Talk:History of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Contents
1 Tomoslav and Kresimir IV
2 Igor vs. Shallot
3 Ethnicity
4 Reliability of historical records
5 Start of the 1990s war
6 Mir Harven's thoughts
7 Civilians under sniper fire in Sarajevo
8 Vedran's thoughts
9 Letter from Tvrtko to Dubrovnik
10 pictures recently uploaded by Jwalker and ARD
11 It should be history, and not propaganda
12 Bosnian rulers called themselves Serbs, as they called Serbs their own subjects.
13 Point Counterpoint

13.1 Commentary:
13.2 Counterpoint
13.3 Conclusion

14 History of Bosnia and Herzegowina
15 "Historical" rubbish
16 Coup de grace
17 Zanthalon's new paragraph
18 Malcolm book
19 Political Science Quarterly article
20 Amateurish historical revisionism

Tomoslav and Kresimir IV

It was shown by the Croat historian I. Goldstein that Tomoslav and Kresimir IV never ruled Bosnia (Hrvatski rani srednji vijek, p. 286-291) For that matter, the Croat historian N. Klaic pointed out that their rule never extended beyond the river Una (N. Klaic, Prilog IX).

In addition to rubbish galore, these unexpected sudden Goldstein's fans present inaccurate data: Goldstein is just a member of one of the departments (not Institute) of Croatian history: http://www.ffzg.hr/pov/katedre/index.htm & http://www.ffzg.hr/pov/katedre/zaposcro.htm. So, enough with lies. Mir Harven 23:55, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This is very, very boring. They even can't spell Tomislav's name. Dumb vandalism. Talk:Bosnia_and_Herzegovina#Tomoslav_and_Kresimir_IV_-Joy_edits Mir Harven 08:53, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I guess this is the last time I'm trying to put some rational arguments here (the "opposite" side didn't- they just endlessly reiterated unsubstantiated Goldstein's claims (and Klaić's, partly- she wasn't so sure about boundaries), even to the point of falsely quoting them (even Goldstein is of the opinion that Krešimir ruled over Bosnia). Well, these are linx:
  • medieval Croatian history study: it includes one Goldstein book, one Raukar's (opposing views), two neutral re borders, and the majority the disagree with Goldstein's footnotes on borders (which is, by the way, not his specialty- Šišić, Katičić, Gunjača, Šanjek, Ančić (Hrvati i Karolinzi), Antoljak,..):http://www.ffzg.hr/pov/ddstudij/hrpov1.htm
  • CV or bibliographies of historians who authored works that contain different claims on medieval history (they didn't even bother to address Goldstein since he isn't the authority on anything; also, some wrote before Ivo Goldstein made a debut on the scene):
    • Well- enough. From now on, every vandalism will be just reverted. Mir Harven 07:43, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Igor vs. Shallot

You keep erasing my contributions and dumping your own, whereas I appreciate being put on the spot because it allows me to explain what others might not know, so far you have avoided my criticisms. Not any more.

Oooh, I am impressed by your reasoning already. NOT.
I see you can't keep away from bullshit in section titles, either. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The western parts of today's Bosnia were at the time ruled by Croatian kings of the Trpimirović dynasty.

Interesting but irrelevant as the Western parts of modern-day Bosnia were not considered as Bosnia itself, i.e. they were Croatia and this is concurred by Porphyrogenitus whom you try to accuse of anti-Croat bias in the 10th century of all times, anyways...

Yeah, whatever. As long as it's not declared Serb territory, it's not Bosnia. My point there (and in listing all the southern duchys) was that claiming "Bosona" represents the only item of the history of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina is ludicrous. And you accuse _me_ of being unilateral! --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Well this should be the history of Bosnia, IMHO Herzegovina should have its own historical page. Otherwise, if we are going to be covering every square inch of Bosnia's current borders throughout history then this article is going to cover the Roman Empire, the Byzantines, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary and Yugoslavia. --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
No, medieval Bosnia was centered around present-day Sarajevo, then called Vrhbosna, shows how much you know when it comes to history... -- Igor 3:30, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
It's like talking to a wall. The article is called "History of Bosnia and Herzegovina", not "History of medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina". --Shallot 17:05, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Bosnia throughout the ages... --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003
At the same time, the southern parts of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina were separate small duchys of Paganija, Zahumlje, Travunija etc, sometimes ruled by particularly influential dukes but never powerful enough to form a larger, independent state. Their territories sometimes spread into parts of today's Dalmatia (Croatia) and Montenegro (Serbia and Montenegro).

A. Paganija, Zahumlje, Travunija have nothing to do with medieval Bosnia. they were conquered later by the Kotromanic but the term Bosnia was never extended to them, i.e. the kings of Bosnia held the titles of kings of Humske zemlje ((Za)hum land) and Primorje (Coastland) as well. B. The territories of these little duchies did not 'sometimes spread into parts of today's Dalmatia (Croatia) and Montengro (Serbia and Montenegro), their border remained unchanged (those three at least), all were included in the then Roman-province of Dalmatia, MOntenegro did not exist at the time, Croatia did but its borders ended where those of Pagania, Zahumlje began (Travunija-Konavli go without saying).

Again, you seem to think that the page is your little soapbox. Guess what? It's not. It's named "History of Bosnia and Herzegovina", and mentioning all the parts is perfectly relevant. Certainly no less relevant than mentioning Croatia and Rascia. As for the borders of the provinces (Roman?!), I suggest you check the history books again. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The answer to what you have just written here is just above--Igor 3:30, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The ethnicity of the population is a controversial issue as historians of today's Serb, Croat and Bosniak nationalities try to establish the same distinction in the Middle Ages, which is not really possible due to scarce, incomplete and often conflicting sources.

So let me get this straight, are you claiming that there are no medieval mentions of Serbs in Bosnia? I haven't seen any mentions of 'Bosniaks' or 'Croats', I have no doubt that you will share whatever it is that you might find some day. But what exactly do you mean by the claim that historians of Serb nationality try to establish the same distinction unsuccessfully?

It's sad that you actually believe all that pan-Serb fodder. There are certainly various mentions of various ethnic and religious groups in the area, but to put them in modern context is a very stretched concept by anyone's standard. And to regard them as universal facts is pure sophistry. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The Serbs are mentionned, the Croats are not, as simple as that, talk is cheap so I will prove it, proving your point just might be harder as I don't even get what your point is supposed to be? --Igor 3:30, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Right, no non-Serbs are mentioned. Whatever. --Shallot 17:05, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Non-Serbs are mentionned, but not the Croats. --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The second ban, Kulin, wrote the first written Bosnian document written in the native language in 1189.

And what would be the name of that language, as referred to by the Bosnians of the time?

I'm sure you're convinced it's Serbian. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
What are you convinced at? Nikola 14:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I am not convinced of anything, and certainly won't be convinced by propagandists. Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats all claim the bosančica,
I object to the using of the term 'bosancica', it is an anachronology. The term dates from the 19th century Croat linguist Ciro Truhelka. The script was Cyrillic and was referred to as 'Serbian writing' by non others than Franciscan priests themselves (from Matija Divkovic the first of the writers onwards). --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
In a letter sent from Petar Kruzic to general Katzianer in 1665., it claims to be written in "Bosnian alphabet" (literally). (Monumenta Habsburgica I, pp. 397)
The famous Statute of Poljice, written in the purest 'bosancica' known, in an appendix is said that the Statute was written in "Croat alphabet" ("arvackim pismom").
Both are older then Truhelka by a few centuries.
--Vedran 12:37, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
and the language is obviously older than the modern ones so it's pretty much open for interpretation.
Older as compared to what? --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Combine that with the fact the same ban Kulin later pledged loyalty to the Roman pope,
That would make him what, Roman? --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
and it can be claimed to be Serbian and only Serbian only under the assumption that the nations didn't divide on religious basis. --Shallot 17:05, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Obviously did not, otherwise they wouldn't be referring to themselves as Serbs, right? --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
You know that the nations were separated prior to coming to Balkans when they were still Pagans. Nikola 09:01, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)
That's a very moot point. There's a different degree of differences between tribes, ethnicities, nations. And each of them don't map one-to-one on each other, given the religions, regions, external influences and whatever else. Declaring nations is a particularly slippery slope given that one of the definitions is the same as ethnicity, while another is bound to nation-states, and another is at the level of tribes. Historians always interpret ancient peoples according to their current standards (rather arbitrarily chosen at that) and try to make everything sound clear and logical, but then you get various sets of differently minded historians and realize how it's one big mess that doesn't translate into today as nicely as we'd all wish it would. --Shallot 13:01, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Well let's be frank, those who refer to themselves or their inhabitants as Serbs we will group in the Serb nation/people/tribe/ehnicity/bunch, same thing for the Croats, Bosniaks, Muslims, Turks, Muslims etc. Fair enough? --Igor 0:09, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
A famous Serb Konstantin Philosopher (http://www.patriotmagazin.com/arhiva/0084/media/0002.htm) also known as Konstantin Kostenechki (late 14th and early 15th century) in his work Skazanie iz'javleniju o pismenech (History of written languages) mentions Bosnian language, along with Bulgarian, Serbian, Slovenian, Czech and Croatian. (Kuev, K. - Petkov, G.: Sibrani sicinenija na Konstantin Kostenecki. Izsledvanije i tekst. Sofija, 1986. 48.)
In the notary books of town Kotor it is written: in July 3rd, 1436, Venetian duke baught a 15-year-old slave "a girl of Bosnian origin and heretic faith, called in Bosnian language Djevena". (sorry, no footnote here)
There are many mentions of Bosnian language in 16th and 17th century, please don't make me quote them all.
--Vedran 12:30, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Tvrtko made Bosnia an independent state and claimed not only Bosnia, but the surrounding lands as well. In 1377, he was crowned Tvrtko I of Bosnia, King of the Serbs and Bosnia in Mileševo Orthodox monastery, and used the middle name Stephanus/Stefan to attain sympathies of the Orthodox believers (originally it was Stjepan/Stipan which was Catholic).

