The state of Bosnia-Herzegovina , created in 1992, is one of the newest countries in Europe. Despite this, its history is full of battles and disputes over the territory. A nation that over time has gone through different eras and historical stages that you should know. At Curio Sfera -Historia.com , we explain the origin and history of Bosnia .
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- 1Origins of the Bosnian State
- 2Annexation to Yugoslavia
- 3Croatian and Serbian rule: Civil war
- 4The Dayton Accords
- 5Independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina
- 6History of the flag of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Origins of the Bosnian State
To know the origin of Bosnia-Herzegovina , it is first necessary that you briefly know what it is like and its geographical location . The country has only two political neighbors: Croatia to the north and west, and Serbia and Montenegro to the east.
Current map of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Located in the northwest of the Balkan Peninsula, Bosnia-Herzegovina ( Bosna i Hercegovina ) was part until 1992, together with Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia, of the federated republic of Yugoslavia.
The region was part of the Roman province of Illyria, and in the 6th and 7th centuries the Slavs settled there. Hungary seized the territory, which was later conquered by Serbia, giving rise to the Bosnian state .
Stephen II Kotromanovič (1322-1353) achieved de facto independence. Tvrtko I (1353-91) occupied the main coastal cities and proclaimed himself King of Serbia and Bosnia (1377).
But the development of the Bogomils and the intervention of the King of Hungary and the Pontificate weakened the country. In the 15th century it was occupied by the Ottomans through Mehmet II . From that moment on it was administered by a pasha and most of the population became Islamized.
The surviving Christian nuclei constituted centers of resistance and promoted revolts, energetically repressed by the Turks.
The independence of Serbia in the 19th century aroused nationalist sentiments in Bosnia , which led to the insurrection of 1875-76 .
The Congress of Berlin (1878) entrusted the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Austro-Hungarian Empire , which reduced the authority of Turkey to a purely formal fact, which disappeared in 1908 when the Austrian Empire annexed these territories.
- Continent: Europe.
- Surface: 61,129 km².
- Capital: Sarajevo.
- Population: 3,535,864 inhabitants.
- Currency: Bosnian-Herzegovian mark.
- Official language: Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian.
Annexation to Yugoslavia
The assassination of Archduke Francisco Femando and his wife in Sarajevo (June 28, 1914) triggered World War I.
In 1918 Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed to Yugoslavia , and from 1941 to 1945 they were integrated into the kingdom of Croatia. At the end of World War II they became one of the federated republics of the State of Yugoslavia .
Croatian and Serbian Dominion: Civil War
In October 1991, after the proclamation of the independence of Slovenia and independence of Croatia, the Bosnian parliament adopted a declaration of sovereignty , rejected by the Serbs.
The new elections gave the victory to the nationalists in favor of independence and the Muslim Alija Izetbegovic was elected president of the Republic, but the Serbs proclaimed a separate republic in the four regions they controlled.
In a new referendum (1992 ) boycotted by Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Bosnian Croats united in favor of independence .
The new state joined the United Nations (UN) when the civil war was underway.
In principle, Croats and Muslims united against the Serbian offensive. Later, Croatian appeals for Bosnian territories clashed with former allies, and each community undertook “ethnic cleansing” of their area.
Sarajevo was besieged by the Serbs and thousands of people were displaced by the fighting. Serbia and Croatia claimed the disappearance of the Bosnian state and the division of their territories, while the Muslims defended their territorial integrity .
The UN condemned ethnic cleansing , decreed the isolation of Serbia and authorized the dispatch of blue helmets to distribute humanitarian aid. The international conference in London (August-September) condemned Serbia without result.
The UN Protection Forces ( Fuerpronu ) mitigated the disaster, but did not stop the war. The three opposing parties met at the international conference in Geneva to discuss various plans for peace and ethnic division proposed by the UN and the European Community (EC) (1993), between successive truces.
Faced with the Serbian offensive in the east of the country, the UN created security enclaves and asked the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to maintain a no-fly zone, at a time when Croats and Muslims fought fiercely for the control of Mostar .
At the initiative of Washington, the Croats and Muslims agreed to establish a federation (1994) , but the Bosnian Serbs rejected in a referendum the peace plan proposed by the great powers. The fighting intensified in 1995.
