Bosnian
language myth
Bosnian
language is «essentially» the language of all the inhabitants
of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was called Serbo-Croatian before
the collapse of Yugoslavia and only extremists's nationalist
passions created artificial rift which has no linguistic foundation
whatsoever (but is a socio-political reality one must accept).
Moreover, Bosnian language is not only a «successor language»
(along with Croatian and Serbian) to the old Serbo-Croatian,
but also the true heir of the entire corpus of literary and
linguistic works written on the Bosnia & Herzegovina soil
which (although tangentially in most cases) mention the name
«Bosnian language».
Reality
There
was not, ever, "Serbo-Croatian" standard language.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has specified
different Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) numbers for
Croatian (UDC 862, acronym hr) and Serbian (UDC 861, acronym
sr), while hybrid «Serbo-Croatian» language, a political construct
not yet dumped into history's dustbin, is referenced in equally
hybrid manner-UDC 861/862, acronym sh. The situation is comparable
to other closely related languages in the terms of genetic
linguistics: further examples include, for instance, Hindi
and Urdu, Czech and Slovak or Bulgarian and Macedonian. These
are similar, mutually intelligible standard languages which
crystallized out of basically the same dialectal "prime
matter"- as is the case with Norwegian and Danish or
Malay and Bahasa Indonesian. But to describe them as "variants
of a language" (British and American English analogy
is frequently (mis)used) is sheer nonsense.
Croatian
and Serbian differ in:
1.script
(Latin and Cyrillic)
2.grammar and syntax (ca. 100 rules)
3.phonetics (ca. 100 accentuation rules)
4.orthography (although both languages use phonemic orthography,
its structures differ for Serbian and Croatian. Croatian has
retained numerous morphonological orthographical prescriptions,
while Serbian tends to extend the area of applicability of
phonetic principle )
5.morphology (more than 300 different morphology laws. Also:
Croatian is a purist language- unlike Serbian. Moreover, even
"internationalisms" like organize are different:
organizirati in Croatian, organizovati in Serbian. )
6.semantics (here, the structural differences are too complex
to be described in a rough outline)
7.vocabulary (ca. 30% of everyday vocabulary is different.
In 100,000 words dictionary, 40,000 are either Croatian or
Serbian. According to a pre-eminent Croatian linguist, Serbian
and Croatian languages differ in 150,000 words in a corpus
of 500,000 entries).
Entire books have been translated from one language to another.
Probably the most bizarre case is Swiss psychologist Jung’s
masterwork “Psychology and Alchemy”, translated into Croatian
in 1986, and retranslated, in late 1990s, into Serbian not
from the original German, but from Croatian. A translation
and “translation’s translation” differ on virtually every
page.
Bosnian language is a relative newcomer. Colloquial language
spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a Croatian and Serbian
hybrid which can be ironically termed Serbo-Croatian, since,
as a standard language, it was a heavily Serbianized Croatian
language (particularly in vocabulary and syntax). Since the
break-up of communism and administratively imposed mixed “Serbo-Croatian”
bastard norm, Bosnian Muslims appropriated the orphaned “Serbo-Croatian”
and, slightly modifying it by infusion of Islamic oriental
idioms, renamed it Bosnian language. Croats and Serbs in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, liberated from shackles of communist bureaucratic
artificial linguistic uniformity, returned to their national
standard languages. Bosnian Muslims’ contemporary efforts
to give a historical “legitimacy” to the name of their national
language are exercise in futility since the term “Bosnian
language” was almost exclusively used by Croatian writers
and lexicographers in 17th and 18th centuries (both in Croatia
and Bosnia & Herzegovina) to designate a dialectal variant
of Croatian language.
The following
myth is frequently encountered: a unified Serbo-Croatian language
appeared at the turn of the 19th/20th century, when efforts
of Serbian language reformer Vuk Karadžić and Croatian Illyrian
national movement (headed by Ljudevit Gaj) converged to give
birth to the standard Serbo-Croatian language. But the reality
is quite different: processes of languages standardization
for Croats and Serbs (Bosnian Muslims did not take part in
this matter) were almost independent-with the exception of
a few decades in the second half of the 19th century which
were not as crucial as some old-school philologists had supposed.
The most celebrated single event, the Vienna agreement (signed
by 7 Croatian litterateurs/philologists and 2 Serbian philologists)
from 1850 was actually not "implemented" ( to use
the politicos' buzzword), and even the value of its content
is dubious.
Croatian
language
Modern
Croatian standard language is a continuous outgrowth of more
than 9 hundred years old literature written in the mixture
of Croatian Church Slavonic and vernacular language. If we
narrow out the subject, the Croatian Church Slavonic had been
abandoned by mid 1400s, and Croatian “purely” vernacular literature
has been in existence for more than 5 centuries- a story of
remarkable linguistic continuity with only a few shock points.