This is so silly... Stephen in English is from the Greek 'Stephanos', the Greek letter phi is sometimes translated into Serb (and Croat I suppose) as p, sometimes as f. Thus we have pasulj (beans - fasli in Greek) and we have foto (photo) both are the same for Serbs, Croats, Orthodox, Catholic, Buddhist or Trinitarian. The very term Stefan/Stepan/Stipan/Stjepan was actually a title of the Nemanjic rulers, all beginning with Stefan Nemanja's son, Stefan II. Stefan/Stepan/Stjepan/Stipan here is a mere name turned title, because the first crowned king of Rascia was named Stephen all of his successors, who clung to his crown carried the same name. Thus it is quite comical to even suggest that Stephen Tvrtko actually had two names to begin with and was coincidentally the first crowned king of the Kotromanici in 1377, just when the Nemanjici lost their last male offspring at the battle of Marica against the Turks in 1371. He did not change his name to please anyone as most of the populace of the time was illiterate anyways, he added the name Stefan/Stepan/Stjepan/Stipan because he rightfully considered himself as the heir to the Serb crown because no other Serb dignitary, prince, duke, vojvoda could pretend to be more deserving of the title as his own feudal land (Bosnia) was strongest. That was the thinking of the time, one nation, one king, for as long as the king is alive and for as long as he has male offspring, his throne is assured, however, dynasties die out and the strongest of the feudal lords take over whenever needed.

I see you know what they _thought_ at the time. This is so great, I don't even have to prove my argument, you prove it for me. The "Stephanus" is translated "ovjenčani" ("prvovenčani" sometimes, IIRC) and it's rather preposterous to consider it Serbian and only Serbian. Try thinking outside the box. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Once more, stop being so autistic, read carefully the paragraph above your contribution. --Igor 3:34, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Okay, let's dissect "the first crowned king of Rascia was named Stephen all of his successors, who clung to his crown carried the same name". Ignoring the bad English, how does that not corroborate that Tvrtko was only in it for the rule over Serbs?
Well for one thing we know that Tvrtko ruled in Bosnia from 1353, however he did not elevate his title from ban to king before 1377, six years after the last Nemanjic died in 1371. So either he was clairvoyant and knew that the last of the Nemanjic would die at the Battle of the Marica or he was a Serb and respected the rule of the time, one people can not have two kings. And Tvrtko did rule over the Serbs since 1353, those in Bosnia though, he did not get much of the former Nemanjic lands. --Igor 0:34, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
And the fact that there was no Nemanjic to take the crown just goes to show Tvrtko took over when rightful heirs were missing. It must be fun to interpret everything without any paying attention whatsoever to other points of view... --Shallot 17:05, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Yes, because he felt that of all the Serb nobles he was the most worthy of the crown, truly, his local feudal state was the largest and strongest. Besides your theory about Tvrtko wanting to rule over an neighbouring state is baseless. For one thing when you conquer a neighbour you impose your crown on them, not the other way around. As a Croat you should now that :). In Tvrtko's title, the Serbs precede Bosnia, 'King of the Serbs and Bosnia', that would not only be unprecedented in history but also illogical. --Igor 0:34, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The arrival of the Ottoman Turks marked a new era in Bosnian history. The country was divided into the pašaluk of Bosnia (and the sandžak of Herzegovina).

I am not certain but I believe that the creation of the Bosnian pasaluk came only in the 16th century?

Perhaps. I made it a separate sentence because I wasn't positive about it myself. This part of the text is sorely lacking in content, and yet we keep squabbling about the earlier periods. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I don't mind arguing, what I dislike are people who aren't really sure about what they write and then argue about it just to safe face. --Igor 3:35, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The bogumil believers are said to have voluntarily accepted Islam, unlike other Christians, many of whose children were forcibly separated from their families and raised to be members of the Yeni Çeri (new troops) and became Muslims.

We agree to call them Krstjani or members of the Bosnian Church and now these Bulgarian Bogumils appear once more :). Most of the Krstjani actually converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy by the time of the Turkish arrival. the clear cut distinction of Krstjani->Muslims cannot be made. Religious conversions were numerous and happened all over the empire, from Lika (whose Muslims fled into Cazinska Krajina of today) to Slavonia and Hungary (whose Muslism fled to Bosnia and some from around Budapest even to Hercegovina). Bosnia, because of its long rule under Turks became more of a sort of repository for Muslims from all over who had to flee their native lands because of the shrinking Ottoman borders. Not a few of the Bosnian Muslims of today are actually immigrants from neighbouring lands, for example Izetbegovic's family claims to trace its origins to Belgrade, Dzemal Bijedic's to Herceg-Novi etc.

I only picked up on that sentence from an earlier writing. I wholeheartedly agree that a straightforward conversion never could have happened. This stuff should be explicated in the text. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The influx of immigrants from Wallachia and the Belgrade pašaluk also increased.

When did migrants from Wallachia come into Bosnia? When was the Belgrade pasaluk created in your opinion? I think it's from about the end of the 18 CT?

This sentence is another one that tries to describes several decades or even centuries. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
You are evading my question which proves my point, you don't even know why it is that you are supporting a certain sentence, you just put it back because I erase it, maybe to spite me? --Igor 3:36, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
All right, let me be explicit. If you claim that Matej Ninoslav meant the Dubrovnik populace as Vlahs, how can you claim that there were no migrations from Wallachia to the west before the Ottomans? --Shallot 17:05, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Vlah means more then one thing. In this particular case, at one point of time Serbs called all Latins Vlahs. Nikola

I restored the correction of the name of Nikola Gardovic and not Gordovic as I initially and erroneously wrote. I also erase the mention of Suada, if Gardovic was killed in February 1992 and Suada in April how can there be any logical basis to the claim that she was the first victim? I suppose that NPOV doesn't imply that 2+2=476735 just because somebody might claim it as such?

