Bosnia-Hercegovina: History

Pre-20th-Century History

The original inhabitants of the region were Illyrians, followed by the Romans, who settled around mineral springs near Sarajevo. When the Roman Empire was divided in 395 AD, the Drina River (now the border between Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia) became the line between the Western Roman Empire and Byzantium. The Slavs arrived in the 7th century, and in 960 the area became independent of Serbia. The first Turkish raids started in 1383, and within a century Bosnia-Hercegovina was a Turkish province with Sarajevo as its capital.

During the 400-year Turkish period, Bosnia and Hercegovina was completely assimilated, and many of its people (Catholics and Orthodox Christians) converted to Islam. The country itself became the boundary between the Islamic and Christian worlds. As the Turkish Empire weakened in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Turks strengthened their hold on Bosnia and Hercegovina as an advance bulwark of their empire. National revival movements among the Southern Slavs in the mid-19th century led to an uprising against the Turks, who were finally forced to give up the territory by the Russians. The Russian-backed Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary then occupied Bosnia-Hercegovina by force.

Modern History

Resentment that one foreign occupying force had been replaced by another became more intense in 1908, when Austria annexed Bosnia-Hercegovina outright. The assassination of Hapsburg heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb in 1914 led Austria to declare war on Serbia. When Russia supported Serbia, Germany jumped in behind Austria and the world was thrust into war.

Following WWI, Bosnia-Hercegovina was part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and was occupied by, by fascist Croatia in 1941. The wartime Croatian puppet regime slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Serbs. With the help of the British and Soviet armies, communist forces under the command of Josip Broz Tito pushed Germany out of Yugoslavia in 1944. At the war's end, Bosnia-Hercegovina was granted republic status within Yugoslavia. Tito's Socialist Yugoslavia was not aligned with the west or the Soviet Union.

In the republic's first free elections in November 1990, the communists were easily defeated by nationalist Serbian and Croatian parties representing their respective communities, and a predominantly Muslim party favouring a multi-ethnic Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Croat and Muslim parties united against the Serb nationalists, and independence from Yugoslavia was declared on 15 October 1991. The Serb parliamentarians withdrew and set up a parliament of their own, and when Bosnia-Hercegovina was recognised internationally and hastily admitted to the UN, talks between the parties broke down and war broke out in April 1992; an estimated 250,000 victims lost their lives in the three-year conflict, including the massace at Srebrenica in 1995, where around 8000 men were murdered by the Serb military.

In August 1995 US President Clinton floated a peace plan. An agreement, known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, was drafted stating that the country would retain its pre-war boundaries but would be composed of two separate entities, the joint Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina (Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine) and the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska.

Around 34,000 NATO troops remained stationed in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and a large international civilian presence began working to rebuild the country. In early June 1999, NATO troops captured Dragan Kulundzija, charged with persecuting Muslims and Croats in the Serb-run Keraterm prison camp.

Recent History

Currently, life in Bosnia-Hercegovina is peaceful and relations between communities are relaxed, though not on the pre-war level. Bosnia-Hercegovina's current leadership structure, is a rotating presidency between the Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs.

In July 2004, the reconstruction of Mostar's historic and distinctively-shaped bridge - the destruction of which had come to symbolise the country's tragedy - was completed. The 2006 elections saw a low turnout of voters, and nationalist parties once again reaped success across the country.

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