The chronic fighting weakened Bosnia. Why has Serbian (and to an extent Croatian) national ideology singled out Bosnian Muslims in their "cleansing" policies? A further 2.25% identified with some other religious affiliation (including Judaism, atheism and agnosticism). At the same time, some Muslim families preferred to have their sons conscripted (e.g. Cultural Survival envisions a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression, rooted in self-determination and self-governance. One theory as to why conversion to Islam was more prevalent in Bosnia than other places in the Balkans is the possibility that the Bosnian Church practiced bogomilism. On the one hand, the head of the Muslim community argued that Islam does not allow for national sentiments, as prime loyalty should be paid to the Sultan as Caliph. Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian rule, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Yugoslav kingdom, Bosnia and Herzegovina in communist Yugoslavia. [7], The gradual conversion to Islam proceeded at different rates in various areas and among different groups. Albanians), this movement must be recognized as perhaps the most syncretic of all early movements, as it sought to bridge the gap between Croat and Serbian national sentiments. [9] Some converted to Islam as a way to escape the devirme tribute (whereby the son of Christian family would be taken for military service). Serbian and Croatian nationalisms, arising from their respective political and ideological climates, clearly demonstrate this transformation of consciousness. Consequently, the Muslim peoples have never had `aptitude' for nationalism. There was fighting on Bosnias borders during his final Hungarian campaign of 1566. Bosnian Muslims, unlike Serbs and Croats, never managed to put together an adequate national mythology, which rendered them the most vulnerable party in the exploding nationalistic arena. Bosnia was an important recruiting ground for Sleyman Is campaign to conquer Hungary (152033). 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 empires most important enemies Austria, Hungary, and Venice. A triangle of contending forces, each pulling in a different direction, was formed around Bosnia, exerting more and more pressure on Bosnian Muslims to make up their national mind. Though ineffective in the larger context and exclusive of the autochthonous though non-Slavic Balkan peoples (e.g. Thus many adherents of the Bosnian Church were more receptive to conversion to Islam. Significantly, religion played a minor role in state affairs, so the expansion of the Bosnian borders in the 14th century did not lead to a dissemination of the teachings of the Bosnian Church. The Cultural Atlas team acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands throughout Australia on whose country we have the privilege to live and work. However, today, the more popular term for this ethnicity is Bosniak. With that in mind, one can infer that in the process of nationalization the existing communities did not feel ready to enframe their shared history and common language in a single Bosnian nation within a single state. The increasing role of foreign powers (especially Austria and Russia) as protectors of the interests of Christians in the Balkans also raised Bosnian suspicions. [5] Additionally, much of the population of Bosnia did not belong to the Bosnian church. For the spirit of the times, however, Illyrianism was too vague and inclusive. In sum, the ideological and political appropriation of Bosnia by Croatian and Serbian nationalism, which also implied the eradication of Islam, resulted in the Bosnian Muslims' defensiveness and particularization of identity through selective historiography. Established in 1219, the Serbian Orthodox Church is often understood as the institution that links contemporary Serbia with its long historical past. The identity crisis of Bosnian Muslims, already dichotomized through Serbo-Croatian national aspirations, acquired yet a third, more local dimension: Bosnian-ness (Boshnak-ness). The present wear is arguably an extension of the Serbian and Croatian nationalistic preventions set up in the 19th century. Russia came into the war on their behalf in the following year. For example, the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910 showed that Muslims held 91% of all agricultural land, while around 73% of the peasants working on that land were Orthodox. Should one be distressed by that?". 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. The second avenue is the contextualization of Islamic sentiments in time and space, i.e., acknowledging the Islamic heritage as the basis for Bosnia's national heritage. Bosnia lacked a strong Christian church organization to command a strong followingthe result of a scarcity of priests and competition among the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches and schismatic Bosnian Church, which collapsed shortly before the Ottomans arrived. As Noel Malcolm aptly points out, it is questionable whether Bosnia would have ever adopted what is described here as "internal nationalization" had it not been for its neighbors. This was a gradual development; it took more than a hundred years for Muslims to become an absolute majority. Although they continued living side by side, the formation of their identity took separate turns, forecasting political and ideological tensions. Like most Catholics, many Croats accept the