I didn't notice the typo in that person's name, sorry about that. When the war started is clearly a subjective issue. One can claim that the murder of Gardovic was an incident. One can claim that the murder of Dilberovic was an incident. And finally, the propaganda war started much before, so these deaths may have been (as sad as that sounds) irrelevant. (I commented on this at the bottom.) --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
How grotesque, how could Nikola Gardovic's death be considered accidental? Even the Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic condemned the attack and promised to prosecute the guilty, of course he never did as the man who carried out the atrocities was one of his main warlords in the city. I am not familiar with the Dilberovic case, but claiming that april comes before february 29th is plain silly. --Igor 3:39, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I didn't say it was accidental nor did I say April comes before February. You are ranting, again. --Shallot 17:05, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Shallot here. There were murders before and after Gardovic, some of them ethnically motivated, some not. However, it was Suadas death that marked beginning of open athrocities.
And are you saying that Gardovic's killing was not an atrocity? Are you saying that shooting on a Serb wedding procession, trampling the Serbian flag on TV, wounding an Orthodox priest and killing an unarmed civilian is not an atrocity and had nothign to do with the war or the Muslim government's war aims i.e. Serbs not welcome? --Igor 04:40, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
No, I'm not saying that, only that it wasn't the event that triggered the war. You probably weren't there so you don't know. Let me tell you that when Gardovic was killed, police investigated the crime, politicians condemned it, and then life generally moved on, city transportation resumed after a few hours, kids went to school the next day, adults went to work, TV played movies, music and otherwise regular programme, basically everything went to normal.
When Suada was killed, the police couldn't investigate because they were fired at, city transportation stopped and didn't restart for a few years to come, schools and businesses were closed, folks stayed at home, can't remember the TV cause the electricity soon went out, but I remember that radio played only classical music. From a purely layman's view, you can't even begin to compare the two events.
Also, as I said, we would have to view the courts proceedings from 1991 and early 1992 to find all the murders that could have possibly had a political background, and I'm sure we would find many. The difference with Gardovic is that it was claimed by pro-Serb media as the event that started the war because it somehow sounds better if the war started by a Muslim killing a Serb then a Serb killing a Muslim. As if that had any relevance. WWI was started by a Serb killing the Austro-Hungarian prince, does that mean that Allies caused the war? :) --Vedran 15:54, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Just like WWI was not caused by princ Ferdinands assassination, rather it was triggered by it.
Never claimed that it was the cause of the war, just the official opening. Just as every history book should mention the spark, Ferdinand's assassination, the same should be done of the Gardovic 'incident' which, just as it so happens, involved one of the latter-day Bosnian Muslim war heroes slash gangsters and his paramilitary unit. --Igor 04:40, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Another issue is that Serbs believe that Gardovic's death was somehow important. --Vedran 12:46, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Was it not in your opinion? --Igor 04:40, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I think that it would be relevant as a part of a more in-depth study of events that preceeded the war, including also levelling of the Ravne village, fightings in Bosanski Brod, the (unsuccessful) mobilisation from JNA, anti-war protests in late 1991 etc. --Vedran 15:54, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Enough for today,

Regards, have fun --Igor 10:13, 22 Sep, 2003 (UTC)

No Western parts of modern-day Bosnia were ruled by any member of the Trpimirovic dinasty, as was shown by I. Goldstein and N. Klaic. The same is true of T. Raukar's presentation of Trpimir's rule i.e.: Their rule never extended beyond the river Una. --141.149.113.178, 23:34, 10 Apr 2005

Ethnicity

There's a lot of controversy around the ethnicity of the Slavic population of Bosnia in the Middle Ages as the area wasn't constantly unified under a single homogenous entity (unlike ancient Croatia and Rascia which are pretty straightforwardly Croat and Serb, respectively).

No there isn't actually. The inhabitants of Bosnia are described as Serbs, sometimes as Bosnians, but this is probably in the geographic sense, the medieval state of Bosnia has no mention of Croats. I can promise you that much, scout's honour, Vaso Glusac once said that he would poke both of his eyes out if anyone should provide him with a medieval Bosnian who described himself as Bosnian.
Just because you wish to believe they were all Serbs (all! everywhere!) that doesn't make the claim any less preposterous. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
More accurate translation of the title of the text would be About Serbs everywhere, as Vuk himself translated it to German. Nikola
A charter by Stjepan II Kotromanic, written 1332:
"Ako ima Dubrovcanin koju pravdu na Bosnjaninu, da ga pozove prid gospodina bana..."
Translation: "If a Dubrovnik citizen has a dispute with Bosnian, they should be summoned before ban..."
(sorry, I can't provide exact transcription or footnotes right now, but I hope to find them soon)
Another charter by Stjepan II Kotromanic, undated (but probably 1326-1329):
"а томѹ дарѹ бише свҍдоци добри бошьњане:..."
Translation: "And to this gift whitnesses were good Bosnians:..." (Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja, 1906.)
There are at least a dozen other Bosnian medieval charters that mention the "good Bosnians" as whitnesses.
There's a difference: "Bosnian" is derived from "Bosnia" and not the other way around. Nikola 07:51, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yeah, just like "Italian" is derived from "Italy" :) --Vedran 15:54, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Exactly. Which means that "Bosnian" could mean either ethnicity or residence, while "Serb" could mean only ethnicity. Nikola
Where is Glusacs grave? --Vedran 13:11, 29 Nov 2003

For example, Bosnia was at times under Rascia, under Croatia, under Croatia-Hungary, under Duklja (Doclea), under a Bosnian ruler alone, under a Bosnian ruler who also ruled Rascia, under a Bosnian ruler who also ruled Croatia, etc.

So what, being under somebody's rule doesn't change your nationality, besides, the mentions of Serb ethnicity are mostly, as far as I know, from the periods of Bosnian independence. PS, Duklja/Dioclea is a Roman name, Byzantine chroniclers refere to the state of the Vojislavljevici alternatively as Serbia, their rulers and armies as that of the Serbs.
Funny you should mention the word "nationality". Think 1850s. As for the rest -- more pan-Serb fodder. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The various nationalist historians take different documents to support their nationalist claims. For example, there's a document by ban Matej Ninoslav that mentions him judging disputes over Serbs and Dubrovnik leaders judging disputes over Vlahs, but it can be interpreted in two ways:

  • that Serbs are from Bosnia and Vlahs are from Dubrovnik
  • that Serb immigrants in Bosnia are his jurisdiction, talking Slavic, and that Vlah (Wallachian) immigrants are in Dubrovnik jurisdiction, talking Romantic
Ban Matej Ninoslav is clear, so are the Kotromanici when they state that they have issued four documents ("povelje"), two in Latin, two in Serbina (srspcie), so are the Kotromanici when they declare themselves in their bulls as King of the Serbs and Bosnia (in that order, Srblja i Bosne). If they were simply Bosnian conquerors they would name Serbia not the Serbs, and Serbia would come second to Bosnia. They are obviously stating the various (or the only) nation present in their state, just as the Byzantines did, just as Serbian Tsar Dusan did when he had himself crowned King of the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgars, Vlachs and Albanians.
I see you already decided that everything is so clear. I guess there's nothing to discuss, then. --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
So when Tvrtko later crowns himself King of Serbs, Croats, Bosnia etc. does this mean that he is also a Croat? Or it lists all the nations that inhabited his state? Also there is evidence that Bosnia denoted a nation or at least a group of people. --Vedran 13:22, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Then there's the state in the area of the ancient Doclea, which was Catholic but later under Rascia.

A. They were not Catholic in the modern sense, perhaps they did recognize the Pope put in church practice in the time (12th century)
Oh, so now you interpret it the way I do -- that there is ambiguity about it? What exactly are you arguing? :P --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I now committed what I hope is a reasonably neutral explanation. Hopefully the pan-Serbs won't obliterate it (hi Igor!). Comments welcome. --Shallot 13:06, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Just merely writing the truth, besides who says that I am a Serb? Cheers --Igor 9:10, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Whatever you are, you're clearly believing pan-Serb propaganda. (Reminds me of Mladen Schwartz, who is one of the most vehement Croat nationalists despite not being Croat. Nutcase.) --Shallot 12:29, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Reliability of historical records

I'm moving the first section of Talk:Bosnia and Herzegovina here. --Shallot 13:10, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am entirely unimpressed by these attempts to invent and/or bend historic references to support the ludicrous myths of how all Bosnians are actually Serbs and whatnot. And, to preempt the usual retort to this, yes, for each such Serb myth one can find an analogous Croat myth -- and they are all wrong.
Adding this stuff to the definition of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in direct violation of the neutrality policy and I hope that the editors will prevent further nonsense from being added. I'd revert the last round myself but I expect I'm only going to be falsely accused of removing "information" again. --Shallot 15:41, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I am not an expert in Bosnian history, but it seems that the text that removed by Igor was NPOV, as oposed to his.
Bogdan 17:51, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I doubt that one can accuse the Catholic Encylopedia of promoting Serb myths but then again anything is possible with some people.
"Excluding some 30,000 Albanians living in the south-east, the Jews who emigrated in earlier times from Spain, a few Osmanli Turks, the merchants, officials. and Austrian troops, the rest of the population (about 98 per cent) belong to the southern Slavonic people, the Serbs."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02694a.htm
Igor 22:21, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
If you actually read the same entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia a few paragraphs above that, you'll notice that it does not in any way cathegorically claim the nationality of the Bosnian inhabitants back in pre-Ottoman era. In fact it mentions many periods during which Bosnia was _not_ ruled by an Orthodox leader.
The sooner you realize that religion has nothing to do with ethnicity the less time that I will have to spend explaining Balkan history to you. Just think of it this way, the Serbs converted to Christianity between 867 and 874, that was before the Great Schism, and not all converted by the way. Ponder on that thought for a few minutes or better yet hours.
Oh, so I guess you're back to the good old idea of how most if not all south Slavs are actually Serbs. Right. --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
And as far as that particular paragraph is concerned, that's dated 1895.
Perfect, 19th century, the period which you claim (or whoever wrote the paragraph before you) to be the starting point for Croat and Serb nationalisms in Bosnia. Serbs are present, Croats aren't, Bosnian Muslims either. So we therefore conclude: A. The Catholic encyclopedia is lying B. The Serbs were the only ones to have a national feeling which agrees with what our medieval sources tell us C. The Catholic encyclopedia is part of some Austro-Hungarian anti-Croat plot?
Try reading the next sentence before worthlessly trying to flame that one. --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
That was the last twenty years of Austria-Hungary, meaning it meant squat because Austria-Hungary had no intention of supporting Croat claims on Croatia,

