Bosnians
| This file may be deleted at any time. | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
 Bosnia and Herzegovina | 4,621,598 (est.)[1] |
 Australia | 24,628 (by birth, 2006) 18,458 (by ancestry, 2006)[2][3] |
 Turkey | 20,000 (1994)[4] |
 Norway | 11,800[5] |
| Languages | |
| Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Serbo-Croatian | |
| Religion | |
| Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism. Catholicism, Atheism | |
Bosnia and Herzegovina topics | ||
|---|---|---|
| History |  | |
| Geography | ||
| Governance | ||
| Economy | ||
| Society | ||
| Culture | ||
Bosnians (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: Bosanci; Serbian Cyrillic: Босанци) are people who reside in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds citizenship of the state. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Although those who reside in the Herzegovina part of Bosnia and Herzegovina prefer to call themselves Herzegovinians in the regional sense. Ethnic minorities such as: Jews, Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, and others may consider Bosnian to be attached to their ethnicity (e.g. Bosnian Albanians). These are not confined to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as over 8,000 individuals in Slovenia declare their ethnicity as Bosnian (the majority of them are most probably of Bosnian Muslim descent).
In addition, there is a sizable population in Bosnia and Herzegovina who believe that Bosnians are a nation holding a distinct collective cultural identity. By this usage, a Bosnian would be an individual who belonged to this culture. They assert that this collective identity is capable of diminishing or overcoming existing political and ethnic divisions.[6]
In a 2007 survey conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 57% of the surveyors identified an ethnic designation as the primary one, while 43% opted for "being a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina". However, 75% of the surveyors answered positively to the question "As well as thinking of yourself as a [Bosniak, Croat, Serb], do you also think of yourself as being a citizen of the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina?". In the same survey, 43% said that they identify as a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina as the primary identity, 14% identified themselves solely with their specific ethnic or religious group, while 41% expressed the dual identity.[7][8]
History
The earliest cultural and linguistic roots of Bosnian history can be traced back to the Migration Period of the Early Middle Ages. It was then that the Slavs (Serbs) and Avars(Croats) from northeastern Europe, invaded the Eastern Roman Empire and settled the Balkan peninsula. There, they mixed with the indigenous paleo-Balkan peoples known collectively as the Illyrians. From the chaos of the Dark Ages, from 800 AD, the Croatian and Serbian tribes coalesced into early principalities. As these expanded, they came to include other Slavic tribes and territories, and later evolved into centralized Kingdoms. The Croats to the west swore allegiance to Rome, influenced by neighboring Catholic kingdoms, while the Serbs to the east fell under Byzantine influence and embraced Orthodoxy; cementing their separate identities. In contrast, there was no prominent tribe in Bosnia, and an independent Bosnian state did not arise until much later. Prior to this, the core Bosnian lands (between the Drina and Bosna rivers) was in a near-constant state of flux between Serb and Croat rule. In the twelfth century, a Bosnian banovina arose which was characterized by an independent religious structure. It rose to become a powerful kingdom in the fourteenth century, the designation Bošnjani was used to describe the kingdom's inhabitants. It was probably a regional name derived from the river Bosna which flows through the heart of the country. Before the collapse of the Roman Empire, the river was called the Bosona by the native Illyrians, and some scholars speculate that the name Bosnia itself derives from this term.
Bosnian kingdom
The Bosnian kingdom grew and expanded under the Kotromanic dynasty to include Croatian and Serbian territories. As a consequence, even more Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians dwelt within its borders, along with adherents of a native Bosnian Church whose origins and nature are a subject of continued debate among scholars. Those belonging to this sect simply called themselves Krstjani ("Christians"). Many scholars have argued that these Bosnian Krstjani were Manichaean dualists related to the Bogomils of Bulgaria, while others question this theory, citing lack of historical evidence. Both Catholic and Orthodox Church authorities considered the Bosnian Church heretical, and launched vigorous proselytizing campaigns to stem its influence. As a result of these divisions, no coherent religious identity developed in medieval Bosnia as it had in Croatia and Serbia.
