This article below may not the best explanation but I have noticed a lot out of Sarajevo that seems to want to speak for Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina and use the terms like Catholic Bosnians or whatever in an effort to strip Croatians of their identity and somehow get them to merge their identity with Bosnianks.

I think it would be a good idea to start a discussion in English on Croatian identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina from a historical and modern perspective so we can rebuff some of what comes out of Sarajevo.

Source: https://sarajevotimes.com/a-young-man-t ... a-bosnian/

A Young Man tries to explain to People that he is neither a Bosniak nor a Bosnian

A video of Hrvoje Dadic, a young man from Herzegovina studying in Split, is spreading on social media.

Namely, Hrvoje was revolted by the question “How come the citizens of Herzegovina can be Croats, aren’t they – Herzegovinans?”.

In the video, he said, “that there are three constituent peoples living in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and that BiH has three presidencies, but also three entities”. However, this is not true because BiH has one Presidency with three members, and it consists of two entities, the Federation of BiH and the Republika Srpska (RS), and Brcko District, not three entities.

In another video published after many reactions, he pointed out that he would no longer address this issue and told Bosnians to educate themselves about the organization and Constitution of the country they live in, and to Croats in Croatia that according to their logic, neither Zlatko Dalic, Mate Rimac, Antun Branko Simic and others are Croats.



A video of Hrvoje Dadic, a young man from Herzegovina studying in Split, is spreading on social media.

Namely, Hrvoje was revolted by the question “How come the citizens of Herzegovina can be Croats, aren’t they – Herzegovinans?”.

In the video, he said, “that there are three constituent peoples living in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and that BiH has three presidencies, but also three entities”. However, this is not true because BiH has one Presidency with three members, and it consists of two entities, the Federation of BiH and the Republika Srpska (RS), and Brcko District, not three entities.

In another video published after many reactions, he pointed out that he would no longer address this issue and told Bosnians to educate themselves about the organization and Constitution of the country they live in, and to Croats in Croatia that according to their logic, neither Zlatko Dalic, Mate Rimac, Antun Branko Simic and others are Croats.

He also showed his identity card and emphasized that he studied at school using Croatian textbooks and in the Croatian language.

“We have three nations and three official languages. So even though I live in BiH, I am not a Bosnian, that is, I am not a Bosniak. I have a Croatian ID, I speak the Croatian language. I studied in Croatian at school, not in Bosnian,” Dedic said.

“Conclusion, just as there are Croats everywhere in the world, there are also Croats in BiH, but they are mostly in Herzegovina,” he concluded, then added: “And now these Croats from Croatia who will say that that the people of Herzegovina destroyed Croatia and that they are only looking for connections – you would too if you could. That’s it, vote for HDZ in the elections.”, Klix.ba reports.

Today it is easy to distinguish Croats from others in Bosnia-Herzegovina, by their language.

If there's one thing that makes a distinction rather difficult, it's language. The only exceptions are Western Herzegovina and maybe areas like Livno that are almost exclusively settled by Croats who speak their own peculiar dialects.

A minority of Croatians lived in Herzegovina before the war. Majority of Croatians lived in Bosnia.
Not sure what the ratio is today.

1991 in three Herzegovian counties lived about 260 thousands of 760 thousands of BiH Croats.
That's a little bit more than a third.
2013 in three Herzegovian counties lived about 280 thousands of 550 shousands of BiH Croats.
That's a little bit more than a half.
http://www.statistika.ba/

Croats from Bosnia were more expelled from their houses during the war in the ninties.
Serbs have expelled more than 120 thosands from Posavina and around Banja Luka areas.
Muslims have expelled more than 140 thousands from Bosnia and additional 10-20 thousands from northern/middle Herzegovina.
Also in SFRJ Herzegovina was economicaly more closed, there was less work (expecialy for Croats) there.
There was more emmigrtion from Herzegovina, than now.

I thought there were only two Herzegovnian cantons. 1. Mostar 2. Široki Brijeg

What is the third one?

My guess would be the Hercegbosanska županija (Livno/Tomislavgrad).

Source: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/11/10/b ... re-europe/

I saw this come through and I provided the link above where you can read the whole article. For those that have a sense of history there is nothing new here. It’s the same old stuff you hear out of people in Sarajevo, but today I am going to pick through some his bigger points.

1) The term Hum has never been synonymous with the Balkans.