let alone the adjoining Bosnian territory,

Not really part of the discussion but for your own personal culture not only did it support Croat claims but those were the only claims it had. Strategically and off the record, Vienna feared a union of Bosnia with Serbia and Montenegro (because Bosnia-Hercegovina was considered Serbian at the time) but officially Austria occupied those territories to 'protect the endagered Catholic populace'. All of their policies went in line with Croat nationalists, particularly the Croat "Pravasi". As Jakob Grubkovic, a Catholic priest from Split once said 'Croatdom is the saddle on which Austria rides Bosnia' ('Hrvatstvo je kljuse na kome Svabo po Bosni hoda').
Oh, right, so you already decided that Croatia had nothing to do with Bosnia and Herzegovina, rather that it was all Serbian, and that the Austrian crown was the seat of Croat nationalism. This is getting funnier and funnier by each sentence! --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
so any statistics supplied by them are dubious at best.
Absolutely nothing to do with statistics my friend, the Austrians were so hypoallergenic to anything Serbian. Not even the Orthodox Church, prior to 1909 could be referred to as Serbian, the official language was Bosnian and using the term Serbian strictly forbidden. Rest assured that no Austrian census would take into account any mention of Serbdom. This mention of 98% Serbs refers to the Slavs of Bosnia, who were linguistically determined to be Serbs by the editorial boards of many Encyclopedias from the time, not just the Catholic but Britannica as well for example. --Igor 9:23, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Oh, so it was actually a hardline policy against the Serbs and Serbs only, and the writers of the encyclopedias dished out their own percentages just like that. Listen to what you are saying some time... --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Additionally, notice how they say _the southern Slavonic people_ -- this could very well be inferred to mean that the person who wrote it didn't bother discerning any other south Slavic people, only the Serbs. Hey, I know that's part of another myth ("you're all Serbs!"), but let's be just a wee bit objective, shall we... --Shallot 01:50, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)


As far as Constantine Porphyrogenitus goes, I will translate what he writes and we shall see who is right.
Igor 22:21, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Let's not forget that Constantine was a Byzantine emperor, who had even less idea what went on in his westernmost provinces. When the Slav tribes got in the area in the first place, Heraclius granted them all the right to use the land in order to defend him from Avars. Right, as if he had any choice whatsoever... Later, the lands were ruled by various vassals, not them, and given the pending church schism, it's far more likely that Constantine would favour the eastern tribes which were more inclined to support him, than the western ones oriented towards the Roman popes.
All that without even looking at the actual text for any quotes that don't fit into greater Serb myths, mind you... --Shallot 01:50, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Constatine was a Byzantine emperor but mind you, contrary to your knowledge (or much rather a lack of it) his empire extended all the way to the west in Histria populated by the Italians. At the time of Constatine, the 10th century, there was no such thing as the Great Schism if this is what Shallot's incoherent attempt to discredit Constantine is aimed at. There was no such thing as Orthodox or Catholic, the Schism took place in 1054, this text was written circa 950, Constantine died in 959, read Wikipedia's entry on his persona before you make a fool of yourself. As far as history goes, it does need to be neutral but historical sources are most important of all, if you wish to claim that "some historians" dispute Constantine do be so kind as to give their full names (and write a little bit on them for Wikipedia, why not). I dislike people who are not willing to shut up when it seems that they can not put up some evidence to back up their humble opinions.
First of all, I said _pending_ church schism. More reading, less ranting.
Huh? Pending church schism in 959? So you claim that because of some friction between church officials, the Byzantine emperor is about to lie to his own successor, thus putting the whole legacy of the Empire in danger for the sake of some church disputes which at the time were not even deemed important to worldly (political) leaders? You are kidding, right?
Again you are ranting against something you just invented. (The schism of 1054, but we already knew that, you're just in it for the trolling.) --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Secondly, the Dalmatian cities declared their support of Byzantium during a period of instability in the Croat kingdom between 945 and c960, until Mihajlo Krešimir restored order and apparently control over Bosnia. His son Stjepan Držislav even brokered a deal with the Byzantium in the 970s to officially relinquish Dalmatia to him in return for his support in the war against the Bulgarians/Macedons. In the same time frame, the Byzantium waged war in Arab border zones, Italy and Crete. They didn't want a strong Croat kingdom, nor a strong Serb kingdom, nor a strong Bulgarian kingdom, etc.
So why would Constantine have some kind of anti-Croat bias as you claim or at least once claimed? And what does Constantine's wishful thinking have to do with politics. Surely, his writing a book aimed at a very select audience (his own successors, mind you there was no internet at the time and the book wasn't available to the public library let alone cross-library loans to Serbia and Croatia) would not change anything on the ground.
Whatever. He was simply weighing his options with all of his vassals. Try reading what I wrote, but this time with comprehension. --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
To decide to call the Slavs in the areas you quoted on the page De Administrando Imperio Serbs was a pragmatic decision. It's pretty much impossible to say that Constantine had a fair and unbiased insight into the situation. Hell, even the title and purpose of the document screams bias -- how to rule the empire. Not a school history book.
Actually the name 'How to rule an empire' is Latin, the original Greek title was Te Etnon, 'About the peoples'.
Both are still quite indicative. --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I really don't see how he was being pragmatic by calling the Bosnians Serbs? Isn't there a Latin proverb which states 'divide et impera' which implies divide and rule and not unite and rule? I can't believe I am having this discussion? :)
And here you again ignore the fact there was hardly anything united about the peoples on these lands during many periods at the time. --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
As for the issue of sources, mine are various. Most of the information I'm talking about is available pretty much everywhere, it's not controversial nor is it necessary to depend on one specific historian. Hint, hint. --Shallot 09:29, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Please try to be more specific, I can not consider your claims if you do not provide me with your sources. My sources do not depend on one specific historian but on a myriad of first-hand historical sources.--Igor 9:32, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
In the meantime, I will add some more "Serb myths" all coming from medieval Bosnian, Frankish, Austrian and Roman (Vatican sources). I sure hope that I haven't left any members of the Great-Serb-mythological society out? Shallot, please fill free to fill in any members of the Great conspirative Serb mythological society I might have left out through no fault of my own other than ignorance I guess?
User:Igor 0:29, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
If you continue to twist facts to suit various myths, you may only discredit yourself further.
On that note, if any of my writing looks suspicious to anyone, please feel free to dissect it and expose all found fallacies. I am aware of how reading too many Tuđman-era history books (in addition to others) may have skewed my viewpoint, contrary to my honest wishes to remain objective. (Some of us here don't seem to be aware of such issues with one's selves, sadly.) --Shallot 09:29, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
You never did translate the respective paragraphs from Profirogenet. Also I have objections on your translation of "χοριον" as "zupa". All the historicians I've read translate it as "a small country" or "a small state". What does a slavic "zupa" have to do with Byzantine organisational units? --Vedran 13:34, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
No medieval Bosnian documents refer to any 'bogumils' but much rather 'krstjani' whose name suggest that the Bosnian heretics respected the cross and considered themselves as Christians whereas the Bogumils of Bulgaria hated the cross. The religion of the state's population was never an issue, all three religions were represented. The krstjani were not the only ones to convert to Islam nor did they convert immediately, in fact most converted to Catholicism and their leader (the djed gost Radin) converted to Orthodoxy in the 1460's.
Igor 22:21, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
There are documents that explain krstjani as bogumils, so I simply used both terms (neutrality, remember?). I am not aware of the exact details, but see
http://www.hdmagazine.com/bosnia/articles/book-1.html
--Shallot 01:50, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Hdmagazine, so that is your source? You counter Bosnian first-hand documents and sources with some émigré "Patriotic League" wannabee mishmash hey-hey Serbs suck we were here first political garbage written by some self-taught "historian" from Fort Lauderdale? --Igor 9:32, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
You seem to be accusing your opponents of the same thing your sources practice themselves. Oh well. --Shallot 13:02, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
What? A "djed gost"? "Gost" is not the same as "djed", they refer to two different positions in church hierarchy, where "djed" was the leader of the Church of Bosnia, and Radin was just a gost (head of a monastery). And to that even I would like to see some documentary evidence. Also, you tend to find one source and stick to it, but when Shallot does the same you critisize him. --Vedran 13:36, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As for Catholic encyclopedia articles- one must not overlook two facts: these articles had been written (or published) in 1908. (therefore, in many cases obsolete), and, more important-trhey are contradictory. Especially when we compare pages on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Dalmatia. Here we go: in Bosnia and Herzegovina we find these interesting "Catholic Serbs". Onthe other hand- considering history part of BH page, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02694a.htm -there is no indication of Serbian settlement. On the Croatia page, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04510a.htm , we read that "The executive head of the Croats was the "ban" a title still in use, and he had unlimited power as leader and governor of the people. Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor, was compelled to abandon his provinces in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. At that time the Croats occupied the following provinces: Illyricum Liburnia, Pannonia, Dalmatia, and a part of Histria, now known respectively as Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Istria, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their kinsmen, the Serbs, settled in Montenegro, Northern Albania, Old Servia, and the western part of the Servian Kingdom. The cities of Zara (Zadar or Jadera), Trau (Trogir or Tragurion), Spalato (Spljet), and Ragusa (Dubrovnik), on the Dalmatian coast, and the islands Veglia (Krk) and Arbe (Rab or Absorus), in the Adriatic, remained Latin in character. Elsewhere, however, the assimilative power of the Croats was stronger and the Latin race disappeared." Huh ? Similarly, the Dalmatia page, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04606b.htm , is a mixture of facts and fictions. Therefore- I guess that Catholic encyclopedia old stuff is hardly to be referred to, due to its contradictory nature and obsoleteness.