The standardization of Croatian language can be traced back
to the first Croatian dictionary (Faust Vrančić: Dictionarium
quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum –Latinae, Italicae,
Germanicae, Dalmatiae et Ungaricae, Venice 1595.) and first
Croatian grammar (Bartul Kašić: Institutionum linguae illyricae
libri duo, Rome 1604.). Interestingly enough, the language
of Jesuit Kašić’s unpublished translation of the Bible (Old
and New Testament, 1622-1636) in the Croatian štokavian-ijekavian
dialect (the ornate style of the Dubrovnik Renaissance literature)
is as close to the contemporary standard Croatian language
(problems of orthography apart) as are French of Montaigne’s
“Essays” or King James Bible English to their respective successors-
modern standard languages. But, due to the unique Croat linguistic
situation, formal shaping of Croatian standard language was
a process that took almost four centuries to complete: Croatian
is a «three dialects» tongue (a somewhat simplistic way to
distinguish between dialects is to refer to the pronoun «what»,
which is ča, kaj, što in, respectively, čakavian, kajkavian
and štokavian dialects) and «three scripts» language (Glagolitic,
Croatian/Western/Bosnian Cyrillic and Latin script, with Latin
script as the ultimate winner). The final obstacle to the
unified Croatian literary language (based on celebrated vernacular
Croatian Troubadour, Renaissance and Baroque (acronym TRB)
literature (ca. 1490 to ca. 1670) from Dalmatia , Dubrovnik
and Boka Kotorska was surmounted by Croatian national «awakener»
Ljudevit Gaj's standardization of Latin scriptory norm in
1830-50s. But, Gaj and his Illyrian movement (centred in kajkavian
speaking Croatia’s capital Zagreb) were important more politically
than linguistically. They "chose" štokavian dialect
because they didn't have any other realistic option- štokavian,
or, more precisely, neoštokavian (a version of štokavian which
emerged in the 17th /18th century) was the major Croatian
literary tongue from 1700s on. The true transition to neoštokavian
and establishment of a corpus of worthy (although aesthetically
inferior to the TRB) literature can be located in the works
of writers from southern Dalmatia, Herzegovina, central Bosnia
and Slavonia in the 2nd half of the 18th century. The main
authors are Grabovac, Kačić, Relković, Kanižlić and numerous
Bosnian Franciscan chroniclers. This is a full-fledged literary
language, accepted even in Croatian pockets where kajkavian
dialect had been still spoken and written on, as the lingua
franca of the Croatian nation. The 19th century linguists
and lexicographers’ main concern was to achieve a more consistent
and unified scriptory norm and orthography; an effort followed
by peculiar Croatian linguistic characteristics which may
be humorously described as “passion for neologisms” or vigorous
word coinage, originating from the purist nature of Croatian
literary language. One of the peculiarities of the "developmental
trajectory" of the Croatian language is that there is
not one towering figure among the Croatian linguists/philologists,
because the vernacular osmotically percolated into the "high
culture" via literary works so there was no need for
revolutionary linguistic upheavals-only reforms sufficed.
http://www.ihjj.hr/index_en.html
Serbian
language
As for
Serbian standard language, there is a complete asymmetry between
its position at the beginning of the 19th century and the
Croatian linguistic situation. Unlike Croats, apart from a
few writers like Obradović and Venclović ( in the 18th century
), Serbs did not have a literary tradition in the vernacular.
It was Vuk Karadžić, an energetic and resourceful Serbian
language and culture reformer, whose scriptory and orthographic
stylisation of Serbian linguistic folk idiom made a radical
break with the past; until his activity in the 1st half of
the 19th century, Serbs had been using Serbian variant of
Church Slavonic and a hybrid Russian-Slavonic language. His
“Serbian Dictionary”, published in Vienna 1818 (along with
the appended grammar), was the single most significant work
of Serbian literary culture that shaped the profile of Serbian
language (and, the 1st Serbian dictionary and grammar thus
far). Considering Croatian language and linguistic history,
Karadžić's upheaval was the revolution that decisively moulded
the language for Serbs; yet, his influence on Croatian standard
idiom was only one of the reforms for Croats (mostly in some
aspects of grammar and orthography; also, the majority of
his innovations were not, as far as Croatian language is concerned,
“innovative” at all- they have been present in Croatian literary
and linguistic corpora for centuries). Since both languages
shared the common basis of South Slavic neoštokavian dialect,
they interfered in many normative issues, particularly in
orthography, phonetics and syntax. But, due to the fact that
these two languages have had a radically different past of
almost four hundred years, only a few decades of moderately
peaceful convergence- it was inevitable that they should diverge,
especially when political pressures were applied to forge
them into one, Serbian-based, language.
http://www.rastko.org.yu/isk/pivic-standard_language.html
Bosnian
or Bosniak language
The irony of Bosnian language is that its speakers, Bosnian
Muslims or Bosniaks, are, on the level of colloquial idiom,
more linguistically homogenous than either Serbs or Croats,
but have failed, due to historical reasons, to standardize
their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian
dictionary, rhymed Bosnian-Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed
Hevaji Uskufi , was composed in 1631. But, unlike Croatian
dictionaries, which were written and published regularly (in
the formative period 1600. to 1850s more than 20 Croatian
dictionaries had appeared), Uskufi’s work remained an isolated
foray. At least two factors were decisive:
-Bosnian Muslim elite wrote almost exclusively in Oriental
(Arabic, Turkish, Persian) languages. Vernacular literature,
written in modified Arabic script, was thin and sparse.
-Bosnian Muslims’s/Bosniaks’s national emancipation lagged
behind Serbian and Croatian, and since denominational, rather
than cultural or linguistic issues played the pivotal role,
Bosnian language project didn’t arouse much interest or support.