authority of the priesthood, the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. Austria seized more territory after invading Bosnia again in 1788, but it yielded up its gains at the peace settlement in 1791. Bosnian converts to Islam were the privileged community, set apart from their Catholic and Orthodox neighbors. In Herzegovina a third church, the Serbian Orthodox, had competed. Since much of Serbian identity is linked to religious history, an attack on a church building is often interpreted as an attack on an individual Serbian or the collective. Wherever Serbian is spoken, Karadzic argued, there is Serbia. It is thus an atomistic construct composed of several communities that have, due to their confessional differences, become ideologically alienated from each other. Instead, "Bosnian-ness" has remained a statement of regionalism, and within it, "Serb-ness," "Croat-ness," "Jewish-ness," and "Muslim-ness" as the declaration of national belonging. After all, he argued, Bosnia is Croatia's heartland. Most of the cultural heritage of Bosnian Muslims has been destroyed, not as a side-product of fighting, but as a result of a systematic targeting of architectural, cultural, and religious symbols of Bosnian Muslim identity. The cities of Sarajevo and Mostar, where such urban culture flourished, enjoyed a large degree of autonomy under elected officials. 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. In other words, the only demarcation line between the "true" Croats and the "untrue" Croats of Bosnia was religion. A number of Christian nobles, however, were able to retain their estates early on in the Ottoman rule by fighting on behalf of the Empire, suggesting that holding on to their property was not a major incentive for early conversions to Islam. A significant number of people in the former Kingdom of Bosnia converted to Islam after the conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 15th century, giving it a unique character within the Balkan region. It is to be noted that "Turks" here are not people of Turkish origin but South Slavic converts to Islam who, as the argument goes, betrayed the Serbian race. Bosnia, then, is a geographical reference mapped out in the world atlas, but not in the imagined cartography of national ideologies. Gaining autonomy from the Ottomans in the early 19th century had been repeatedly thematized in Serbian popular narratives as a symbolic victory of Christianity over Islam. In the next major war (171418), Austria joined forces with Venice, and in the Treaty of Passarowitz (Poarevac, 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. Rizvanbegovis reward was that Herzegovina was separated from the Bosnian eyalet as a distinct territory under his rule. Historically, it is the shared property of ethnic Jews, Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, who all rightfully call it their home. Also introduced was the notorious system called devirme, 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. There is no definite evidence of any Orthodox church buildings in central, northern, or western Bosnia before 1463. Regardless of spiritual beliefs, visits to ones local church during major events such as Christmas and Easter are common. It was a reactive consciousness, embedded mainly in an apophatic discourse. Yet the growing tax demands on Bosnian peasants revived local resistance. He also built schools, roads, and a public hospital and allowed the two Christian communities to build new schools and churches of their own. | Donor Privacy Policy | EIN: 23-7182593, Producing and Annihilating the Ethnos of Bosnian Islam, Cultural Survival E-Newsletter - News and Updates, Information on conferences, meetings and global events pertaining to Indigenous Peoples, Learn about Cultural Survival's response to Covid-19. Bosnian Muslims who found no similar external support, were pushed to crystallize their national position within specific historical circumstances. Bosnia and Herzegovina is generally ethno-religious whereby ones ethnicity usually determines their religious affiliation. Get a downloadable, printable version that you can read later. National myths, as Benedict Anderson argues, are ephemeral in nature, and their claim to transhistoricity can readily be disputed. In 1919, the Muslim resistance to both socio-economic and ideological actions of the Yugoslav government was objectified in the establishment of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization (YMO). It remains common for Muslims to visit Christian neighbours on Christmas, and vice versa during Ramadan. The number of new converts surprised even the Ottoman authorities and, as a result, Bosnia came to be perceived as the western stronghold of the imperial polity throughout the four and a half centuries of Ottoman rule. I shall not recount all the murders, robberies, and persecution of Muslims. [5], According to scholar Fine, the reason why conversion to Islam was more prevalent in Bosnia (and Albania) as opposed to other areas under Ottoman rule is because these areas had multiple competing churches, none of which were dominant. In other words, the question raised is how an essentially religious community became both an ethnic and national community, without changing its appellation. The agrarian reforms envisioned by Austro-Hungarians threatened to jeopardize Muslim landownership and deepen the ideologically motivated split between the Muslim and Christian populations of Bosnia.