Mir Harven
Witness the original version of the Djakovo page for another proof how they had entirely loony sources. --Shallot 14:27, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Aha. If you mean http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Croat_Catholic_Ustashi_clergy&redirect=no -what can I say:
-obsession ?
-paranoia ?
-hallucinations induced by sensory or sexual deprivation ?
M H

Start of the 1990s war

The event starting the war in the 1990s can't be so simply determined as the crime that happened first. Please let's just acknowledge that opinions differ. --Shallot 13:10, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Mir Harven's thoughts

Well-there is pretty much of a consensus on Serbian political pathology. For instance,this is how "the world" sees it: http://mondediplo.com/1997/11/serbia

M H

Civilians under sniper fire in Sarajevo

Nikola, when were the civilians in parts of Sarajevo held by Bosnian Serbs under sniper fire? I never heard of any such thing. --Shallot 19:52, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

During the entire war. Google isn't working or I would find you some references. Nikola 22:15, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Found them now: [1] (http://www.conspire.com/bos.html)[2] (http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:lYIUwn_bYFAJ:www.slobodnasrpska.org/en/prevare/odbrana/sarajevo.html+%22mulim+sniper%22+OR+%22muslim+snipers%22+sarajevo&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)[3] (http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/geostrategy/baudson_nwo_yu/nwo_preface.html)[4] (http://www.aeronautics.ru/markale7.htm)[5] (http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/carr/carr.html) Nikola 07:33, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Vedran's thoughts

General objections to this article, which I intend to rectify if I were allowed to do so. If you object, please state here before we waste time in a useless edit war:

  • Prehistoric info is nonexistant. Antics too could use some more info.
  • As I've said above, "horion" (χοριον) is hardly a "zupa".
  • The Church of Bosnia was "protestant"? How many years before Martin Luther?
NB it says early protestant. It was certainly not in accord with the official views of the Pope. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes, well probably a separate article about the teachings of Church of Bosnia can be made, based on the few apocryphal texts, findings of Prezviter Kozma (sorry, don't know how to translate it to English) and other inqusition documents, noting that writings of inquisitors should be taken with a grain of salt. --Vedran 21:52, 01 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Translating "ban" as "duke" (and hence "banovina" as "duchy") is IMO wrong on many levels.
    • I think it would be good not to translate it at all and just link to ban everywhere. On that page it could be explain that "ban" is sometimes translated as "duke". Nikola
Agreed. --Vedran 21:52, 01 Dec 2003
  • Also, with ban Boric Bosnia was more then authonomous, it was independant. A Hungarian cronicler named Cinnamos wrote sometime in 1150ies: "...when he (the king of Hungary) was close to Sava, thereon towards the river Drina, which flows into Sava and separates Bosnia from the land of Serbs..." and then "...and Bosnia is not subject to anyone, it's of its own, the Bosnian people live with their own separate lives and rule themselves..." (Jo. Cinnami, Historiarum epitome, lib. III, edic. 7, A. Meineke, Bonn 1836, 104.) If I were Igor I might find this to be a proof for existance of a Bosnian nation in 12th century :) rather I hope this finally puts an end to discussion on ethnicities prior to 19th century.
  • The boxed text serves what purpose again? It's completely out of context and has no place in an encyclopedia. If someone believes that it proves something, they should leave it here. I can only imagine

what a reader thinks when she stumbles over this blurb.

    • It's a nice illustration of the article. Initially I wanted to add actual image of the text, but couldn't got the copyright. Nikola
Ok, but it doesn't look that way, what with all the comentary and stuff. We can try to make it look more like an illustration, but the commentary should be moved below the box and placed into context, don't you think? --Vedran 21:52, 01 Dec 2003
It's probably taken from some freesrpska.org pamphlet :))
Actually, there is address of the source at the top. Nikola
It would be useful in some sort of a linguistic article, but here it does seem just like it's there as to prove they spoke Serbian. (And I can't fathom how a single interpretation of a single document is could be particularly convincing.) --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • Mili and Milesevo are not two separate incidents, as it appears in the text. The fact is that the original document, whose transcript I unfortunatelly don't have at the moment (but I hope to get it soon) can't be properly read. It can just as well be interpreted as Mili which is logical because there was the residence of Stjepan II and several other earlier and later rulers of Bosnia. Further, it's believed that the name Milesevo wasn't used until much later.
  • Most modern historicians agree that Bosnia didn't "fall with a whisper", infact contrary can be said. The fall of Bosnia under Ottoman empire lasted literally from 1386. to 1528. Another thing is a legend of surrender of Bosnian capital city of Bobovac.
Perhaps it's more appropriate to say that the kingdom symbollically fell with a whisper, and describe its downfall in detail. I added that sentence hastily at some point, as I was too tied up in arguing with Igor about random propaganda-like details. Notice also how there's hardly any mention of how Bosnia functioned under the Ottoman Empire -- hundreds of years summed up in a paragraph or two, ugh. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yup. I think it was Malcolm that argued that there was probably some kind of a civil war between Catholics and Heretics just prior to the fall of Bosnia. --Vedran 21:52, 01 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • The paragraph on Hercegovina is a perfect example of Igors story-telling skills when pursuing his political agenda while not presenting anything factually wrong. Here he merely "forgot" to mention that Hum was a part of Bosnia since arround 1320 (have to check my historic books).
Check them again to see how long it existed as an independent principality? Check them again just to notice the fact that the territory of 'Humska zemlja' is always mentionned as separate from Bosnia.

He "forgot" to mention that Hum in its largest extent covered less then one third of what is Hercegovina today.

Overexaggeration, depends how big you make Hercegovina today. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

He made a "small mistake" when claiming that Zahumlje is the same thing as Hum, he "forgot" to mention Travunija, Donji kraji, Primorje, Konavli etc.

Shoot me, but not on account of Donji Kraji which is in Western Bosnia today (south of Banjaluka), nothing to do with Hercegovina. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

He than blissfully mixes meanings of words independance and autonomy (independence of Bosnia under ban Boric is incomparably larger than autonomy from Bosnian crown that duke Stjepan Vukcic enjoyed at times).

The independent Bosnian state starts with Ban Kulin in the late 12th century, not under Ban Boric. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
See my quote of Cinnamos in my point nr. 5. No exact date is available, but it describes the same war that Boric took part of. --Vedran 21:52, 01 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Finally he glosses over the fact that the name Hercegovina was first used long after herceg was dead. And all of that was merely laying a foundation for an unsaid claim that Hercegovina is somehow a separate entity from Bosnia.

Well it is, isn't the name Bosnia and Herzegovina? Silly me? -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It is not and it never was. Hercegovina is a province of Bosnia, just like Krajina, Posavina, Semberija etc. and it being a part of name of the country is a result of a twist of events in mid 19th century.