Here, one must add a word of caution: from ca. 1600 to ca.
1800, a number of Croatian dictionaries and grammars mention
the term “Bosnian language”. But, in these works it stood
as a reference to štokavian dialect (as distinct from kajkavian
and čakavian) of the common name for stylised Croatian language-Illyrian
or Slovinian language, which encompassed all three dialectal
variants. No “Bosnian language” reference has had any ethnic/national
implication in the modern sense of the word. Also, now we
can witness a growing tension due to a rather bizarre situation:
Croats and Serbs object to the name «Bosnian» for the language
of Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks and contend that this is a sneaky
manoeuvre to boot Croatian and Serbian languages from administration
and media by imposing one «official» language with deceptively
all-encompassing name. They say that the language of Bosniaks
should be called Bosniak ( no «Bosnian» nation-no «Bosnian»
language) . So far, they failed to halt what they see as a
«creeping Bosniakization» in areas of mass media and state
administration.
So, prescriptions for the language of Bosnian Muslims in the
19th and 20th centuries were written outside of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. It was an artificial blend of Croatian and Serbian,
a stew of Serbian and Croatian orthographies, phonologies,
vocabularies and morphologies- “Serbo-Croatian” language.
After the collapse of Yugoslavia Bosniaks remained the sole
inheritors of the “Serbo-Croatian” hybrid and are trying to
reshape it, under the new name of “Bosnian language”, into
a distinct national/ethnic standard language.
http://www.bosnianlanguage.com/
The
Karadjordjevo partition myth
During the meeting in the Karadjordjevo estate (Serbian
province Vojvodina), March 30th 1991., Croatian president
Tudjman and Serbian president Milošević struck a deal whereby
they agreed about the respective influence spheres and the
partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, completely ignoring even
mere existence of Bosnian Muslims. Thus, the "alliance
made in Hell" came into being, Serbs and Croats united
trying to annihilate Bosnia's statehood and laying the ground
for joint military aggression and ethnic cleansing to come.
Reality
Croatian
and Serbian presidents Tudjman and Milošević have met March
30th 1991 at the Karadjordjevo estate in Serbian province
Vojvodina. Details about this meeting, apart from usual diplomatic
statements, are unknown. The press release stated that all
controversial issues were discussed. As yet, no single shred
of evidence (transcripts, video tapes, testimonies, interviews,
Xeroxed documents, microfilms, intelligence agencies materials)
has appeared. Croatian and Serbian participants of the meeting
(various officials and political advisers), who have in the
meantime parted ways with Tudjman and/or Milošević (Šarinić,
Bilandžić, Jović) and could only profit by disclosing compromising
data and transferring the burden of “partition guilt” onto
the shoulders of both former leaders (exculpating themselves
with the commonplace excuse that they’ve been involved in
the whole affair under duress and pressure of Croatian and
Serbian “autocrats”)-all have denied that an agreement on
any issue had been achieved.
Moreover,
the course of events has rendered the possibility of a previous
settlement impossible: next 9 months have witnessed an all-out
war against Croatia, covering circa 2/3 of her territory and
perpetrated by Serb-controlled Yugoslav National Army (the
JNA) and local Serb militias, aided by flood of volunteers
from Serbia proper. The city of Vukovar was attacked and completely
destroyed, while the city of Dubrovnik, a Croatian coastal
town, was besieged and shelled. War has spilled over to Croat-populated
areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the Milošević-controlled
JNA as the main “ethnic cleanser” of Bosnian and Herzegovinian
Croats (when Croats were expelled from south-eastern Herzegovina
and their houses systematically burnt (Ravno municipality)-
Bosnian Muslim leadership has shown total indifference, encapsulated
in the by now legendary phrase:" This is not *our* war".
) The “Karadjordjevo deal addicts” conveniently forget that
the supposed agreement, reached in the March 1991., would
have been brutally nullified on the battlefield areas in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, as early as in 1991. Considering the following
facts: the fiercest fighting in the Bosnia and Herzegovina
war occurred between Croats and Serbs (Bosnian Posavina);
also, the post-Dayton (1995.) interethnic borders between
Bosnian Serbs and Croats do not coincide with any of the presumed
“secret partition maps” which circulated in the last decade
of the 20th century (both in geopolitical and journalist circles)-
the Karadjordjevo partition deal is, for any rational person,
impossible to believe in.
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/myths.html
Myth
about pre-war interethnic idyll or «Paradise next door»
Until
the imported Goebbels-like propaganda of contemporary Croat
and Serbian chauvinists, all nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Croat, Serb, Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak ) led harmonious lives
of tolerance, mutual respect and gradually growing unity,
primarily through numerous interethnic/denominational marriages
and cultural homogenization achieved by common, «Bosnian»
culture which encompassed all strata of the society, from
academic treatises to popular rock culture. Ethnic and denominational
boundaries (legacy of the 19th century nationalist ideologies
) were rapidly disappearing and Bosnian «nation» was well
in the sight when ominous nationalists with their incendiary
rhetoric poured across the borders with Serbia and Croatia
to fan the flames of the last European 20th century genocidal
war.
Reality
Bosnia and Herzegovina has in past five centuries been a contested
land of fierce, although frequently repressed, interethnic
hatreds. Originally a European Christian-Catholic land (with
a number of Serbian Orthodox inhabitants who dwelled in parts
bordering with Serbia and Montenegro), it was conquered in
the 15th century in the course of Ottoman Islamic expansion.
