Recent History of Bosnia
Jun. 25th, 2013 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackLanguage
In the region, but especially in Bosnia, there are three languages, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, but it's generally described as like British English and American English, perfectly inter-intelligible, with some variation. Croatian and Bosnian are written with the roman alphabet, and Serbian with the cyrillic alphabet.
But obviously, even if you can make yourself understood, use the right name for the language!
World War I
Embarrassingly, I'd remembered that Arch-Duke Ferdinand had been shot somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian empire, but completely forgot where. It was in Sarajevo. He was shot by Gavrilo Princep, who wanted a Serbia independent of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I'm not sure how he's seen now -- I think at the time, he was seen as a terrorist, but since has come to be more of a tragic hero.
The next is a lot of this is things I should know by watching the TV news as a teenager, but I didn't really pick up until I went there. And is incredibly simplistic, but is a sort of description of some of the things that happened, even though it's incredibly vague :(
Background
Yugoslavia contained serbs, croats, bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), albanians, and others. Many Serbs lived in Serbia, but not all. Etc.
A recurring theme is that every region, no matter how small, even if it's dominated by one ethnic group, contains minorities of several others, which means that several times an atrocity sparks another atrocity by the people of the same ethnic group as the victims, against a minority of the same ethnic group as the perpetrators.
Bosnia is specifically proud of containing Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks as equals.
There's a growing sentiment among some groups, including Serbs and Croats, that it would be nice to have their own country, and no longer be passed from part of one empire to part of another. Bosnia has very mixed feelings about this: breaking away as a free country would be nice, but lots of people like being Bosnian, and are worried by the shift to seeing yourself as primarily Serbian and Croatian instead.
Breakup of Yugoslavia
Since Tito's death, Yuguslavia has been increasingly controlled by Slobodan Milošević, president of Serbia, and later president of all Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is dominated by Serbian influence.
Several parts of Yugoslavia break away. The Serbian-dominated government sees this as civil rebellion to be put down, in order to protect the people who would be vulnerable minorities in the new state. The break-away portions see themselves as exercising a right to self-determination and not being conquered by an increasingly unwanted Yugoslavia.
A couple of regions broke away fairly cleanly because they didn't contain many ethnic Serbs, so the serbian-dominated government wasn't as scared of their autonomy.
A big flashpoint is Kosovo, which is Albanian-dominated and would like to be independent or part of Albania, but has a substantial Serb minority. The Serbian-dominated government, with some justification, fears for the safety of the Serb minority, but really sees Kosovo as part of a greater Serbia and wants to keep it. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army moves in against the mostly civilian rebellion and lots of horrible things happen.
Yugoslavia starts to break up. The Yugoslavian army has masses and masses of conventional forces. Most of it falls to Serbia by default. Croatia gets a reasonable amount that was Croatian-dominated and based in Croatia. Everyone else gets only dribs and drabs.
Bosnia and war crimes
Both Croatia and Serbia make a grab for the bits of Bosnia that are Croat or Serb dominated. This is done indirectly, by supporting Croat-dominated-bit-of-Bosnia and Serb-dominated-bit-of-Bosnia gaining autonomy from Bosnia as a whole, but with lots of support from the larger neighbouring countries.
Some of the Serbian generals, do this by moving into a Serbian-dominated region, rounding up everyone who isn't Serbian, putting them in work camps or rape camps, and eventually executing them.
There are some atrocities by Croats too, but less prominently.
Conflict
The conflict is horribly uneven. Serbia has most of the giant Yugoslav army. Bosnia only has tiny bits of military, police and a lot of citizens with no training.
The UN doesn't help or makes things a lot worse by supposedly enforcing neutrality and an embargo on weapons, but since Serbia already has an army and Bosnia doesn't, this effectively gives Serbia the ability to do whatever it wants.
Sarajevo is besieged for four years, and shelled continually.
Croatia stops attacking Bosnia and sees Serbia as the greater threat and fights on the same side as Bosnia. There were several more combinations of alliances too, but I can't remember them all.
Eventually some sort of peace accord is agreed. The war stops, and some people are eventually tried for war crimes, but lots of people aren't and everyone gets to keep a lot of land they managed to grab. Bosnia gets a horrible compromise government imposed by the UN, which will be described more fully in a follow-up.