Yet somehowe Semberija, Usora, Soli, Donji Kraji did not manage to find their way into the name? -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Well here's how it was, if you want to know. In 1826, Ali-beg Rizvanbegovic sided with the sultan against Husein-kapetan Gradascevic (btw no mention of the legendary "Zmaj od Bosne" in an unbiased history? lol). In a move that was simultaneously a reward for Ali-beg and a "divide and conquer" strategy, sultan declared him to be a pasa, and Hercegovina his pasaluk. That was 1827. Later when Omer-pasa Latas took the job of "pacifying the restless province" he just bluntly combined the two pasaluks into a single "Ejalet of Bosnia and Hercegovina" in 1855. So Hercegovina actually had its historical "5 minutes" that lasted 28 years. But claiming that herceg Stjepan was somehow independent from Bosnia or that his feudal property was in any way related to the old state of Hum (or Zahumlje) is a falsificate. --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Similarly, the following paragraph "omits" to mention that sandzak Hercegovina was a part of pasaluk Bosnia along with other sandzaks which I can list if anyone's interested.

Turkish administrative divisions are unrelated to history. You also had a Smederevo sandzak, and a Vucitrn and Pec one too, then an overlapping Skadar sandzak and the borders of the administrative divisions themselves changed almost every 30-50 years. You can always make up a separate page for that but I see no relevance to the main discussion of Bosnia unless if you are going to talk about the Austro-Hungarian, royal Yugoslav, Communist Yugoslav and war-secessionist administrative units? Pasaluk, sandzak, okrug, srez, opstina, mesna zajednica, sounds interesting! -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, but why do you mention sandzak Hercegovina and not those other sandzaks? And why would you object my proposed rewrite of that sentence? ("mesna zajednica" - is that "meat community" ;) --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's mesTna zajednica after lenition... Nikola 20:50, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I wouldn't go so far to say it's just a province, given its overall significance (heck, the country still has it in the name, that's gotta account for something), but I agree that there's a lot more to be said. I've also been fixing the Herzegovina page several times, and it could still use much more work. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • The claim of "spahi" system somehow setting back agriculture is very superficial and needs to be rewritten.
Again, like the rest of the section, it needs a lot more content. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • The existance of yanissary did not affect population structure in any way, since yanissary weren't allowed to marry. Therefore this paragraph is irrelevant and should be deleted.
It should be moved to the general description of BiH in the Ottoman period. It's an interesting historical fact, and it also has a subpage to link to so it shouldn't be deleted. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I can direct you to some recent papers on yenisarry, but just a few quick notes: a) it generaly wasn't forced, parents actually volunteered their children (remember, yanisarry were enormously powerfull and usually very rich), b) many of the yenisarry were recruited from muslim families, c) the term "blood tax" is not a translation of "devsirme", it was fabricated by romance Serb "historicians" in 19th century. So I'd rather remove it altogether, but I won't insist. --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • More superficialness with mentions of immigrants from Belgrade pashaluk (!? this happened much later)
Note that originally it said from Wallachia as well. The Vlachs claim, and I've seen this corroborated in many places, that they migrated many times into the west as the Ottoman armies progressed. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Benedikt Kuripesic in 1530 claims that the Serbs (Surffen) are also called Vlachs. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
So why are Serbs mentioned as a distinct entity from Vlachs in the charter of Matej Ninoslav you like to quote? Ah sorry, you believe that there it magically changes it's meaning to mean Dubrovnikians :) --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Exact extension of the term "Vlah" will have to be explained one day. It's good that it doesn't include Americans. Pardon, it does. Nikola
  • Title "19th and 20th century". Claiming that Muslims preferred to be called Turks is very streched but I need to check.
I recall reading it in a travelogue of the time. Nikola
I can provide scanned National Geographic magazine. Even the Croat historian Ivo Banac agrees with the fact that the national consciousness of the Bosnian Muslims was Turkish. Somewhat distinct from the real Turks whom they refered to as Osmanlije (Osmanli) or Turkuši (son of a Turk, as opposed to poturica i.e. Turkicized). that was the trend among most of the Muslims in the Turkish empire, the division into two caste (millet) systems, Muslims (believers) and other (non-believers) caused the rift that persists until today. Muslims on one side (who identify themselves with the Turkish empire and seem quite apologetic of it) and the Christians on the other who were the oppressed raja. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
You're mixing things here, Bosnian Muslims never referred to themselves as Turks (ethnicity) which in Turkish is written Türk. They did call themself turk - note: no diaresis! - meaning "Muslim peasant". That's why "poturciti" doesn't mean "convert to a Turk", but "convert to Islam". In modern Turkish this word without diaresis even has a bit derisive meaning, "stupid". Yeah, it's funny :) but check for yourself if you don't believe me. --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That paragraph is a fishy generalization. Its initial phrasing said how Serbs were nationally organized, the Catholics (presumably also Serbs) became Croats and Muslims (presumably also Serbs) said they were Turks, or something like that. You have one guess who made that change. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • The whole story about the latest war is pretty much still the Serb side of things clensed from any factual errors. Bosniaks and Croats "knew" that Bosnia was so ethnically complex and yet they decided to seceede from Yugoslavia - "they had it coming". Sorry, but that's no NPOV. Author (probably Igor again) interpretes constitution to mean that Serb political representatives have to approve any decision with regards to the states future. The International Court of Justice (http://www.icj-cij.org/) will surely take those and other arguments when it rules in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro (where Bosnia claims agression). Meanwhile, stating it here as a fact is taking sides.
If you look through the history of the page, this section was commonly a target of latent edit wars. There is merit in explaining the heterogenous ethnic composition, but I agree that it can easily be considered tendentious. The way I phrased that paragraph at one point made it clear that the Serbian uprising (technically speaking) in Croatia was very much linked to later events in Bosnia; afterwards it was changed to make it sound like the Bosnian situation was unrelated. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • Nikola Gardovic was one of many politically motivated murders in the years before the war. Suada Dilberovic's death was an event that was (for most Bosnians) its actual beginning. Insisting on mentioning the former and not latter seems to me like childish pointing fingers and crying "but they did it first!" It's irrelevant for an encyclopaedia.
I agree. The shooting of SD was supposed to be the mention of the first sniper fire in Sarajevo, and the peculiar and most known characteristics of the war in Sarajevo were the snipers on the highways and mortars on the markets. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Actually I was there, I remember how the people felt. On April 6th everyone still believed that they can stop the war by gathering on the square and shouting "peace peace". TV showed movies, dance music, I have been to school the previous Friday. That single shot was a clear sign that no, the war has already begun and noone can stop it now. It was how it all started, at least for myself. --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • An interesting fact not mentioned: in 1992 there were about 31% Serbs and about 6% declared Yugoslavs (which in this and a few other articles were insinuated to actually be mostly Serbs). If exactly 66% (it was slightly more actually)
    • I don't have the actual numbers, but you need to multiply turn-out (whether 64 or 66%) with the actual percentage vote FOR independence which was not at 100% but a few points lower. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Isn't the number disputed? Noel Malcolm, for example, gives 64%. Nikola 20:20, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yeah, I just double-checked. 64% of population voted for independence. Overall around 67% attended the referendum (with less than 5% against). --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • of Bosnian population voted for its secession from Yugoslavia, it would mean that a) Bosniaks and Croats voted for independence with 100% popular support, which is not only unprecedented, but also impossible (consider all the sick people and errors in voter lists),
      • But not impossible. We can't now the exact religious make-up of those who actually voted. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • and incorrect (I personally know a few Bosniaks that didn't vote) and b) even with this impossible presumption, at least 3-4% of total population, which is 10-15% of Serbs, voted for independance.
    • Pure assumption and a partial one at that. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yeah, it's no history or anything, just a fact that I thought would be fun to mention. But it turned to be a flame :( --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Again I personally know many Serbs that voted for independance, remained in Sarajevo throughout the war and fought in Bosnian army.
    • Yes and we are supposed to take your word for it? On the other sides the Serbs' leader Karadzic's main advisor was Omer Zametica. And besides Fikret Abdic, the real winner of Muslim votes in the 1990 elections actually fought alongside the Serbs against the illegitimate Islamic government of Izetbegovic. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
LOL no, you're not. I guess you should remain in your little fantasy that all the Serbs think with one mind. --Vedran 21:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • So I'd say that it wasn't the Serbs that refused the referendum, but rather Serb political leaders.
    • And the illegitimate Islamic government of Izetbegovic that pushed it. -- Igor 09:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)


