants on these estates were usually much more severe, and these peasants tended increasingly to be Christians, since Muslim peasants were able to acquire smallholdings in their own right.
Nevertheless, Ottoman Bosnia was not permanently sunk in misery. Descriptions of Sarajevo by visiting travelers portray it as one of the wonders of the Balkans, with fountains, bridges, schools, libraries, and mosques. Fine mosques were also built in towns such as Foča and Banja Luka. (Many of these buildings were systematically demolished by Serb forces in 1992–93.) Numerous works of poetry, philosophy, and theology were written. The cities of Sarajevo and Mostar, where such urban culture flourished, enjoyed a large degree of autonomy under elected officials. After war forced the Bosnian viziers to move out of Sarajevo in the 1690s, they found it almost impossible to return, residing instead in the town of Travnik and exercising only limited power. Real local power passed increasingly into the hands of a type of hereditary official (unique to the Bosnian eyalet) known as a kapetan.
The existence of these powerful local institutions meant that Bosnia was well equipped to resist the reforming measures that the Ottoman sultans began to issue in the early 19th century. When Sultan Mahmud II reformed the military in 1826 and abolished the Janissary corps (which had acquired the status of a privileged social institution), the reform was fiercely resisted by local Janissaries in Bosnia. The Ottoman authorities mounted punitive campaigns against the Janissaries’ stronghold, Sarajevo, in 1827 and 1828. In 1831 a charismatic young kapetan called Husein seized power in Bosnia, imprisoning the vizier in Travnik. With an army of 25,000 men, Husein then marched into Kosovo to negotiate with the Ottoman grand vizier, demanding local autonomy for Bosnia and an end to the reform process there. But the grand vizier stirred up a rivalry between Husein and the leading kapetan of Herzegovina, Ali-aga Rizvanbegović, and in the following year Husein’s support melted away when a large Ottoman army entered Bosnia. Rizvanbegović’s reward was that Herzegovina was separated from the Bosnian eyalet as a distinct territory under his rule. Further reforms announced by Sultan Abdülmecid I, involving new rights for Christian subjects, a new basis for army conscription, and an end to the much-hated system of tax-farming, were either resisted or ignored by the powerful Bosnian landowners.
During these final decades of Ottoman rule, the rise of Serbia as a quasi-autonomous Christian province, from which Muslims were violently expelled, made Bosnian Muslims feel more isolated and vulnerable. The increasing role of foreign powers (especially Austria and Russia) as “protectors” of the interests of Christians in the Balkans also raised Bosnian suspicions. Bosnian landowners, feeling that they could no longer trust the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople (now Istanbul) to maintain their power, frequently turned to more repressive measures against their Christian subjects.
However, two Bosnian governors succeeded in forcing through some of the sultan’s reforms and curbing local resistance. The first of these, Omer-paša Latas, crushed a major rebellion in 1850–51 and revoked the separate status of Herzegovina. The second, Topal Osman-paša, introduced a new method of military conscription in 1865 and a completely new administrative system in 1866, dividing Bosnia into seven sanjaks and establishing a consultative assembly. He also built schools, roads, and a public hospital and allowed the two Christian communities to build new schools and churches of their own. Yet the growing tax demands on Bosnian peasants revived local resistance.
In 1875 a revolt against the state tax collectors began among Christian peasants in the Nevesinje region of Herzegovina. Unrest soon spread to other areas of Bosnia, and repressive force was applied both by the new Bosnian governor and by local landowners using their own irregular troops. The revolt aroused enormous popular sympathy in Serbia, which, along with Montenegro, declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1876. Russia came into the war on their behalf in the following year. After the Serbo-Turkish War ended in 1878, the other great powers of Europe intervened at the Congress of Berlin to counterbalance Russia’s new influence in the Balkans. The congress decided that Bosnia and Herzegovina, while remaining notionally under Turkish sovereignty, would be occupied and governed by Austria-Hungary. In 1878 Austro-Hungarian troops took control of Bosnia, overcoming vigorous resistance from local Bosnian forces. They also occupied the neighbouring sanjak of Novi Pazar (now in Serbia), which had been one of the seven Bosnian sanjaks in the late Ottoman period.
Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian rule
Bosnia and Herzegovina was declared a “crown land” and was governed by a special joint commission under the Common Ministry of Finance. The Ottoman administrative division was preserved, and Ottoman laws were only gradually replaced or supplemented. This policy of gradualism was the most striking aspect of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina under Common Finance Minister Benjamin Kállay, a specialist in South Slav history who directed Bosnian policy from 1882 to 1903. Indeed, a common criticism of Austro-Hungarian rule was that little was done to resolve tensions between landlords and peasants. In other areas, however, Kállay’s rule was extremely active. A public works program was initiated, and by 1907 Bosnia and Herzegovina had a well-developed infrastructure, including an extensive railway and road network. Mines and factories were developed, and agriculture was promoted with model farms and training colleges. Three high schools and nearly 200 primary schools were built, although compulsory education was not introduced until 1909.
While he succeeded in many of these areas of practical improvement, Kállay failed in his central political project: developing a Bosnian national consciousness to insulate the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the growing movements of Croatian, Serbian, and Yugoslav (“South Slav”) nationalism. Roman Catholic and Orthodox people of Bosnia and Herzegovina had begun by the mid-19th century to identify themselves as “Croats” and “Serbs,” respectively. At the same time, Muslim intellectuals were campaigning for greater powers over the Islamic institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, thereby becoming quasi-political representatives of a Muslim community with its own distinctive interests. During the first decade of the 20th century, new “national organizations” of Muslims, Serbs, and Croats functioned as embryonic political parties. In response, Kállay’s successor, István, Freiherr (baron) Burián, granted a degree of autonomy in religious affairs to both the Muslims and the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg
Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg, in an open carriage at Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, shortly before their assassination, June 28, 1914.
In October 1908 nationalist feeling was strongly aroused by the sudden announcement that Bosnia and Herzegovina would be fully annexed by Austria-Hungary. The decision, which caught other great powers by surprise and created a diplomatic crisis lasting many months, was prompted by the revolution of the Young Turks in Constantinople. The Young Turks appeared ready to establish a more democratic regime in the Ottoman Empire, which could then plausibly reclaim Turkish rights over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Inside Bosnia and Herzegovina, one effect of this change was beneficial: Burián felt able to promote democratic institutions, and a parliament (with limited powers) was introduced there in 1910. But the bitter resentment that the annexation caused among Serb and South Slav nationalists led to the growth of revolutionary groups and secret societies dedicated to the overthrow of Habsburg rule. One of these, Mlada Bosna (“Young Bosnia”), was especially active in Bosnian schools and universities.
The arrest of Gavrilo Princip (centre), 1914.
Tension was heightened by the First Balkan War of 1912–13, in which Serbia expanded southward, driving Turkish forces out of Kosovo, Novi Pazar, and Macedonia. In May 1913 the military governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gen. Oskar Potiorek, declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, closed down Serb cultural associations, and suspended the civil courts. The following year the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina to review a military exercise. He was killed in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, by a young assassin from the Mlada Bosna organization, Gavrilo Princip, who had received some assistance from inside Serbia. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia one month later, precipitating World War I.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military rule throughout World War I, and repressive measures were applied to those Bosnian Serbs whose loyalty was suspect. At the end of the war, Bosnian politicians from each of the three main communities followed the political leaders of Croatia and Slovenia in throwing off Habsburg rule and joining in the creation of a new South Slav state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Yugoslav kingdom
Alexander, prince regent of Serbia, 1916. He later became Alexander I, king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1921–29) and of Yugoslavia (1929–34).
The historical boundaries of Yugoslavia from 1919 to 1992.
When the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was finally settled in June 1921, Bosnia and Herzegovina retained no formal status of its own. However, its outline was preserved on the map, in the form of six oblasti (provinces) corresponding to the sanjaks (excluding that of Novi Pazar) of the late Ottoman period. Serfdom was abolished, but Bosnia and Herzegovina remained relatively undeveloped socially and politically. In 1929 the kingdom was renamed Yugoslavia, and a territorial division—introduced under King Alexander I’s royal dictatorship—divided Bosnia and Herzegovina between four new administrative districts called banovine. Bosnia and Herzegovina thus was wiped off the map. Further adjustments were made in 1939, particularly the creation of an expanded Croatian banovina within Yugoslavia that included portions of Bosnian territory. In 1941, after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia during World War II, the entire Bosnian territory was absorbed into the puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia.
