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It is well known fact that South Slavs settled in the Balkans in 7th century. The two largest tribes were Serbs and Croats. There was not much distinction between the two then and to this day the "two people" speak one and the same language. Till recently the language was known in world literature as Serbo-Croatian. The only outwardly difference between Serbs and Croats today is that the former are Orthodox while the later are Catholic Christians.
Geographical regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina were settled by the Serbs. That's it. It was the Serbs who founded the two duches and no-one else. There is NO dispute about this in Western pre-1991 (pre-Bosnia-war) literature.
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for more than THOUSAND years |
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SERBIAN SETLEMENT IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA BEGAN IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY A.D. The above quote is from: "Encyclopedia Britannica" Edition 1971, Volume 3, page 983 Entry: Bosnia, history According to the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the emperor Heraclius (610-640) INVITED THE SERBS TO SETTLE in the devastated north-western provinces of the Byzantine empire and TO DEFEND them AGAINST THE INCURSIONS OF THE AVARS... Toward the end of 9th century the political centre of the Serbs was transfered to ZETA (or: Zenta: see MONTENEGRO) and the PRIMORYE (SEA-COAST)... [Serbian] Prince Voislav of TRAVUNIYA (today: Trebinje [Herzegovina]) ...united under his own rule Travuniya, ZAHUMLYE (the modern HERZEGOVINA) and Zeta. His son Michael Voislavich annexed the important Zhupania of RASHKA (Rascia or Rassia) [Central Serbia], and in 1077 was addressed as king (rex) in a letter from Pope Gregory VII. His son Bodin enlarged the first Serb kingdom by annexing territories... The above quote is from: "Encyclopedia Britannica" Edition 1943, Vol 20, Page 341 Entry: Serbia, History [Serbian] King Bodin (1081-1101) united BOSNIA with the other two Serbian principalities - RASHKA [Central Serbia] and ZETA [Montenegro]... The above quote is from: "Encyclopedia Britannica" Edition 1971, Vol 3, p 983 Entry: Bosnia-Herzegovina THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE VII PORPHYROGENITUS (reigned 913-957) REFFERED TO BOSNIA AS PART OF *THE LAND OF THE SERBS*. The above quote is from: "Encyclopedia Britannica" Edition 1990, Volume 29, Macropedia, page 1098 Entry: Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina Serbian groups settled the region of present-day Bosnia and Hercegovina during the seventh century... Bosnia or Bosna (from Bosna river) appears to have originated as a small principality in the mountainous region of the upper reaches of the Bosna and Vrbas rivers. The name Hercegovina originated in the fifteenth century when a powerful Bosnian noble, Stephen Vuksic, gained control of lands in the southern part of Bosnia and took the title of Herzog, the German equivalent of duke, from which came the name of the region. The above quote is from: "Yugoslavia, a Country Study" Headquarters, Department of the Army, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC Edition 1982, pp 16, 17 Subtitle: Bosnia and Hercegovina |
That is it: Bosnia was Serbian only. There were no "Muslims" -- not even a single family -- for at least FIVE HUNDRED years! The Islamic onslaught on Europe started centuries later. For the Turks who wanted to conquer Europe for Allah, Balkans was the shortest route. Their immense armies were first stopped by heroic Serb resistance in a gigantic battle at Kosovo field in 1389. Some 70 years later the Turks recovered and took now defenceless Bosnia.
Centuries of peace the Serbs enjoyed in Bosnia were to be substituted with centuries long struggle to survive brutal tyranny by foreign oppressor.
In order to govern this, 100% Christian land, the Turks needed to find (in today's terms) local quislings. In those ancient times, when religion was one's alpha and omega of existence, the conquering Turks could not hope to convert Christians to Islam over night. Despite that, it turns out, Bosnia was somewhat fertile ground. The Turkish conquest left substantial portion of the population converted to Islam - more so than in other, vast Christian lands, governed by the Ottoman Empire.
There are few theories how it happened. The most prevalent theory present in Western literature claims that the Turks found an easy prey in Christian cult of Bogumilism. This is one of many theories, though. The opposing ones claim that Bogumilism, while quite present in Bosnia for some time, was extinct centuries before Turkish arrival.
