Sandžak
This page is about a region in Serbia and Montenegro; for districts of the Ottoman Empire, see Sanjak.
Sandžak is used to refer to the former Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a former Ottoman administrative district that is now part of Serbia and Montenegro. It comprises an area of 8,686 square kilometers in the border region where Serbia and Montenegro meet, between Bosnia and Herzegovina on the northwest and Metohia on the southeast. Six Sandzak towns are in Serbia (Novi Pazar, Tutin, Sjenica, Nova Varos, Prijepolje and Priboj) and five are in Montenegro (Bijelo Polje, Rozhaje, Plav, Pljevlja and Berane).
The Sandžak has the largest population of Muslim Slavs, many of whom now call themselves Bosniaks, outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the 1991 census, it is inhabited by 440,000 people of whom 253,000 (53%) are Muslims and 187,000 (45%) Serbs or Montenegrins.
Until 1912 and the First Balkan War, the Sandžak was a part of the Ottoman Empire. During the centuries of Turkish rule the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, then larger than it is today, was a part of the Province of Bosnia before becoming its own administrative unit. In October 1912, the Sandžak was overrun by Serbian and Montenegrin troops and subsequently absorbed into the independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, with its territory divided between the two states. After World War I, the Sandžak was incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Many Muslim inhabitants of the Sandžak emigrated to Turkey under a series of agreements signed between the Turkish and Yugoslav governments, the last of which was in 1954. It has been estimated that over a million Turks have Sandžak origins or ancestry.
The Yugoslav wars of the 1990s left the Sandžak largely unscathed, although the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo led to ethnic tensions and (in the latter case) bombing by NATO forces. According to Sandžak Bosniak political parties, some 60,000-80,000 Bosniaks emigrated from the region during this period, although census data speaks otherwise.
Links and references
- "Bosniaks in Sandzak and Interethnic Tolerance in Novi Pazar", Managing Multiethnic Local Communities in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia, Local Government & Public Service Reform Initiative, 2000