In the region, but especially in Bosnia, there are three languages, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, but it's generally described as like British English and American English, perfectly inter-intelligible, with some variation. Croatian and Bosnian are written with the roman alphabet, and Serbian with the cyrillic alphabet.
But obviously, even if you can make yourself understood, use the right name for the language!
World War I
Embarrassingly, I'd remembered that Arch-Duke Ferdinand had been shot somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian empire, but completely forgot where. It was in Sarajevo. He was shot by Gavrilo Princep, who wanted a Serbia independent of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I'm not sure how he's seen now -- I think at the time, he was seen as a terrorist, but since has come to be more of a tragic hero.
The next is a lot of this is things I should know by watching the TV news as a teenager, but I didn't really pick up until I went there. And is incredibly simplistic, but is a sort of description of some of the things that happened, even though it's incredibly vague :(
Background
Yugoslavia contained serbs, croats, bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), albanians, and others. Many Serbs lived in Serbia, but not all. Etc.
A recurring theme is that every region, no matter how small, even if it's dominated by one ethnic group, contains minorities of several others, which means that several times an atrocity sparks another atrocity by the people of the same ethnic group as the victims, against a minority of the same ethnic group as the perpetrators.
Bosnia is specifically proud of containing Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks as equals.
There's a growing sentiment among some groups, including Serbs and Croats, that it would be nice to have their own country, and no longer be passed from part of one empire to part of another. Bosnia has very mixed feelings about this: breaking away as a free country would be nice, but lots of people like being Bosnian, and are worried by the shift to seeing yourself as primarily Serbian and Croatian instead.
Breakup of Yugoslavia
Since Tito's death, Yuguslavia has been increasingly controlled by Slobodan Milošević, president of Serbia, and later president of all Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is dominated by Serbian influence.
Several parts of Yugoslavia break away. The Serbian-dominated government sees this as civil rebellion to be put down, in order to protect the people who would be vulnerable minorities in the new state. The break-away portions see themselves as exercising a right to self-determination and not being conquered by an increasingly unwanted Yugoslavia.
A couple of regions broke away fairly cleanly because they didn't contain many ethnic Serbs, so the serbian-dominated government wasn't as scared of their autonomy.
A big flashpoint is Kosovo, which is Albanian-dominated and would like to be independent or part of Albania, but has a substantial Serb minority. The Serbian-dominated government, with some justification, fears for the safety of the Serb minority, but really sees Kosovo as part of a greater Serbia and wants to keep it. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army moves in against the mostly civilian rebellion and lots of horrible things happen.
Yugoslavia starts to break up. The Yugoslavian army has masses and masses of conventional forces. Most of it falls to Serbia by default. Croatia gets a reasonable amount that was Croatian-dominated and based in Croatia. Everyone else gets only dribs and drabs.
Bosnia and war crimes
Both Croatia and Serbia make a grab for the bits of Bosnia that are Croat or Serb dominated. This is done indirectly, by supporting Croat-dominated-bit-of-Bosnia and Serb-dominated-bit-of-Bosnia gaining autonomy from Bosnia as a whole, but with lots of support from the larger neighbouring countries.
Some of the Serbian generals, do this by moving into a Serbian-dominated region, rounding up everyone who isn't Serbian, putting them in work camps or rape camps, and eventually executing them.
There are some atrocities by Croats too, but less prominently.
Conflict
The conflict is horribly uneven. Serbia has most of the giant Yugoslav army. Bosnia only has tiny bits of military, police and a lot of citizens with no training.
The UN doesn't help or makes things a lot worse by supposedly enforcing neutrality and an embargo on weapons, but since Serbia already has an army and Bosnia doesn't, this effectively gives Serbia the ability to do whatever it wants.
Sarajevo is besieged for four years, and shelled continually.
Croatia stops attacking Bosnia and sees Serbia as the greater threat and fights on the same side as Bosnia. There were several more combinations of alliances too, but I can't remember them all.
Eventually some sort of peace accord is agreed. The war stops, and some people are eventually tried for war crimes, but lots of people aren't and everyone gets to keep a lot of land they managed to grab. Bosnia gets a horrible compromise government imposed by the UN, which will be described more fully in a follow-up.