2) The 19th century saw the transformation of Bosnian (and Herzegovinian) Catholics into Croatians. This is always one of my favorite talking points because it shows that people do not have a basic grasp of history. The 19th century was about romantic nationalisms and nation building. People across Europe were trying to define who and what they were and everybody was fair game. From big groups to smaller groups. People in Sarajevo would like to tell you that it was somehow unprecedented that Catholics in BiH became Croatian. To which I would remind them that there is less cultural degree of separation of Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Catholics in neighboring Croatia than there was with Italians and yet the Italians built a state that encompassed many different languages and worked to merge them under one umbrella. Even after Italy was unified, Italian statesman Massimo d'Azeglio wrote "We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians." Meaning there was the idea of Italy, and there is the reality on the ground and now you have to get as many people buy in to the idea of a unified Italy.

3) What was the unifying idea of Bosnia in the 19th century? That everybody lived there in close proximity with one another for a long period of time? Most of the elites at that time were loyal to the Sultan and Ottoman in outlook, and sure you had people like Zmaj od Bosne, but the problem was that he was not going to radically change the lives of non-Muslims in his area of rule. So for the average Catholic in BiH - new flag same situation. That brings me to the situation of above mentioned Catholics in BiH at that time, because Sarajevo likes to leave that out. They like to project this notion of everybody living in harmony – peace, (love and rock & roll) and then people external started meddling in their affairs and messed everything up. Basically in 1800 the average Catholic in BiH was a third class citizen of the Ottoman Empire, with limited rights. They were not present in the local politics and they generally had no institutions. The institution of the Catholic church was severely restricted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For example, bishops were not resident there and had to administer the Catholics from outside of Bosnia (and Herzegovina). So the next time I hear that Croatian nationalism spread into Bosnia via the church, I will point out that the Ottomans clipped the church’s wings and that Sarajevo never raised an objection to it. A formal church administration in BiH with a resident hierarchy gets created only AFTER the Ottomans are kicked out of Bosnia.

4) The kicking out of the Ottomans of Bosnia did not happen because the elites in Sarajevo were appalled at the treatment of local Catholics, it happened because the local Catholics were fed up with Ottoman rule and did something about it. I am sure that events and the rate of transformation in neighboring Croatian areas influenced that. Look at the Croatian National Revival. Croatian language was standardized, promoted, taught. Infrastructure was being developed, not to mention feudalism was formally ended in Croatia in 1849(?) and people could own their land. The average Catholic in Bosnia did not have any of that. I would be sick of it too. Sarajevo also conveniently leaves out that once the Ottomans were expelled all of Bosnia became occupied by the Austrians because of Vojvoda Ivan Music and he kept it from falling into Serbia’s grasp. So, not only did Sarajevo not liberate the local Croatian Catholics - we did that on our own and started to develop and grow our community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, now there is an expectation to bow to the will of Sarajevo. No thank you.

5) Before I forget: The banning of the Bosnian language in 1907. What did you do about it? I don’t see that anyone went to jail for teaching it. At least the Albanians did something about it when the Serbs banned Albanian in Kosovo. Teachers had underground classes to teach their students to read and write Albanian and taught student other foreign languages like German. Interestingly one language was not taught. So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t lecture to us about how we are all Bosnian but have done nothing to show for it yourselves. “Well, Alija Izebegovic went to jail.” He went to jail for religious reasons and not nationalism. “We weren’t allowed to do anything.” Croatians never had a problem with that.

6) Which brings me to what has Sarajevo done for Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina? We are being lectured to how we should all be good Bosnians but I don’t see anything that gives me a whole lot of faith in Sarajevo. What did Sarajevo do when Ravno was burned to the ground in 1991? Nothing. Did Sarajevo prepare the citizens for war? No. Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina were preparing. How is Sarajevo working on returning Croatians to Central Bosnia and prosecuting those who might be intimidating returnees? Crickets? No we are so lucky that Sarajevo gets to orchestrate the election of Zeljko Komsic to parrot the same diatribe about being good Bosnians and not do anything to build faith and bridges with the Croatian community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

7) Joint Criminal Enterprise – unfortunately Sarajevo does not know what this means and likes to brand any Croatian military activities in Bosnia as such from the establishment of the HVO and presumably to when the Croatian Army formally crossed into Western Bosnia to liberate large tracts from the Serbs, some of which ended up going to break Sarajevo’s isolation. Not to mention Operation Storm which broke the Serbian siege of Bihac and possibly saved all of Cazinska Krajina from being slaughtered. It is OK for Croatians to be used as cannon fodder and die for Sarajevo but not be visible in the state. I think most of us would have rather given up Sipovo and Mrkonjic Grad for other ethnically Croatian territories controlled by the Serbs than put Sarajevo back together. The Dayton agreement happens because of direct Croatian involvement and not because of some enhanced military might of Sarajevo.