The killing that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1941 and 1945 was terrible in both scale and complexity. The Ustaša, the fascist movement that ruled Croatia during the war, exterminated most of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 14,000 Jews and massacred Serbs on a large scale; tens of thousands of Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina died in death camps. Two organized resistance movements emerged: a Serbian royalist force known as the Chetniks, led by Draža Mihailović, and the communist Partisan force (including at first Serbs and then also Croats and Muslims), led by Josip Broz Tito. The sharply divergent aims of the two movements resulted in a civil war. Royalist forces turned increasingly to German and Italian forces for assistance and committed atrocities against Bosnian Muslims. At the same time, some Bosnian Muslims joined an SS division that operated in northern and eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina for six months during 1944, exacting reprisals against the local Serb population. The Partisans liberated Sarajevo in April 1945 and declared a communist “people’s government” for Bosnia and Herzegovina later that month. It is estimated that, when considering only the three largest ethnic groups, 164,000 Serbs, 75,000 Muslims, and 64,000 Croats died in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war.
Bosnia and Herzegovina in communist Yugoslavia
Josip Broz Tito, 1972.
In 1946 the People’s Republic (from 1963, Socialist Republic) of Bosnia and Herzegovina became one of the constituent republics of the Federal People’s (from 1963, Socialist Federal) Republic of Yugoslavia. Life in Bosnia and Herzegovina underwent all the social, economic, and political changes that were imposed on the whole of Yugoslavia by its new communist government, but Bosnia and Herzegovina was particularly affected by the abolition of many traditional Muslim institutions, such as Qurʾānic primary schools, rich charitable foundations, and dervish religious orders. However, a change of official policy in the 1960s led to the acceptance of “Muslim” as a term denoting a national identity: the phrase “Muslim in the ethnic sense” was used in the 1961 census, and in 1968 the Bosnian Central Committee decreed that “the Muslims are a distinct nation.” By 1971 Muslims formed the largest single component of the Bosnian population. During the next 20 years the Serb and Croat populations fell in absolute terms as many Serbs and Croats emigrated. In the 1991 census Muslims made up more than two-fifths of the Bosnian population, while Serbs made up slightly less than one-third and Croats one-sixth. From the mid-1990s the term Bosniak replaced Muslim as the name Bosnian Muslims use for themselves.
In the 1980s the rapid decline of the Yugoslav economy led to widespread public dissatisfaction with the political system. This attitude, together with the manipulation of nationalist feelings by politicians, destabilized Yugoslav politics. Independent political parties appeared by 1989. In early 1990 multiparty elections were held in Slovenia and Croatia. When elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina in December, new parties representing the three national communities gained seats in rough proportion to their populations. A tripartite coalition government was formed, with the Bosniak politician Alija Izetbegović leading a joint presidency. Growing tensions both inside and outside Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, made cooperation with the Serb Democratic Party, led by Radovan Karadžić, increasingly difficult.
In 1991 several self-styled “Serb Autonomous Regions” were declared in areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina with large Serb populations. Evidence emerged that the Yugoslav People’s Army was being used to send secret arms deliveries to the Bosnian Serbs from Belgrade (Serbia). In August the Serb Democratic Party began boycotting the Bosnian presidency meetings, and in October it removed its deputies from the Bosnian assembly and set up a “Serb National Assembly” in Banja Luka. By then full-scale war had broken out in Croatia, and the breakup of Yugoslavia was under way. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s position became highly vulnerable. The possibility of partitioning Bosnia and Herzegovina had been discussed during talks between the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman, and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milošević, earlier in the year, and two Croat “communities” in northern and southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, similar in some ways to the “Serb Autonomous Regions,” were proclaimed in November 1991. When the European Community (EC; later succeeded by the European Union) recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in December, it invited Bosnia and Herzegovina to apply for recognition also. A referendum on independence was held during February 29–March 1, 1992, although Karadžić’s party obstructed voting in most Serb-populated areas and almost no Bosnian Serbs voted. Of the nearly two-thirds of the electorate that did cast a vote, almost all voted for independence, which President Izetbegović officially proclaimed on March 3, 1992.
Independence and war
Ratko Mladić, 1993.