During the four-centuries long Turkish/Ottoman rule, a considerable
part of native populace had converted to Islam and have been
perceived by remaining native (and newly arrived) Christian
peoples (Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs) as Quisling-like
traitors who joined the ranks of their Asiatic oppressors.
More, active participation of Bosnian Muslims on the side
of the Ottoman Empire, both in terrorization of Bosnian Christian
population and, frequently, as the bulk of Turkish military
units in 4 centuries long warfare against their coreligionists
& compatriots in Croatia and Serbia-all this unmasks the
"historically-grounded" interethnic/denominational
harmony thesis as a grotesque nonsense. The accumulated weight
of other events (the growing tension between Croatian and
Serbian national ideologies, ethnic cleansing of Muslims from
Serbia during the establishment of Serbian state in the 19th
century, fascistoid dictatorship in Royal Yugoslavia, the
enormous bloodletting during WW2 in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(ca. 328,000 dead-the biggest toll among former Yugoslav republics),
Communist dictatorship (1945.-1991.) which only exacerbated
the situation) – all this could not have been counterbalanced
by sham «brotherhood and unity», a ubiquitous phrase covering
manoeuvres of Communist ruling elite which was trying to rewrite
the history and fuse the three Bosnia and Herzegovina nations
(Croats, Serbs, Bosnian Muslims) into one, easily governable
amorphous mass devoid of ancient national loyalties.
During
the period of Communist rule (1945. -1991.) Bosnia and Herzegovina
was organized as the "triple" pyramidal structure:
the privileged class, with the unquestionable domination from
the police to the education and economy, were Serbs thanks
to their relative numerousness, to the "merit" of
suffering in the puppet Independent State of Croatia/NDH (1941.
-1945.) (yet overblown by the statistics manipulations), to
the dominance in the communist apparatus, as well as to the
role of the extended hand of the Belgrade centralism of their
fellow-countrymen.
On the second place were Bosnian Muslims who were supported
by Tito's supreme authority as the bearer of the "statehood"
tendencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the counter-balance
to the Serbian and Croatian historical national and territorial
aspirations towards B&H and, as the high birth-rate "Oriental"
ethnos, which, paradoxically, having given up many Oriental-Islamic
ways of life, was good anyway like the bridge to the Islamic
countries in the Non-alignment movement. Grateful to the Communist
Yugoslavia which recognized them the status of a nation, as
well as brainwashed with the indoctrination by which they
"succeeded" to forget their participation en masse
in the armed forces of NDH - Bosnian Muslims became the factor
number 2.in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the staunchest followers
of Yugoslav phantasm.
Croats, as the least numerous and most suspicious/"treacherous"
element, were bearing the stigma of a "reactionary"
Catholic nation, accused of genocide and brutality of NDH
(while Muslims were "generously" exculpated, and
Serbs, the main Communist executioners in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
were battening on the privileges “secured” by over-representation
in Communist partisan units which perpetrated mass war crimes)
underwent the destiny of second-class citizens. Constantly
under police supervision and politically persecuted, their
ethnic territories intentionally economically neglected, forced
to emigrate (out of the economical emigrants from Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croats, who made up ca. 1/5 of the population,
gave over 2/3 emigrants), with the repression of the Croatian
language and intruding Serbian, from the education to the
mass-media - Croats were particularly the subject of the totalitarian
police regime (being 20% of the B&H population, they comprised
more than 70% of political prisoners populace) : all with
the purpose of depopulation and elimination of the Croatian
nation like the "carcinogenic" element, which subverted
realization of the Communist totalitarian paradise on the
earth.
One of
the favourite delusions of Western "liberal" dogmatists
is the "mixed marriages" argument: supposedly high
level of interethnic/denominational marriages is *the* litmus
of tolerance and almost spontaneous benevolence of "Bosnians"
of all creeds and persuasions. Also, according to that view,
the majority of B & H population lived in ethnically/nationally
"mixed" areas- a "patchwork quilt" simplified
picture.
But-reality
was something entirely different.
True,
compared to the pre-WW2 period, the number of ethnically/denominationally
"mixed" marriages has experienced a dramatic growth.
But, this is easily explicable by a combination of general
modernization, increased mobility (both social and geographical)
of the population, disappearance of more traditional rural
ways of life, as well as Communist Yugoslav indoctrination
which preferred interethnic "mixing" as a sort of
glue which would (in theory) serve as an integrating factor
or at least as a buffer to the unrelenting national/ethnic
tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The crucial (and easily
overlooked) fact is that interethnic marriages comprised less
than 5% in any B & H nation (Bosnian Muslim, Serb, Croat)
and that the significant part of these marriages dissolved
following the collapse of Yugoslavia and Bosnia & Herzegovina-
consequently erasing from history a pseudo-national category
of "Yugoslavs" (who made up 5.5% of pre-war Bosnia
population).
As far
as presumed territorial inseparability of B&H nations:
only 28.3 percent of the total population of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(excluding Sarajevo) lived in ethnically mixed areas or in
the municipalities which had a relative majority of one of
the three sovereign and constituent nations. The larger towns/cities
had the greatest ethnic variety (with Sarajevo being the most
mixed, while Banja Luka, Zenica, Tuzla and Mostar were notably
less mixed) and constituted only 18.8% of the total population.