Ottoman era
As the centuries passed, the Bosnian kingdom slowly began to decline. It had become fractured by increased political and religious disunity. By then, the Ottoman Turks had already gained a foothold in the Balkans; first defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo and expanding westward, the Turks eventually conquered all of Bosnia and portions of neighboring Croatia. Territory that partly belonged to the medieval Croatian Kingdom and partly to the Bosnian Kingdom had remained under Ottoman rule for so long that it had been referred to as Turkish Croatia (later as Bosanska Krajina). These developments would alter Bosnian history forever, introducing an Islamic component into the already confounded Bosnian ethno-religious identity. The Bosnian Church would forever disappear, although the circumstances under which it did are as hotly debated as its nature and origins. Some historians contend that the Bosnian Krstjani converted en masse to Islam, seeking refuge from Catholic and Orthodox persecution, while others argue that the Bosnian Church had already ceased to operate many decades before the Turkish conquest. Whatever the case, a distinct Slavic Muslim community developed under Ottoman rule in Bosnia, giving rise to the modern Bosniaks.
Austro-Hungarian era
During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1918, Benjamin Kallay , Joint Imperial Minister of Finance and Vienna-based administrator of Bosnia, promoted Bošnjaštvo, a policy that aimed to inspire in Bosnia's people 'a feeling that they belong to a great and powerful nation'.[9] The policy advocated the ideal of a pluralist and multi-confessional Bosnian nation and viewed Bosnians as "speaking the Bosnian language and divided into three religions with equal rights."[10][11] The policy attempted to isolate Bosnia and Herzegovina from its irredentist neighbors (the Orthodox in Serbia, Catholics in Croatia, and the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire) and to negate the concept of Croat and Serb nationhood that had already spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina's Catholic and Orthodox communities from neighboring Croatia and Serbia in the mid 19th century.[11] Croats and Serbs who opposed the policy, ignored Bosnian nationhood and instead sought to claim Bosnian Muslims as their own, a move that was rejected by most Bosnian Muslims.[12][13] Following the death of Kallay, the policy was abandoned and by the latter half of the 1910's nationalism was an integral factor of Bosnian politics, with national political parties corresponding to the three groups dominating elections.[11]
Yugoslav era
During the time when Bosnia and Herzegovina were part of Yugoslavia and heavily influenced by Croat and Serb politics neither of the two terms Bosnian or Bosniak were recognized as a nation. Thus, Bosnian Muslims and anyone who confessed themselves to Bosnian ethnicity were listed under the category "regional affiliation" by the Yugoslav statistics. This also applied to the last census in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991. However, because of this, census format in former Yugoslavia was often subject of political manipulation. As a matter of fact, Muslim Bosnians requested the option Bosnian in the constitutional amendments of 1947 and 1973, but instead they had to declare themselves either as Serbs or Croats until 1963, "undecided" or "Muslim in a national sense" (with lower case m) until 1973, and Muslims (with capital M) until 1993.
Modern era
In 1990 the name Bosniaks was re-introduced to replace the term Muslim but it was too late for that term to be realistically accepted by non-Muslim ethnic groups in Bosnia.
This resulted in Bosniak, or even Muslim, as terms being (re)coined recently as a political compromise. Peculiarly enough, in the present day Bosnia it is practically impossible for a citizen to declare her/himself as Bosnian. Due to widespread practices in the Ottoman empire, the distinction (for taxation purposes, military service etc.) was made based mainly on religion and this heritage only contributed to the ethnic chaos in the Balkans that followed in the wake of its retreat from Europe.[citation needed]
Religion
Bosnians are as multi-religious a society as they are multi-ethnic, but this is not to say that its component religions and ethnicities are homogeneous and independent from each other.
According to Tone Bringa, an author and anthropologist, in respect to Bosnia and Bosnians she states that "Neither Bosniak, nor Croat, nor Serb identities can be fully understood with reference only to Islam or Christianity respectively but have to be considered in a specific Bosnian context that has resulted in a shared history and locality among Bosnians of Islamic as well as Christian backgrounds." According to Bringa, in Bosnia there is a singular, "trans-ethnic culture" that encompassed each ethnicity and makes different faiths, including Christianity and Islam, "synergistically interdependent".[14]
Still, large numbers of Bosnians are secular which is a trend that has more profoundly found root in last 60 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina as they were part of the Communist system that rejected traditional organized religion.