  • "7,000 Bosniak males went missing" - make it 7,000 Bosniaks (including both males and females, children as well as elderly persons). Most of them were males of fighting age, but not all.
This is also a watered down version, one that can't be obliterated by you know who because it's a plain fact. --Shallot 09:56, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'll stop here. Please pardon my spelling and grammar errors, I'm already pretty tired. -- Vedran 15:15, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Letter from Tvrtko to Dubrovnik

I suggest that spurious "letter" from Tvrtko to Dubrovnik be erased, since it's a forgery. Conscious or not:

1.it doesnt belong to Serbian literacy Franc Miklošič had relegated it to due to prevalent mistake of early Slavic philology to attribute all Glagolitic documents to Croatian and all Cyrillic documents to Serbian heritage. In fact, Croatian Cyrillic heritage is well documented (one can visut linx on Croatian language wiki page). Though, there are some arguments that at least a part of Tvrtko 1st charters belong to Serbian cultural heritage since he emlpoyed scriveners from Serbia proper, which affected the orthography and morphology of some charters.
but, much more serious objection is that the charter is falsely "translated". It has the "jat reflex" written as "ie", which is impossible, since the first explicit inscription of jat reflex as "ie" was recorded in Dubrovnik in 1399. This charter should have, in Latin script, neutral ˘e for world, sv˘et, or, in case the phonetic spelling is used, svit (since almost all Bosnian medieval scriptory tradition is Ikavian, and that includes Tvrtko's charters). The relevant sources are monumental Gregor Čremošnik's: Bosanske i humske povelje srednjeg vijeka and Marko Vego's: Zbornik srednjovjekovnih natpisa Bosne i Hercegovine, I.-IV.. The first Ikavian inscription of jat reflex was actually in Bosnia, 1337. This Tvrtko's charter has old jat, has nothing specifically "Serbian" (except the scrivener) and I dont see any reason to have it here.
Mir Harven 14:06, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I agree completely. It is also plainly obvious that the presence of Tvrtko's charter, of all the dozens of preserved medieval Bosnian documents, serves no other purpose than to promote Serbian claims on medieval Bosnia, by asserting that Serbian was the language of Bosnian kings. Brushing aside the fact that what exactlz this letter implies is controversial, it serves no real purpose in this article. If anybody has any objections, bring them up now. Otherwise I'll remove that part of the article based on Mir Harven's arguement and irrelevence to the topic. - Asim Led

Nikola has noted in a commit log that he wouldn't mind moving it out, too. I suggest that we move the whole thing to a subsection in the page of the same ban, Stephen Kotromanic, and leave a shorter paragraph here with a link there. Okay? --Shallot 11:27, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have actually wanted to create an article about the charter itself. Where have you found reference to a letter from 1347? I can't find anything about it and it's something which I expect to be widely known. Nikola 10:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It is reproduced in Euzebije Fermendžin: Acta Bosnae, zagreb, 1892., as well as in newer books/compilations, for instance, Milko Brković: Isprave hrvatskih narodnih vladara i latinske isprave bosansko-humskih vladara i velmoža, Ziral, Mostar 1998. The latter can be found in Bosnian Muslim online booksrore http://www.interliber.com/ by typing Brkovic (without hacek) into search window. Also, on Croatian Academy pages like http://mahazu.hazu.hr/~azrnic/nakldj/3naklada1999.htm The author is also present in other historical fields, for instance: http://www.iis.unsa.ba/institut_arhiva/iis2003.htm (only referenced as the author of http://www.iis.unsa.ba/prilozi/32/32_brkovic.htm Mir Harven 15:38, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

pictures recently uploaded by Jwalker and ARD

The supposed maps of Bosnia, Image:Cpw10ct.gif and Image:Abd12ct.gif based on those historical records are wildly inaccurate and prominently feature the pan-Serbian mythological Serbia that spanned gobs of territory. It surprises me how, after ALL the talk we had on this discussion page, someone can have the nerve to try to just bluntly stick that in... --Shallot 10:53, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is no place where nationalistic sentiments made by Shallot should be tolerated. DAI and LPD count among the most prominent medieval historical sources and no resident of Croatia, Shallot included, should feel insulted by it. After all it's just history. The mentioned images portray them most accuratelly.
Look, this is just ridiculous. From what I've seen, the images don't even portray what is written in those documents accurately, let alone that they are would accurately portray the whole issue! If "Bosona" is a župa of Serbia and it has two towns of mostly unknown modern locations, and the rest of Serb-inhabited župas have a dozen towns, how could this possibly mean that almost the entire area of modern Bosnia was known as "Serbia"?! This is like those who claim that Rama was the entire modern Bosnia and henceforth "Croatia" just because a king of Croatia called himself the king of Rama! Except that it's that much worse when the historical records are so blatantly twisted. This is pure, unadulterated sophistry, and such edits will be reverted. --Shallot 00:00, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Nationalism ? Whose ? As for DAI (ca. 950), it's a compilation of loosely stringed texts by various authors that "prefer" Serbs in allotting them more land than they, when compared to other sources (Venetian chronicle etc.), actually possessed. On the other hand, LPD is Croatocentric: it gives more land to Croats than they, in all probability, held sway on (White and Red Croatia, the latter including even parts of Albania). Those conversant with Croatian can see various pro et con arguments with regard to these early sout+rces on pages http://www.hercegbosna.org/ostalo/prijepori.html and http://www.hercegbosna.org/ostalo/pabirci.html . Mir Harven 09:36, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I've asked a developer to check if User:Jwalker and User:ARD happen to be have any connection other than the obvious one in their contributions, and been told that they've used the same proxy. Surprise, surprise. --Shallot 00:45, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'll also note that I moved Image:Gardiner814.jpg to Charlemagne where it is vaguely relevant, and that Jwalker created the page Archbishopric of Duklja (in an edit marked as minor, no less) which has one of those propagandist images with the "original" SNAFU description too. --Shallot 20:28, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

About the other image... quote of the Latin text[6] (http://www.hercegbosna.org/ostalo/srp_port.html):

Surbiam autem quae et Transmontana dicitur, in duas divisit provinciam: unam a magna flumine Drina contra occidentalem palagam usque and montem Pini, quam et Bosnam vocavit, alteram vero ab eodem flumine Drina contra orientalem plagam usque ad Lapiam et [ad paludem Labeatidem], quam Rassam vocavit

Someone who can parse that Latin well enough should see if this actually says that this Bosnia reaches as far to the northwest as displayed on Image:Abd12ct.gif (to Una and Sava rivers). --Shallot 20:33, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Found another discussion with the same Latin quote[7] (http://members.tripod.com/cafehome/arhiviII.htm) that says that the Mons Pini is basically undefined, and notes how the best guess of some of the historians is somewhere around the source of river Vrbas, not of the rivers Una or Kupa or whatever... and indeed this is a Serbian page not Croatian. So, coupled with the fact the maps have no mention of the Croatians whatsoever, it should be demonstrated well enough that they are unencyclopedic. --Shallot 20:39, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is amusing... Jwalker has first added a link to a hercegbosna.org page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=History_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina&diff=5071813&oldid=5071620) together with his other reversions in an edit marked minor with the log message Croatians attempts at abuse of a neighbouring country's history page should be reported., and then made another minor edit that removed the same link with the log: Removed herceg-bosna POV bias -an extremist site of west-herzegowina's croats.. Keep it coming, but let me just grab the popcorn! :) --Shallot 14:02, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As for the latest picture... it's Image:TvrtkoPotpis.jpg, and also already described in the article with full context, and discussed below. The red underlining obviates the need to explain what the point being made is. --Shallot 14:04, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

... trying to delete all content of of this history page. Unthinkable. wikipedia should consider ways aimed at prevewnting such extreme — ARD's commit log for removing the entire content of this page aside from his personal rant. If this wasn't funny it would be sad. Rest assured that the admins of Wikipedia will be considering ways of preventing you from doing this again. --Shallot 01:57, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have to say that in my last edit I have seemingly sided with what seems to be a stream of sockpuppets; I was unaware of the scope of the edit war. Nikola 05:53, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It should be history, and not propaganda

Well-as I've seen in this page, old habits persist even if their irrationality is exposed for umpteenth time. I wont elaborate on details of dated historians or nuances of Bosnian/Croatian Cyrillic and paleography (or- I will, if necessary). So, just a few remarks on the entire "ethnicity in medieval Bosnia" pathetic nonsense.