The great majority (over 80%) of the B&H inhabitants lived
in either mono-ethnic areas or in ethnically segregated urban
ghettos in midsize towns (which was, prior to Communist "planned
ethnic urban mixing", the habitation pattern in bigger
cities).
As for the alleged interethnic idyll destroyed by "imported"
nationalists (across the borders with Croatia and Serbia),
this contention is all too easily refuted by following facts:
Bosnia and Herzegovina was the place of the most brutal conflict
between Croats, Serbs and Muslims in both WW2 and post-1991
wars; also, during Communist Yugoslav dictatorship, this republic
had more political prisoners than any other federal unit except
Croatia. So, nationalist “encampment” of B&H nations is
not something induced by vitriolic propaganda which spilled
over Bosnia and Herzegovina borders, but a natural way of
life of native peoples.
The definite proof of falsity of "harmonious multiculturalism"
dogma were 2002 parliamentary elections. Croatia and Serbia
immobilized and "pacified" by a web of "stick
and carrot" offers from EU and USA (they were anything
but antagonistic towards schemes of BH High representative
who shamelessly pressured voters to cast their votes for supposedly
"multiethnic" parties (essentially, only superficially
reformed Communists who all-too-willingly accepted the role
of International protectorate's lapdogs))- the Bosnia and
Herzegovina electorate chose the other way. Despite electoral
and post-electoral engineering, they voted for their respective
"nationalist" parties- therefore sending the myth
about "bad guys across the borders- chief troublemakers"
down the toilet.
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/naunces.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/evil.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/komyu.html
Myth
about Bosnian nation
Version
1.
Croatian
and Serbian names and identities are "imported"
into Bosnia and Herzegovina (chiefly as a result of concentrated
anti-Bosnian propaganda efforts). These "fabricated"
national/ethnic identities and concomitant national loyalties
have no historical continuity going back to medieval (*-1463.)
and Ottoman (1463.-1879.) periods-hence, they are only artificial
constructs engineered and «implanted» into Bosnian Catholic
and Orthodox collectives by implacable enemies of Bosnian
statehood, Croats and Serbs (or, if we penetrate deeply enough
behind the scene, the Vatican and Russian Orthodoxy). Thus,
originally three-denominational Bosnian nation (Muslim, Catholic,
Orthodox) was cunningly split along religious lines. Hopefully,
this 150 years old ideological aggression against Bosnia and
Herzegovina is still defeatable:contemporary scholarship which
has dismantled Croatian and Serbian historiographical concoctions,
current sociopolitical trends openly hostile towards secessionist
nationalisms and international community consensus will work
in one direction: Serbian and Croatian loyalties of Bosnian
Orthodox and Catholics shall inevitably vanish in the near
future-willy-nilly (they will, according to the proponents
of this thesis, «transfer» or «return» their ethnic/national
identities to the supposed ancient «Bosnian» nation). Intransingent
Croat and Serb nationalists will leave the country for good,
and the Bosnian nation ( with Muslims in the pivotal role),
will be reborn.
Reality
The
former thesis can be frequently encountered and elaborated
(more or less explicitly) in recent (post-1991.) Bosnian Muslim
historiography. Also, stated in such a «rough» and simplistic
manner, it provides almost inexhaustible emotional/mental
fodder for Bosnian Muslims's growing national self-awareness
and their central historical narrative which has re-created
dominant popular self-image and serves as the compass in dealing
with their Croatian and Serbian neighbors, both inside &
across Bosnia and Herzegovina borders. From this point of
view, fact that Croat and Serb peoples have been indubitably
present in Bosnia and Herzegovina (which encompasses much
more than a combination of medieval regions Bosnia and Hum,
especially in the Croatian West) and have left indelible marks
of their being in history, culture and identity of the entire
region; or that the noun «Bosnian» had not possessed ethnic/national
connotation in the medieval period, but was a signifier referring
to the subjects of Bosnian polity- all this is ignored or
pronounced a historical fabrication by contemporary Bosnian
Muslim national ideologues. Addiction to the fictions about
Croatian and Serbian «false ethnic identities» is ineluctably
locked with another piece of wishful thinking- projections
about the dreamt-on disappearance of both Croats and Serbs
from the soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the very idea that
Bosnian Croats and Serbs would/could «give up» their national
identities and loyalties is ludicrous. The utter absurdity
of the thesis is valuable only as a diagnostic tool for assessment
of cognitive disorder plaguing much of Bosniaks's/Bosnian
Muslims's «state of mind». Other than that, its extravagant
ludicrousness doesn't deserve any rational analysis.
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/disorder.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/bihist.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/evil.html
Version
2.
Croatian
and Serbian names and identities have been "imported"
into Bosnia and Herzegovina in past two centuries.These "fabricated"
national/ethnic identities and concomitant national loyalties
have no historical continuity going back to medieval (*-1463.)
and Ottoman (1463.-1879.) periods, since extant documents
(manuscripts from medieval Bosnian Banovina, and, later, kingdom,
as well as numerous other sources) clearly establish the Bosnian
name as the true national/ethnic signifier for Bosnia &
Herzegovina population in the recorded history after great
migrations that had swamped the decaying Roman Empire.