Genetics
In 2005 various South European medical schools and institutions specializing in human genetics did an analysis of the variation at 28 Y-chromosome markers among a sample of males from throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, relatively equally split among all three major ethnic groups.[15] The most notable find was the high frequency of haplogroup I; specifically its subclade I-P37 (I2a), which had a frequency of 71% among Bosnian Croats, 44% among Bosniaks, and 31% among Bosnian Serbs. A similar study in Croatia found that Croatian Croats had a frequency of about 45%, but that among them Croats in Dalmatia had a particularly high frequency (around two thirds).[15]
Subclade I2a* is typical of South Slavs, especially Croats in south Dalmatia and Bosnians. Another subclade, I2a1 (formerly I1b1b, I1b2), is strongly associated with indigenous Sardinians, but it is also found at low to moderate frequency among populations of the Basque Country, Iberia in general, France, mainland Italy, the British Isles, and Sweden. Contrasting with the tendentially southeastern distribution of I2a* and southwestern distribution of I2a1, the subclade I2b is most commonly found among populations of Northwest Europe, especially Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the British Isles.
Bosnians today
In a 2007 UNDP survey, 57% of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina answered that they are “above all, a Bosniak, or Croat or Serb” and 75% answered that they think themselves as “being citizens of the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina” above any ethno-religious definitions.
Recently, the denial of Bosnian nationhood, as a unifying trait of those who stem from Bosnia and Herzegovina, has generally been used by some political factions to drive the constituent ethnicities of Bosnia and Herzegovina further apart.
Because of this pressure and because of its complex history Bosnian national identity today remains a complex issue among its adherents. Variably members of the Bosnian nation, of various ethnic and religious backgrounds who live or stem from Bosnia and Herzegovina, define themselves Bosnians primarily as they feel they belong to the same geographical region which characterizes them with particular cultural and historical traits. However, many choose to declare themselves as Bosnian as a method for overcoming ethnic animosities aroused by the recent war. Due to more recent war and massive relocations of Bosnians they have experienced a significant internationalization of their identity with many considering themselves as having dual identity (one as Bosnians and another of the country where they currently live). As a result in diaspora Bosnians have shown tendencies towards more or less successful organizing into viable Bosnian communities.
Given heavy involvement of the European community in political integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian nationalization issue is viewed by some as a contemporary European experiment strikingly similar to modern Europeanism movement.
See also
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Demographics of Bosnia and Herzegovina
- List of people from Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bosnian language
References
- ^ [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/geos/bk.html] CIA Fact Book
- ^ "20680-Country of Birth of Person (full classification list) by Sex - Australia" (Microsoft Excel download). 2006 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ "20680-Ancestry (full classification list) by Sex - Australia" (Microsoft Excel download). 2006 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
- ^ [http://countrystudies.us/turkey/24.htm
- ^ [http://www.reintegration.net/norway/index.htm
- ^ [1], from Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina website
- ^ "UNDP Published a Major Research on Return, Identity, Politics and Social Trust". United Nations Development Programme for Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2007-07-07. Retrieved 2007-07-27.
- ^ "Pulse of the citizenry". United Nations Development Programme for Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2007-07-07. pp. 19–20. Retrieved 2007-07-27. (Internet Explorer-only link)
- ^ Sugar, Peter F. (1963). Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina: 1878-1918. University of Washington Press. p. 201.
- ^ Ramet, Sabrina P. (2008). "Nationalism and the 'Idiocy' of the Countryside: The Case of Serbia". Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia at Peace and at War: Selected Writings, 1983-2007. LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 74–76. ISBN 3037359129.
- ^ a b c Velikonja, Mitja (1992). Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 1585442267.
- ^ Central and South-Eastern Europe 2004, Volume 4, p 110
- ^ Banač, Ivo (1988). The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801494931.
- ^ Shatzmiller, Maya (2002). Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States. McGill-Queen's Press. p. 32. ISBN 0773524134.
- ^ a b Marjanović, Damir; et al. "The peopling of modern Bosnia-Herzegovina: Y-chromosome haplogroups in the three main ethnic groups." Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Sarajevo. November, 2005 Cite error: The named reference "Geneticstudy" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).