Attempts by EC negotiators to promote a new division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into ethnic “cantons” during February and March 1992 failed: different versions of these plans were rejected by each of the three main ethnic parties. When Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence was recognized by the United States and the EC on April 7, Bosnian Serb paramilitary forces immediately began firing on Sarajevo, and the artillery bombardment of the city by Bosnian Serb units of the Yugoslav army began soon thereafter. During April many of the towns in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina with large Bosniak populations, such as Zvornik, Foča, and Višegrad, were attacked by a combination of paramilitary forces and Yugoslav army units. Most of the local Bosniak population was expelled from these areas, the first victims in the country of a process described as ethnic cleansing. Although Bosniaks were the primary victims and Serbs the primary perpetrators, Croats were also among the victims and perpetrators. Within six weeks a coordinated offensive by the Yugoslav army, paramilitary groups from Serbia, and local Bosnian Serb forces brought roughly two-thirds of Bosnian territory under Serb control. In May the army units and equipment in Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under the command of a Bosnian Serb general, Ratko Mladić.
Bodies of people killed in April 1993 around Vitez, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian conflict.
From the summer of 1992, the military situation remained fairly static. A hastily assembled Bosnian government army, together with some better-prepared Bosnian Croat forces, held the front lines for the rest of that year, though its power was gradually eroded in parts of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian government was weakened militarily by an international arms embargo and by a conflict in 1993–94 with Bosnian Croat forces. But later in 1994 Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks agreed to form a joint federation.
The United Nations (UN) refused to intervene in the Bosnian conflict, but UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) troops did facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. The organization later extended its role to the protection of a number of UN-declared “safe areas.” However, the UN failed to protect the safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces perpetrated the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniak men.
Slobodan Milošević (third from left), Alija Izetbegović (fourth from left), and Franjo Tudjman (sixth from left) initialing the Dayton Accords at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, outside Dayton, Ohio, November 21, 1995.
Several peace proposals during the war failed, largely because the Bosnian Serbs—who controlled about 70 percent of the land by 1994—refused to concede any territory. In February 1994, in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first-ever use of force, NATO fighters shot down four Bosnian Serb aircraft that were violating the UN-imposed no-fly zone over the country. Later that year, at the UN’s request, NATO launched isolated and ineffective air strikes against Bosnian Serb targets. But following the Srebrenica massacre and another Bosnian Serb attack on a Sarajevo marketplace, NATO undertook more concentrated air strikes late in 1995. Combined with a large-scale Bosniak-Croat land offensive, this action led Bosnian Serb forces to agree to U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., in November. Serbian Pres. Slobodan Milošević represented the Bosnian Serbs. The resulting Dayton Accords called for a federalized Bosnia and Herzegovina in which 51 percent of the land would constitute a Croat-Bosniak federation and 49 percent a Serb republic. To enforce the agreement, formally signed in December 1995, a 60,000-member international force was deployed.
It was originally estimated that at least 200,000 people were killed and more than 2,000,000 displaced during the 1992–95 war. Subsequent studies, however, concluded that the death toll was actually about 100,000.
Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina
Alija Izetbegović (centre), president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, flanked by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher (left) and French Gen. Jean Heinrich (right), Sarajevo, Bos.-Her., 1996.
An election in September 1996 produced a tripartite national presidency chaired by Izetbegović and an ethnically apportioned national legislature dominated by nationalist parties. Karadžić had been indicted for war crimes and was prohibited from being a candidate, though he retained some support among Bosnian Serbs into the 21st century. (He eluded capture until his arrest in Belgrade in July 2008.) The national government was largely responsible for foreign affairs, and the internationally appointed Office of the High Representative—established under the Dayton Accords and later granted overriding executive powers (the so-called Bonn Powers)—oversaw the implementation of the peace agreement and acted as the final authority. Meanwhile, the two parts of the republic, the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic), were largely autonomous, each having its own assembly.Noel R. MalcolmJohn R. Lampe
Over the next several years the country experienced an uneasy peace. It received extensive international assistance, but the economy remained in shambles. Much of the workforce was unemployed—about 50 percent in the Federation and about 70 percent in the Republika Srpska. By the early 21st century, however, projects funded by the World Bank had succeeded in reconstructing much of the country’s infrastructure, and some political and economic reforms were implemented. In the course of the regional economic boom of 2006–08, unemployment in the country fell to less than 30 percent.As European bank credit and foreign direct investment took the place of declining international aid, rates of economic growth averaged 6 percent. Although the international financial crisis that began in 2008 did affect the economy, it had less of an impact in Bosnia and Herzegovina than elsewhere in the Balkans, as the country’s current account and state budget deficits were relatively small. Regional relations also improved in the early 21st century. In both the Croat and Serb communities, calls for breaking away from Bosnia and Herzegovina to unite with Croatia and Serbia declined in the face of faded interest from both of those states. Relations with Croatia in particular warmed in 2010, following Croatian Pres. Ivo Josipović’s apology for his country’s military actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the warfare of the early 1990s.