However, since Bosnian Catholics and Orthodox «embraced» Croat
and Serb national loyalties in last two centuries, Bosnian
Muslims remain the sole inheritors of the ancient Bosnian
name and ethno-political identity. Hence, after Bosnian Muslims
officially adopted the name «Bosniaks», terms «Bosnian» and
«Bosniak» have become interchangeable, leaving Bosniaks or
Bosnian Muslims in the role of pillar of «Bosnianhood»-whatever
this name may refer to.
Reality
During
its turbulent history, territory known today as Bosnia and
Herzegovina has passed through many stages of expansion and
few phases of contraction, as well as demographic alterations
and dramatic shifts in national loyalties determined by changes
of denominational adherence. In short:
a)
before acquiring any kind of distinct political identity,
Bosnia was just one among many half-legendary early medieval
«Sclavinias» (Slavic units) which had been backwater parts
of Croatian and, later, Hungarian-Croatian kingdom. There
is no trace left in historical chronicles, cultural heritage
or archaelogical excavations that this early Bosnia (which
covered no more than 20% of contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina,
mainly around Sarajevo- then called Vrhbosna) possessed any
political or ethnic individuality and identity.
b)
pre-Ottoman Bosnia (and appended historic territories which
nuclear Bosnia had politically absorbed from ca. 1180 to ca.
1390.) was a typical medieval political unit (first Banovina
(a characteristic Croatian name for Duchy), then kingdom)
without specifically ethnic loyalties. This state was a rimland
of Western Christendom which had in last two centuries of
its existence succeeded in annexing numerous Croat Catholic
lands in West and South ( parts of Dalmatia and other, far
less illustrious territories) and, to a much lesser extent,
parts of crumbling Serbian Orthodox empire in the East (Raška-Rascia,
the Drina river basin). Also, some incorporated counties,
like Hum and Travunja in the Southeast had had mixed Croat
Catholic and Serbian Orthodox populations- the central distinguishing
factor among these South Slavic ethnicities in the making
had been adherence to the Western Catholic civilization for
Croats and to the Eastern Byzantine culture for Serbs; those
differing loyalties produced multifarious distinct traits
ranging from ecclesiastical-political culture and organization
to the modes of artistic and literary expression. Such «expanded»
Bosnian polity which emerged in the 1st half of the 15th century
territorially «overlapped» with current Bosnia and Herzegovina
ca. 70-80% (and temporarily held suzerainty over Dalmatia
in Croatia, as well over border parts in contemporary Serbia
and Montenegro). So, having in mind that the majority of medieval
Bosnia was composed of ancient ancestral lands for Croats
in the West and South and Serbs in the East- it is completely
nonsensical to deny the presence of Croat and Serb names and
ethnicities in the pre-Ottoman (*-1463.) Bosnian polity.
c)
after the Turkish conquest (1463.) and subsequent Ottoman
rule (1463.-1879.) medieval Bosnia disappeared, leaving its
name to one of the Turkish military provinces. Its original
population, overwhelmingly Catholic (with the Orthodox predominant
in the East and remnants of local Bosnian Church adherents
scattered throughout central Bosnia and Hum) was dispersed
and disappeared from Western Bosnia in the 300 years long
warfare; early «clash of civilizations» fought on Croatian,
Hungarian and Bosnian lands. Other indigenous inhabitants
remained in subjugated position, while many more converted
to Islam (mainly from the 15th to 18th centuries) in order
to escape persecution and improve their standing, so that
by the 17th century local Muslims constituted the majority
of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, numerous Serbian
and Wallachian Orthodox settlers, geared in the Ottoman military
machine, moved in from the already conquered eastern areas
of the Balkans. The origins of the three nations now present
in Bosnia & Herzegovina can be traced back to this period
(ca. 1500. to ca. 1800.) of intense islamization when «triple»
ethnic-denominational differentiation served as the focal
point for growth of modern national individualities based
on ancient ethnic loyalties: Bosnian Catholics (the true inheritors
of tradition and myths of medieval Bosnian state which survived
mainly through the agency of ecclesiastical Bosnian Franciscan
province) crystallized around Croat national identity- their
«Bosnian» loyalty relegated to the layer of subnational provincial
or regional allegiances. Bosnian Orthodox, along with settled
Orthodox Wallachi were fused into modern Serbian nation in
the mould of Serbian Orthodox Church-the spiritual successor
of medieval Serbian culture and concomitant ethnic identity.
And, finally, Bosnian Muslims, inheritors of the Ottoman Islamic
civilization in Bosnia, after passing through many phases
of denominational and semi-national fragile loyalties (Turkish,
Croatian, Serbian, Yugoslav, Muslim) embraced the Bosniak
national identity which, by the very linguistic closeness
and difference to the ancient Bosnian name (it is Turkish
word meaning «Bosnian»), unequivocally speaks of the specifically
Islamic and Ottoman origin of the Bosniak nation, born in
the melting pot of the Turkish empire.