Serbian troops commanded by General R. Mladic stormed the Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa, but the course of the war was turned upside down when Croatia seized central Slavonia, at the same time as the new Muslim army attacked the Serbian enclave of Bihac .
The UN delegated the decision to initiate military action to NATO. The fall of several howitzers on a market in Sarajevo led to retaliatory bombings by NATO against the Serbs and accentuated the pressure from the US , which forced the signing in Dayton (Ohio) of a peace agreement between the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia (November 21, 1995), whose implementation was entrusted to a multinational force under the command of NATO.
The Dayton Accords
The “global agreement” initialed in Dayton (Ohio, USA) comprises an extensive document of 150 pages, eleven annexes and 102 maps, which in general terms can be summarized in the following points:
- The territory of Bosnia will be divided between a Croatian-Muslim federation (51%) and the Bosnian Serbs (49%), gathered in the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina, confirmed on its borders and governed by a federal Constitution.
- Sarajevo will be the reunified capital of Bosnia, with the lifting of all existing obstacles in its environment.
- Among other institutions, Bosnia will have a Parliament, a central bank, a constitutional court and a collegiate and rotating presidency. Parliament will have two chambers, elected in 1996 under international supervision.
- No war criminal may hold public office.
- Displaced people and refugees will be able to return to their homes and move freely.
- A corridor will connect the Muslim enclave of Gorazde with the rest of the Croatian-Muslim federation.
- The Posavina corridor in the northeast, which connects the Serbian-controlled territories in eastern and western Bosnia, will be 5 km wide. The status of Brcko, the main city of the corridor, will be decided by an international arbitration.
- A peace enforcement force ( Implementation Force, Ifor), on behalf of NATO and under the command of a North American general, will be deployed in Bosnia to replace the United Nations Organization Protection Force (Fuerpronu),
- The Ifor will be made up of 60,000 men from 24 countries, of which 20,000 will be North Americans, structured in three multinational divisions with command in Tuzla (USA), Gornji Vakuf ( Great Britain ) and Mostar ( France ). He will ensure respect for the truce and the separation of the contestants, and will be able to defend himself vigorously in any circumstance.
- The UN will lift the economic sanctions imposed in 1992 on Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)
Independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina
The agreement was endorsed by the Paris peace treaty (December 14, 1995) . Bosnia maintained its integrity as a state, but divided between the Croatian-Muslim Federation (51% of the territory) and the Bosnian Serb Republic (Srpska, 49%), with a collegiate and rotating presidency of the Republic, a central government and parliament paralyzed by ethnic extremism.
UN peacekeepers in Sarajevo
The city of Sarajevo was reunified under Bosnian-Croatian control (1996). The Fuerpronu was replaced by the Enforcement Force and this, in turn, by a Stabilization Force (Stabilization Force , Sfor), of 35,000 men, commanded by (NATO).
The civil aspects of the peace, including the return of the nearly two million displaced people, were entrusted to the UN.
In the elections held in September 1996, each ethnic community voted for its candidates, and Izetbegovic obtained the leadership of the State (tripartite collegiate presidency).
In successive elections, the results confirmed the strict ethnic division and the control of community institutions by the nationalist parties.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which tries war crimes in Bosnia, published in 1997 indictments and arrests against 77 people, including the political and military leaders of the Serbs ( R. Karadzic and R. Mladic ), and in 1999 against S. Milosevic , extradited by Serbia in 2001.
The number of Sfor soldiers was reduced in 1999, but they continued their missions of maintaining the security of the civilian population, preventing any military offensive, and bringing anyone accused of war crimes before the ICC.
History of the flag of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Since 1998 the sun has shone on the flag of this former federative republic of Yugoslavia. The bright yellow symbolizes peace and hope . The civil war that took place between 1992 and 1995, during the process of disintegration of the former Yugoslav federation, was very bloody.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, some groups applied a policy of “ethnic cleansing”. The yellow triangle represents the three population groups that coexist in the nation . Which Bosnian community – Serbian, Croatian or Muslim – is represented by the longest side of the triangle?
After being Islamized by the Ottomans (between 1463 and 1482), this mountainous territory with no access to the Adriatic Sea was integrated into the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.
Between 1945 and 1991 it became one of the six federated entities within the Yugoslav socialist republic. The blue and the stars remind us of the European flag . When creating this new flag, the cobalt blue of the UN flag was about to be used.