Nonetheless, other problems have continued to delay the internal integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, leaving in doubt the possibility of accession into the European Union (EU). Although the danger of renewed violence has remained minimal, the stalemate between the Federation and the Republika Srpska has persisted. Struggles over a potential new constitution, including disputed provisions for a common police force, have steadfastly resisted resolution. The international Office of the High Representative has remained in place, despite repeated attempts to end its authority and transfer its advisory functions to an EU office. Underlying all these difficulties are the continuing troubled relations between Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs. Their leaders’ respective demands for a federation with some central powers in Sarajevo and a loose confederation offering the right of secession have been diametrically opposed. Their disagreement has frustrated repeated efforts to draft a new constitution to replace the Dayton agreement. Some promise for progress did emerge from the elections of October 2010. Although the hard-line president of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, was reelected, the Bosniak presidency passed to Bakir Izetbegović, the son of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first president, Alija Izetbegović. Attracting younger voters to his campaign for reconciliation, he joined Bosnian Croat Pres. Željko Komšić as a moderating figure.John R. Lampe
In May 2011 Ratko Mladić, who had commanded the Bosnian Serb forces during the war and was widely held to be responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, was captured in Serbia to be extradited to The Hague to face trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The political deadlock that had hobbled the Bosnian government since the October 2010 election was finally resolved on December 28, 2011. The absence of a central government had threatened to spark a financial crisis, as foreign investment contracted and hundreds of millions of dollars from the EU and the International Monetary Fund were withheld. The six major political parties agreed on Bosnian Croat Vjekoslav Bevanda as a compromise choice as prime minister. Bvenda took office in January 2012, and he began to work on a budget that would allow the new government to function. Economic growth and political reform, however, were impeded by persistent gridlock and the country’s inability to effectively coordinate its policies and to establish functional, sustainable institutions at all levels of government.
In 2013 the parliament’s work was stymied by attempts to reshuffle the government and by street demonstrations in Sarajevo. Later that year the government’s precarious balancing of ethnic-based agendas was further eroded after the breakup of an alliance between the two main Bosnian Serb parties—the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and the Serb Democratic Party (SDS). In its annual progress report, the European Commission warned that Bosnia’s complex decision-making process continued to hamper its progress toward EU membership. The country witnessed widespread civil unrest in 2014 after the government approved plans calling for the privatization of some of Bosnia’s largest state-owned enterprises. Citizen-led protests, dubbed by media outlets as the “Bosnian Spring,” focused primarily on long-festering economic and social problems, but they also called on government officials to resign amid accusations of widespread corruption and indifference. According to the Banja Luka-based Centre for Research and Studies, parliamentarians in Bosnia received more than six times the average salary of Bosnians, the largest proportional gap observed in 31 European countries. Joblessness also remained a persistent issue, with general unemployment reaching 46 percent and youth unemployment topping 70 percent in 2015.
Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadžić awaiting the reading of the verdict at his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, The Hague, Netherlands, March 24, 2016. Karadžić was found guilty on 10 of 11 counts, including responsibility for genocide committed in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Building housing the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, The Hague.
General elections in October 2014 saw the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) claim the most votes, and Denis Zvizdić was confirmed as prime minister in February 2015. Zvizdić made the country’s long-stalled EU accession talks one of his top priorities, and on February 15, 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina formally applied for membership in the EU. Although full accession was likely more than a decade away, the move signaled the country’s commitment to economic and political reform as well as to greater integration with other European countries.
In March 2016 Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadžić was found guilty of genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre, and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. In November 2017 Ratko Mladić was found guilty of war crimes and genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Karadžić and Mladić were among the 161 individuals indicted by the ICTY during its 24 years of existence, and the list of the accused included individuals from every ethnicity and nationality represented in the Bosnian conflict. Although ethnic tensions remained among the various groups within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the conclusion of the ICTY’s mandate in 2017 represented the end of an especially painful chapter in the country’s history.