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/feeling.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/evil.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/medi.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/early.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/mature.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/otto.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/aushu.html
Bosnia:
territory, history and ethnic identity
The growth
of medieval Bosnian polity can be best traced via historical
atlases. If we juxtapose these on the map of present Bosnia
and Herzegovina (it is placed between Croatia in the North,
West and South and Serbia & Montenegro in the East):
then,
we get the following picture from the earliest periods ( 925
A.D., during the reign of Croatian King Tomislav ) on:
which
clearly demonstrates the difference between territorial compass
of contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina and its early nuclear
ancestor. This is even more striking when various stages of
pre-Ottoman Bosnian polity can be seen in succession, as is
the case with the page at http://www.studenti.de/bih/historija.php4
. Although a word of
caution should be added (being a site for Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks,
whose major obsession is to «enlarge» (if it can't be done
otherwise, then only virtually in cyberspace) the territory
of medieval Bosnian political unit in order to give historical
legitimacy to current national/political aspirations)-nevertheless,
it presents a rather good snapshot overview.
The following «international» links to historical maps would
suffice to illustrate the territorial compass of early medieval
Bosnia prior to any kind of political individual existence:
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_0800.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_0900.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1000.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1100.html
After
the «entrance» into history under Kulin Ban (ca. 1180), Bosnian
polity (Banovina/Duchy, Kingdom) had expanded into neighboring
Croatian and Serbian lands:
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1200.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1300.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1400.html
violet
via scarlet to khaki colored regions depicting Bosnia's territorial
growth from ca. 1100. to 1391.
One could
justifiably pose the question: so what ? Why all the fuss
about historical borders ? States expand, collapse-this is
a banal fact from history 101. The answer is relatively simple:
this display of historical cartography would have been superfluous
(or even ridiculous) had not contemporary Bosnian Muslim ideologues
and some foreign «historical experts» been very vocal in negating
Croatian and Serbian ethnic and cultural stamp on the Bosnian
polity in past millennium: the revisionism of the worst kind
is persistently trying to rewrite the history in order to
give «historical legitimacy» to the schemings of current geopolitical
machinators and Bosnia & Herzegovina neocolonialist foreign
administrators. Also, the planners of megaserb expansionist
drive which was the chief instigator of the last (1991.-1995.)
war in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, have been desperately
trying in past two centuries to distort the perception of
pre-Ottoman Bosnian history in order to give «historical credence»
to their recent (post 1840s) territorial appetites. And, ironically,
Croatian historiography, which could have posed the most solidly
founded claims on Croathood (even in «diffused» medieval sense)
of the greatest part of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina,
suffered (apart from a few looney fringe historians) from
the syndrome of "shrinking" and minimalist version
of Croatian medievalistics misrepresented as the scientifically
objective approach. Hopefully, all these distortions in service
(or servitude) of very mundane geopolitical programs will
be dispelled in near future.
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/feeling.html
Turkish
conquest, depicted in:
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1500.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1600.html
http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1700.html
pushed
the borders further westward and incorporated into Bosnia
& Herzegovina Croatian historic lands (later called «Turkish
Croatia») which had never been a part of medieval Bosnian
state and now constitute ca. 20-30% of contemporary sovereign
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Still-even more important than these historical maps is the
fact that all pre-Ottoman cultural heritage is either Croat
or Serb. There is no exclusively «Bosnian» heritage that would
fall outside broader Croatian or Serbian cultural traditions:
even the manuscripts associated with that peculiar institution,
Bosnian Church are written in Croatian or Western Cyrillic
(also called Bosnian Cyrillic or bosančica) and belong to
the Croat national heritage. The adjective «Bosnian» in these
cases stands for political and territorial, but not ethnic
(even in medieval sense of the word) designation.
Croatian heritage encompasses virtually all (with the exception
of Eastern parts of B&H) sacral architecture on the Bosnia
and Herzegovina soil in the pre-Ottoman period, as well as
earliest monuments of Bosnian literacy (Humac tablet, Gršković
and Mihanović fragments) and numerous illuminated manuscripts
like Duke Hrvoje's Missal and Krstyanin Hval's Miscellany.
Extensive overview of Bosnian Croat heritage can be found
on following sites:
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/croart.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/hval_eng.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/jajce_en.html
http://www.finns-books.com/croatico.htm
http://www.danstopicals.com/hvalovzbornik.htm
http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/et02.html
http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/et03.html
http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/et04.html
Serbian
heritage is covered at:
http://solair.eunet.yu/~ecolibri/index_e.html
http://www.rastko.org.yu/rastko-bl/umetnost/likovne/srakic-ikone/srakic-ikone_bih_e.html
Bosnian
Muslim/Bosniak cultural heritage can be seen at:
http://www.ois.unsa.ba/
http://www.ferhadija.com
The accumulated weight of these historical & cultural
traditions is the best antidote to every myopic historical
revisionism and to the «Bosnian nation» fiction tacitly endorsed
by current B &H foreign administrators: Bosnia and Herzegovina,
as it is now, is a country of three (Croat, Serb and Bosniak/Bosnian
Muslim) nations. There is no Bosnian nation. Nor will it ever
be.