How Nationalism Enveloped Bosnian Muslims. 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. The confusing signals from Croat and Serb nationalisms were particularly accentuated as the Serbian fears of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia were realized in 1978. Ljudevit Gaj (d. 1872) expressed best this need for ideological syncretism: in the 1830s, he founded the so-called Illyrian movement that rooted itself in a linguistic and racial unity of all Balkan Slavs. In line with these cross-currents, Bosnian Muslims found themselves split in three different, though overlapping, national identities: some espoused Serb-ness, some Croat-ness, and others Bosnian-ness. [6] Finally, under Ottoman rule there was significant religious conversion in many directions: many Catholics converted to the Orthodox church and vice versa. 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. Sakib Korkut, the YMO spokesman, articulates its as follows: What did the unification of Yugoslavia bring us? 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. 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. Cultural Survival advocates for Indigenous Peoples' rights and supports Indigenous communities self-determination, cultures and political resilience, since 1972. While they still are closely affiliated with Islam culturally, not all Bosniaks are practising Muslims. The shift from an essentially integrative, multireligious context to ethnonational "othering" is key to understanding this alienation. By that time, the split in national ideologies had assumed more extreme proportions, primarily under the leadership of Nikola Pasic and his Serbian National Radical Party. For a number of complex socio-political reasons, a large number of Bosnians, primarily the followers of the Bosnian church, chose to convert to Islam in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. Bosnian Muslims, who are the most indigenous population of Bosnia-Herzegovina, lost possession over it by being essentialized as a Muslim nation. [2], Several factors appear to have been behind this process. 2022 Cultural Survival. However, faith was used as a divisive tool for inciting violence during the war. [10], Another way in which Bosnia was Islamized was through immigration. Three avenues of its articulation can be identified. Their religious belonging, constructed in the early 20th century as a separate ethnonational identity, has failed short of providing a convincing mythological discourse, that would spatially and temporally preserve this identity as a nation state. In 1878 Austro-Hungarian troops took control of Bosnia, overcoming vigorous resistance from local Bosnian forces. The war in Bosnia is a tragic testimony to the political and ideological abuse of religious differences in a society whose historical integrity is embedded in their mutual acculturation. In addition, only Muslims could hold positions in the Ottoman state apparatus, which conferred special privileges and a much higher standard of living. The result was the crystallization of Yugoslavia as the federation of six Republics (Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina) in which only one of them-Bosnia-Herzegovina - was not a national construct. Towards the end of World War I in 1918, he had issued the following statement: "As soon as our troops cross the Drina River, we will give the Turks 24, perhaps 48 hours to convert to the religion of their forefathers, and those who resist we shall slay as we have done in the past.". In 1848, Montengrin bishop Petar Petrovic Njegos composed a historical play, The Mountain Wreath, that has since been considered the greatest piece of Serbian literature ever, because, as Vasa Mihailovic puts it, "it epitomizes the spirit of Serbian people held for centuries." 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. Nation-building, as Anderson points out, necessitates the removal of a people from their historical context of "objective modernity" towards the creation of a myth about their "subjective antiquity." Given that the political consciousness in both the privileged and the unprivileged population was still underdeveloped, it was an emotive pendulum that would swing their mutual perception from the conjunctive background of the shared history to the disjunctive foreground of cultural differentiation. Most important was that Christianity had relatively shallow roots in Bosnia prior to the Ottoman domination. Muslims also enjoyed legal privileges: Christians could not sue Muslims and their testimony could not be used against Muslims in court. 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. In certain respects, it was a supra-regional national movement, somewhat similar to Yugoslavism that would be advocated by Tito in post-World War II Yugoslavia. Regarding the Croatian stance, it should be noted that Croat nationalism sprouted out of a completely different political framework. However, the normally peaceful coexistence occasionally burst into explicit conflicts that would crystallize the lines of religious differentiation. Towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, however, these conflicts began to be guised in ideological attire, even though they were often socio-economically motivated. 