As it was question of honor, not to abandon ones religion for the religion of the enemy, the process of conversion was a slow one. It took centuries. No-one disputes that. Also the process took many different forms, many of which were forms of forceful conversion. For sure those who converted to the religion of the oppressor immediately reaped benefits. Over night they would cease to be oppressed. They would not be hungry any more. The record of individual conversions for the last few centuries of the Ottoman rule was kept in the main archive in Sarajevo, which was in Muslim hands in the recent civil war. It burned to the ground with all the documents. The incident, as everything else, was blamed on the besieging Serbs even though it was in Muslim Serb, and certainly not in Christian Serb, interest for that to happen...
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Situated on the dividing line between the areas of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religious influence, Bosnia and Hercegovina suffered from constant internal turmoil from the tenth through the fifteenth centuries. This situation was complicated by the introduction from Bulgaria of an ascetic heretical Christian cult -- Bogumilism -- during the twelfth century... Many Bosnian nobles and a large portion of the peasantry persisted in the heresy despite repeated attempts by both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches to crush the cult. The chaos caused by this religious struggle laid the country open to the Ottoman Turks after they again defeated the [remaining, unconquered] Serbs in 1459. By 1463 the Turks controlled Bosnia and twenty years later gained control of Hercegovina; many Bogumil nobles and peasants accepted the Islamic religion of their conquerors. The above quote is from: "Yugoslavia, a Country Study" Headquarters, Department of the Army, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC Edition 1982, page 17 Subtitle: Bosnia and Hercegovina To the west of Serbia lay Bosnia,... a mountain region, like Serbia and racially homogeneous with it... [W]hole sections of the Bosnians did not scruple to see in Islam a deliverer. Numerous castles trecherously opened their gates to the enemy, and when the wretched Bosnian king, despairing of his cause, surrendered, he was, in spite of a solemn promise made in writing, cruelly decapitated under the eyes of the sultan (1462)... Mohamed held the convenient doctrine that a pledge made to a dog of an infidel possessed no binding character. Thus Bosnia, sharp on the heel of Serbia, perished, and throughout Balkania the land of the Serbs with the single exception of the Zeta [future Montenegro], passed under the heel of the oppressor. The above quote is from: "A History of the Balkans" by Professor Ferdinand Schevill, Barnes & Noble, New York, 1995, pp 202, 203 The absorption of the heretic Bosnian (Bogumil) Church into the Islamic world did not come about as a result of a dramatic act of mass conversion, but, if Ottoman statistics is to be believed, it was a relatively rapid process. According to a census of 1489... 18.4 per cent of the population of Bosnia practised the Islamic faith... [T]he greatest increases were recorded... especially in the towns... Slav-speaking Muslim aristocracy came into existence. The 1.5 million Muslims in modern Bosnia, who are listed in the Yugoslav census [of 1981]... are descendents of those ealy converts. The above quote is from: "A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples" by Professor Fred Singleton, Cambridge University Press, Edition 1985, page 20 The Islamized nobles were allowed to retain their lands and their feudal privileges, and the peasants who accepted Islam were granted land free from feudal obligations. The Christian nobles were killed and Christian peasants subjected to oppressive rule. The above quote is from: "Yugoslavia, a Country Study" Headquarters, Department of the Army, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC Edition 1982, page 17 Subtitle: Bosnia and Hercegovina |
For more than FOUR CENTURIES, from the time of conquest in 1463 to 1878 when Western powers ordered them to relinquish Bosnia and Herzegovina and hand it over to the Austro-Hungarian empire control, the Turks ruled Bosnia. Their devoted quislings, the Serbs who betrayed Christianity in order to serve the Asiatic conqueror, identified with the foreign oppressor so much that Encyclopedia Britannica of 1910, finds Bosnian Muslims, now after more than 20 years under Christian rule still wanting everyone to call them - Turks! These "Turks," though can speak only one language - the same language that Serbs and Croats speak: Serbo-Croatian.
Let us take a closer look into the origin of the terms "Bosnian," "Bosniak," "Bosnitch." Do Bosnian Muslims have an exclusive right, as exercised by the Western press in these days, to call themselves "Bosnians?"
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BACK TO: [ A Short History of Bosnia ]
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The truth belongs to us all.Feel free to download, copy and redistribute. Last revised: July 10, 2004 |