8) Finally, you can call yourself whatever you want, but you don’t have the right to decide what we, Croatians in BiH should call ourselves. We don’t owe you that. To ask for greater rights like teaching Croatian language, having Croatian media political parties, academic and scientific institutions in the country, not to mention localized self-rule is not destructive nationalism. In fact I think it enhances the state when culture is allowed to thrive from the bottom up and not decreed from the top down from clowns like Zeljko Komsic. Bosnia and Herzegovina will blossom when people in Sarajevo allow people to be themselves and not dictate to them what they should be.

Uništa were conquered by Serbs before the attack on Ravno. Uništa is a Croat village in "and" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Turkish Croatia.
Uništa are only reachable from Croatia. Back in 1990, Uništans could pass only through area controlled by rebel Croatian Serbs.

We always hear that Ravno was the start of the attacks on Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is interesting to see what we overlook. I assume the attack(s) on Uništa would have been somewhere around the "balvan revolucija" (Log Revolution) in 1990?

Either way, Ravno or Uništa what did Sarajevo do about it? Nothing.

Thank you novem for this. I am posting an English translation of this below the original text... courtesy of Google...

Keep this commentary in mind when discussing this topic and the need for Sarajevo to need to control the historical and political narrative.

Source: politika/zasto-muslimani-ne-mogu-imati-svoju-drzavu-t24360.html?start=25




Throughout history, Bosniak politics has been reactive. She has no plan, goal, concept, vision. It is more or less just skillfully adapting to the flood of events that have been served to it from the outside for centuries. Bosniaks do not lead politics, it happens to them.

Gradaščević's uprising began only after the uprising, the recognition of autonomy and the granting of Bosnian nahijas to Serbia, which left the Muslims there at their mercy, and Constantinople sent a clear lesson to the Bosniaks that they could no longer count on him.

The arrival of Austria-Hungary is reacted to by senseless military resistance, then by an exodus, then by retreating into oneself and refusing to participate in social and political processes, rejecting the emancipatory projects offered by the Monarchy, including the creation of a Bosniak nation, fantasizing about the return of the sultan to Bosnia, in order to the very collapse of the Empire, Bosniaks suddenly became its biggest supporters and unwillingly died for that country.

At the moment when Yugoslavia is being created, and Serbian and Croatian politicians are trying to secure the best possible positions for themselves, Bosniak leaders are still fantasizing about the Austro-Hungarian solution, while Šerif Arnautović, as one of the informal ones, is openly advocating, watch out, joining Hungary.

Spaho became a leader because history "happened" to him, i.e. because he was among the few who agreed with the Yugoslav idea and movement at that time.

In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Spaho came up with the concept of an autonomous BiH within the framework of Yugoslavia, but already on the first exam he voted for the Vidovdan Constitution and thus enabled the creation of a unitary state, while the idea of autonomy remains only a propaganda tool for winning over the people for political trade, the main goal of which is the best possible position in the government .

In the Second World War, Bosniak leaders desperately tried to keep their heads, they were divided and found themselves on all sides, from the Ustasha movement to autonomists who fantasized about Bosnia as an autonomous province within Germany to even those who support the Chetnik movement and sit in Draža Mihailović's headquarters.

Even when it became clear to most of Europe that Hitler was losing, the Bosniak religious and conservative elites in Sarajevo continued to fantasize about autonomy under Hitler, after the Nazis themselves made it clear that nothing would come of it.

Those who became the Bosniak political elite after the war were not the elite before the war, they became so because history happened to them again, i.e. they found themselves on the right, victorious partisan side.

What was our vision in the early nineties? We will support the survival of Yugoslavia in any form, but if Slovenia and Croatia secede, we will have to too, not because we want to, but because there will be nothing left for us in a disintegrated Yugoslavia. We are for everything and for nothing at the same time, counting on the fact that we do not decide and that we will only adapt to what others excel at.

What was our vision and concept in the war? What kind of BiH did we want? We wanted a complete, unitary BiH, but since we didn't have the military or political power to make it happen, we agreed to any?

What exactly is our vision, concept, idea, strategy for defending the country today? Has anyone come up with such an idea and program, and they are not utopian nonsense for the gullible masses like "a million signatures for the civic", 100% BiH and similar nonsense.

Not to post older stuff- and there will be modified newer and more accessible videos:



https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EuFRfP2O ... ture=share

Two takes on the same topic...

https://sarajevotimes.com/bosnian-lucia ... ss-vienna/

Bosnian Lucia Sisic is the new Miss Vienna - no room in the article to mention that she has Croatian origins.

And from the Croatian side:

https://kroativ.at/prelijepa-lucija-sis ... -posavine/

Prelijepa Lucija Šišić proglašena najljepšom Bečankom, roditelji su joj iz Bosanske Posavine - mentions that her parents are from Bosnia and Hezegovina and that she has Croatian origins.