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. Another handicap of this church in spreading its influence was its being labeled as heretical by the Pope. Although Croatian and Serbian national ideologies began seeping into Bosnia, too, they were promptly diluted by an unaccommodating political reality. The raw model was not the Ottoman Sultanate but the Turkish Republic, where the Islamic identity did not preempt nationalization, but, on the contrary, was a part of it. In fact, in the Bogomilian tradition, there were several practices that resembled Islam: they rejected the veneration of the Virgin Mary, repudiated the Cross as a religious symbol, they considered it as idolatry to bow down before religious images, relics or saints, and even prayed five times a day (reciting the Lord's Prayer.) The second, Topal Osman-paa, 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. However, a 2012 survey found that more than half of Bosnias Muslims consider themselves non-denominational.1 Bosnia has a history of practising quite a modern form of Islam, influenced by the Turkish Ottoman practice of the religion. Historically, Bosnia has escaped the transformation into a nation-state. Important Catholic values that manifest in Croat cultural values include compassion and graciousness.

The Serb ethnic identity and Serbian nationalism are often linked to the Serbian Orthodox Church. Language determines culture. For this reason, Bosnian Muslims described religious affiliation as well as ethnic identity. Generally speaking, many older Serbs see the church as an important part of their religious, social and cultural life. Finally, the third articulation was the historical leap back into pre-Ottoman Bosnia whereby the link was established with Bogomil ancestors. Consequently, Bosnia is not a land inhabited by Bosnians; it is the land of Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Jews, etc. 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. Be the champion for inclusion in your workplace with exceptional tools and resources. Even children known about those. Such political inequality, however, did not necessarily imply social segregation: numerous popular narratives bear witness to a continuous interaction among these religious communities, as well as a shared sense of regional patriotism. The main agenda was to defend the existing patterns of land distribution, perpetuating in consequence societal cleavages along confessional lines.

For example, it is now becoming more common for Muslim women to follow the Islamic dress code. 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. In 1830, Serbia gained independence from the Ottomans. Any content older than 10 years is archival and Cultural Survival does not necessarily agree with the content and word choice today. 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. Pro-Ottoman sentiments were still a unifying factor for Bosnian Muslim masses, and they were mainly articulated in religion-political and socio-economic terms. See the section on Religion in Serbian Culture for more information on the Serbian Orthodox Church. In this light, the case of Bosnian Muslims can be easily seen through Wallerstein's proposition that nationalism is not a thing in itself but a "relation" manifested as a response to external forces. [5], The various advantages and privileges that were reserved for Muslims and the large number of conversions they encouraged among the native population led to the emergence over time of a largely local Muslim ruling class that dominated political and economic power in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of the five basic pillars of Islam, the salat (ritual prayers five times a day), hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and sawm (fasting during Ramadan) are not widely followed throughout the culture. This paper will attempt to answer these questions by discussing the interplay of different pluralist and exclusivist ideologies pouring into Bosnia in the 19th century from neighboring Serbia and Croatia. The studies in the Bosnian Church have frequently linked it with neo-Manichean Bogomil beliefs, but more recent findings indicate a stronger affinity with Catholicism than previously suggested. A synchretic history on one and the continuous foreign rulership on the other ensured the resistance of Bosnia to both succumbing completely to the wooing ideologies of neighboring Croatia and Serbia and articulating an indigenous ideological agenda. Today, however, after three years of being subjected to genocide, for the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina the question of self-definition is urgently linked to the very question of survival. Further reforms announced by Sultan Abdlmecid 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. More specifically, its attempt was to revive the