National
identities in Bosnia and Herzegovina
One of the nebulous contentions frequently encountered in
newer Bosnia and Herzegovina historiography (especially in
works written by allegedly dispassionate foreign «specialists
in the field») is that virtually all indigenous inhabitants
of medieval Bosnian polity, as well as the Ottoman military
Bosnia province dwellers, possessed «primary» Bosnian ethnic
individuality and loyalty (apart from Bosnian Muslims's supraethnic
Islamic Ottoman identification) -while Croatian and Serbian
names and identities have been either «imported» at later
stages or, at best, represented marginal regional allegiances
subsumed under more general Bosnian identity. According to
this historical narrative, a three denominational Bosnian
proto-nation existed prior to the 19th century mass lining
up of the Bosnian Catholics and Orthodox into Croat and Serb
"national encampments" as the result of national
propaganda from Croatia and Serbia. But- this story has no
historical foundation whatsoever.
If we
follow numerous mutations of meaning Bosnian name has passed
through, we shall encounter chaos of bewildering ethnic and
religious signifiers: in the case of pre-Ottoman Bosnian polity
(ca. 1180- 1463) the term «Bošnjanin» (pronounced Bosh-nya-nin),
as well as its Latin version Bosnensis referred simply to
the inhabitant of medieval Bosnian political unit. Since various
extant manuscripts (mainly documents dealing with commercial
arrangements between Bosnian nobles and the city of Dubrovnik)
not unfrequently juxtapose the noun «Bošnjanin» and other
ethnic, denominational or regional names like «Hrvat»/Croat,
«Srbin»/Serb, «Latinin»/Latin and «Dubrovčanin»/Ragusan, the
idea that «Bošnjanin» had had quasiethnic connotations has
been entertained. But, upon closer examination, this hypothesis
was abandoned because evidently ethnic Croats like Duke Hrvoje
Hrvatinić
(literally «Croat Croatson»), one of the most significant
figures in Bosnian history, are referred to as «Bošnjani»/Bosnenses,
and, more- there is no need to ascribe ethnic identity to
a subject in a commercial deal if the subject's reappearance
in other available documents never alluded to the ethnic designation.
In the
times following the Ottoman conquest, the name «Bošnjanin»
was turkified into «Bošnjak» (Bosh-nyak, Bosniak in English),
which is the name Bosnian Muslims had officially adopted as
their own national name (it was «plebiscitarily» accepted
on the September 28th 1993., at the 2nd Bosniak Congress-
an institution of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals and ideologues).
But, during early Ottoman rule, the term «Bošnjak» was applied
exclusively to the Christian population, while islamized natives
were referred to as «Bosnalu». However, in following centuries
(16th to 19th), this name, under various hyphenated forms
(«Bošnjak-milleti», «Bošnjak-taifesi») had acquired additional
nuances of meaning: it became the common term for all the
inhabitants of Bosnian Turkish pashaluk/military province.
However, it is just one regional reference. Bureaucracy of
the theocratic Ottoman empire couldn't even imagine that Muslims
and Christians in one of the provinces of the vast Islamic
polity would constitute a separated, supradenominational community.
Nor was it thinkable to the Bosnian Christians and Muslims.
As pointed out earlier, the origins of the three nations now
present in Bosnia & Herzegovina can be traced back to
the period (ca. 1500. to ca. 1800.) of intense islamization
when «triple» ethnic-denominational differentiation served
as the focal point for growth of modern national individualities
based on ancient ethnic loyalties: as Camus has said, people
become what they already are-notwithstanding the fact that
they may not yet be aware of it. Bosnian Croats and Serbs
have definitely crystallized into modern nations during the
19th century, simultaneously retaining their regional Bosnian
and Herzegovinian identities rooted in history and conjoining
with their compatriots in Croatia and Serbia. Bosnian Muslims,
on the other hand, have set out on the trek (one might say
a trudge) for self-identity. Feeling in their bones the unbridgeable
separateness and distance from both Croats and Serbs, these
«Turkey's abandoned children» found themselves in an uneasy
position: being a cultural/denominational
transplant from Asia Minor grafted onto South Slavic ethnicities
whose nascent Croat and Serb identities melted away in the
process of islamization, they vacillated between a few national
and semi-national individualities: Turkish, Croat, Serb, supranational
Yugoslav and quasidenominational ethnic Muslim designation-
Bosnian Muslims were officially recognized as a nation under
the name of Muslims in the 1971. Yugoslav census. Finally,
as has been mentioned earlier, this identity crisis was resolved
in a rather bizarre way: «Bosniak» designation (actually,
a Turkish word meaning «Bosnian») was adopted in 1993. as
a sign of differentiating ethnic identity from denominational
loyalties. Although circumstances of the procedure may look
somewhat silly (it was unanimously accepted on September the
28th 1993., at the 2nd Bosniak Congress- an institution of
Bosnian Muslim intellectuals and ideologues ), it seems that,
in all likelihood, Bosnian Muslims have definitively reached
the goal in their quest for national identity.
The ancient
Bosnian name has remained both as a supranational country
name (there is no «Bosnian» people in the same sense there
was no «Soviet» people in any ethnic meaning of the word)
and regional designator for an inhabitant of Bosnia (incidentally-
it is frequently (mis)used in reference to the inhabitants
of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the noun «Herzegovinian»
has at least two deficiencies: it is a tongue twister, and,
more, it comes second. How do you call citizens of Trinidad
and Tobago or Sao Tome and Principe ? Or Serbia and Montenegro
? ). Also, after not few morphological changes, in its turkified
«Bosniak» form and reduced meaning, it became the national
name of Bosnian Muslims- one of the three nations living in
the Bosnia and Herzegovina.
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/disorder.html
http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/feeling.html
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