assumed unity of the Balkan peoples before the 9th century arrival of Catholicism and Orthodoxy that caused religious and political split in the region. In both cases, Muslim converts are posited as pollutants of Serbian-ethnic or religious - space.) Before genocide, they may believe it is a matter of personal choice whether they belong or believe. Thus, it seems quite necessary to move beyond the popular image of this war as an intimidating historical labyrinth perpetuated by ancient hatreds, and understand the dynamics at play among different national ideologies. In an attempt to stem the flow of Serbian ideology into Bosnia, Austro-Hungarians sought to promote a distinct Bosnian identity and targeted Bosnian Muslims as the most liable party. With the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes after World War I in 1918, the new Yugoslav government went ahead with implementing the agrarian reforms. This receptiveness was aided by the development among many people of a kind of folk Christianity centered on various practices and ceremonies that was adaptable to a form of folk Islam popular at the time of the invasion.[3]. In the present war, however, the question of "otherness" is the main motive behind the "ethnic cleansing" campaigns that have aimed at altering the cultural and historical landscape of Bosnia and Herzegovina. What it has not escaped, however, is an "internal nationalization," which subjected its population to partition along ethnonational lines. (Many of these buildings were systematically demolished by Serb forces in 199293.) The effect was twofold: one, it ensured a safe haven for Bosnian Catholics in the Croatian national space, and two, it posited religion as the crucial factor in the definition of that space. 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. 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. The revolt aroused enormous popular sympathy in Serbia, which, along with Montenegro, declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1876. Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc. Our website houses close to five decades of content and publishing. Generally, ones religiosity is not very obvious initially. A similar policy was continued by Tito in post-World War II Yugoslavia: the Constitution of 1971 gave Muslims a legitimate national status, essentializing thus the tri-partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 1618; Malcolm (1994) pp. Fine mosques were also built in towns such as Foa and Banja Luka. During the Great Turkish War of the late 1600s, the Ottoman Empire lost control of most of Hungary and portions of the northwestern Balkans. In Ottoman times, the population was administratively grouped according to the millet system, whereby their rights were determined by their religious identity. Bosnians have traditionally been very tolerant and accepting of religious difference; Muslims and Christians coexisted relatively harmoniously for centuries. It is very rare for a person to change religions. Furthermore, it may be difficult to differentiate between Muslims and Orthodox Christians as women from both religions may wear headscarves. Since the breakup of former Yugoslavia, the church has again seen a strong revival. It is pointed out that Bosnians of all Christian denominations converted to Islam, including from the Catholic and Orthodox churches, not just those from the Bosnian church. Descriptions of Sarajevo by visiting travelers portray it as one of the wonders of the Balkans, with fountains, bridges, schools, libraries, and mosques. Antun Starcevic, a vehement opponent of Vuk Karadzic, promoted Croat identity that geopolitically included Bosnia. Christianity was thus structurally weaker in Bosnia than in almost any other part of the Balkans. It took over one hundred years for Islam to become the majority religion. Nevertheless, Ottoman Bosnia was not permanently sunk in misery. The nationalization of Bosnian Muslims was not formulated as a mythological discourse that could ensure them geographical integrity and grant them territorial claims over the land to which they historically belong. Austria invaded Bosnia again in 1736 but was repelled by local forces. The majority of Muslims are Bosniaks, most Orthodox Christians are Bosnian Serb and Catholic Christians are generally Bosnian Croat. Under the feudal system imposed by the Ottomans, only those who converted to Islam could acquire and inherit land and property, which accorded them political rights, a status usually denied to non-Muslims. 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. That is true. Conversion to Islam was more rapid in urban areas, which were centers of learning and of the Ottoman administration, than in the countryside. As a branch of Christianity, Catholicism is based on the doctrine of God as the Holy Trinity, consisting of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. [1] Muslims paid much lower taxes and enjoyed widespread benefits while Christians were second-class citizens. 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.