  • During its turbulent history, territory known today as Bosnia and Herzegovina has passed through many stages of expansion and few phases of contraction, as well as demographic alterations and dramatic shifts in national loyalties determined by changes of denominational adherence. In short:

a) before acquiring any kind of distinct political identity, Bosnia was just one among many half-legendary early medieval «Sclavinias» (Slavic units) which had been backwater parts of Croatian and, later, Hungarian-Croatian kingdom. There is no trace left in historical chronicles, cultural heritage or archaelogical excavations that this early Bosnia (which covered no more than 20% of contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly around Sarajevo- then called Vrhbosna) possessed any political or ethnic individuality and identity.

b) pre-Ottoman Bosnia (and appended historic territories which nuclear Bosnia had politically absorbed from ca. 1180 to ca. 1390.) was a typical medieval political unit (first Banovina (a characteristic Croatian name for Duchy), then kingdom) without specifically ethnic loyalties. This state was a rimland of Western Christendom which had in last two centuries of its existence succeeded in annexing numerous Croat Catholic lands in West and South ( parts of Dalmatia and other, far less illustrious territories) and, to a much lesser extent, parts of crumbling Serbian Orthodox empire in the East (Raška-Rascia, the Drina river basin). Also, some incorporated counties, like Hum and Travunja in the Southeast had had mixed Croat Catholic and Serbian Orthodox populations- the central distinguishing factor among these South Slavic ethnicities in the making had been adherence to the Western Catholic civilization for Croats and to the Eastern Byzantine culture for Serbs; those differing loyalties produced multifarious distinct traits ranging from ecclesiastical-political culture and organization to the modes of artistic and literary expression. Such «expanded» Bosnian polity which emerged in the 1st half of the 15th century territorially «overlapped» with current Bosnia and Herzegovina ca. 70-80% (and temporarily held suzerainty over Dalmatia in Croatia, as well over border parts in contemporary Serbia and Montenegro). So, having in mind that the majority of medieval Bosnia was composed of ancient ancestral lands for Croats in the West and South and Serbs in the East- it is completely nonsensical to deny the presence of Croat and Serb names and ethnicities in the pre-Ottoman (*-1463.) Bosnian polity.

c) after the Turkish conquest (1463.) and subsequent Ottoman rule (1463.-1879.) medieval Bosnia disappeared, leaving its name to one of the Turkish military provinces. Its original population, overwhelmingly Catholic (with the Orthodox predominant in the East and remnants of local Bosnian Church adherents scattered throughout central Bosnia and Hum) was dispersed and disappeared from Western Bosnia in the 300 years long warfare; early «clash of civilizations» fought on Croatian, Hungarian and Bosnian lands. Other indigenous inhabitants remained in subjugated position, while many more converted to Islam (mainly from the 15th to 18th centuries) in order to escape persecution and improve their standing, so that by the 17th century local Muslims constituted the majority of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, numerous Serbian and Wallachian Orthodox settlers, geared in the Ottoman military machine, moved in from the already conquered eastern areas of the Balkans. The origins of the three nations now present in Bosnia & Herzegovina can be traced back to this period (ca. 1500. to ca. 1800.) of intense islamization when «triple» ethnic-denominational differentiation served as the focal point for growth of modern national individualities based on ancient ethnic loyalties: Bosnian Catholics (the true inheritors of tradition and myths of medieval Bosnian state which survived mainly through the agency of ecclesiastical Bosnian Franciscan province) crystallized around Croat national identity- their «Bosnian» loyalty relegated to the layer of subnational provincial or regional allegiances. Bosnian Orthodox, along with settled Orthodox Wallachi were fused into modern Serbian nation in the mould of Serbian Orthodox Church-the spiritual successor of medieval Serbian culture and concomitant ethnic identity. And, finally, Bosnian Muslims, inheritors of the Ottoman Islamic civilization in Bosnia, after passing through many phases of denominational and semi-national fragile loyalties (Turkish, Croatian, Serbian, Yugoslav, Muslim) embraced the Bosniak national identity which, by the very linguistic closeness and difference to the ancient Bosnian name (it is Turkish word meaning «Bosnian»), unequivocally speaks of the specifically Islamic and Ottoman origin of the Bosniak nation, born in the melting pot of the Turkish empire.

  • There is no exclusively «Bosnian» heritage that would fall outside broader Croatian or Serbian cultural traditions: even the manuscripts associated with that peculiar institution, Bosnian Church are written in Croatian or Western Cyrillic (also called Bosnian Cyrillic or bosančica) and belong to the Croat national heritage. The adjective «Bosnian» in these cases stands for political and territorial, but not ethnic (even in medieval sense of the word) designation.

Croatian heritage encompasses virtually all (with the exception of Eastern parts of B&H) sacral architecture on the Bosnia and Herzegovina soil in the pre-Ottoman period, as well as earliest monuments of Bosnian literacy (Humac tablet, Gršković and Mihanović fragments) and numerous illuminated manuscripts like Duke Hrvoje's Missal and Krstyanin Hval's Miscellany. Specifically Serbian heritage can be, at best, attributed to the charters emanating from Serbian scriveners Kotromanić's court had employed in earlier period of their rule over parts of western Serbia. Due to the confusions of nascent Slavic studies (1820s-1850s) (Dobrovsky, Kopitar, Šafaržik, Miklošič,..), many non-Serbian Cyrillic (and Latin, too) documents were nonchalantly, without much argumentation, ascribed to the Serbian cultural heritage. This was corrected by later scholars, especially those from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Gregor Čremošnik, Herta Kuna, Marko Vego, Vladimir Mošin,..), who re-issued the entire pre-Ottoman corpus of Bosnian literary heritage- this time based on more advanced paleographic analyses and comparatively broader knowledge.

  • if one tries to ascertain a historical person's ethnicity, based solely on legal and commercial texts- this is an exercise in futility. If we follow numerous mutations of meaning Bosnian name has passed through, we shall encounter chaos of bewildering ethnic and religious signifiers: in the case of pre-Ottoman Bosnian polity (ca. 1180- 1463) the term «Bošnjanin» (pronounced Bosh-nya-nin), as well as its Latin version Bosnensis referred simply to the inhabitant of medieval Bosnian political unit. Since various extant manuscripts (mainly documents dealing with commercial arrangements between Bosnian nobles and the city of Dubrovnik) not unfrequently juxtapose the noun «Bošnjanin» and other ethnic, denominational or regional names like «Hrvat»/Croat, «Srbin»/Serb, «Latinin»/Latin and «Dubrovčanin»/Ragusan, the idea that «Bošnjanin» had had quasiethnic connotations has been entertained. But, upon closer examination, this hypothesis was abandoned because evidently ethnic Croats like Duke Hrvoje Hrvatinić

(literally «Croat Croatson»), one of the most significant figures in Bosnian history, are referred to as «Bošnjani»/Bosnenses, and, more- there is no need to ascribe ethnic identity to a subject in a commercial deal if the subject's reappearance in other available documents never alluded to the ethnic designation. Mir Harven 22:49, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)



Bosnian rulers called themselves Serbs, as they called Serbs their own subjects.


Tvrtko Kotromanic was crowned as 'the King of SERBS, Bosnia, the Seacoast and Western Parts" on the grave of St. Sava in the Mileseva. In order to emphasise the relationship of the Nemanjic (Serb in Rascia, the first Serbian state within the borders of modern Serbia) and Kotromanic (Bosnian Serb) dynasties , Tvrtko puts before his own name, the title Stefan, which indicates that he is crowned. In this letter the name Stefan is mentioned often (see for example the last word in the first sentence), just as it is also emphasised in the letter the concept of "Serbian land" or "Serbs" (Srbljem) as one ethnic catagorization. For example, in the fifth line, Tvrtko clearly indicates the roots of his 'parents of Serb nobility". Also, at the end of the letter, on the right side in big letters there is emphasised the title "King of the Serbs.

For a source, see the letters of the midieval rulers which are microfilmed in their original and are kept in the Dubrovnik archives. Also see the letters of the Bosnian ban (viceroy) Ninoslav.

Bosnian ban (viceroy) Stjepan Kotromanic (1322-1353) declares in 1333. a letter to Dubrovnik in which he states: "thus I evoke to the noble ban Stefan my golden seal, so that all may know and see the truth. This is why the seals are equal, two in Latin and two in Serbian and all are sealed in gold".

At the time, it was a tradition to give out four letters of the same text in Serbian and Latin. This letter may be found in Franc Miklosic, Monumenta Serbica, Vienna 1858. str. 105-109 Lj. Stojanovic - "Stare Srpske povelje i pisma" (old Serbian letters), I, 46.

The Pope sent in 1188 to the bishop of Dubrovnik a letter and in it he acknowledges all the old rights of the dubrovnik church. In the letter, he mentions Serbian Bosnia: "regnum Servilie, quod est Bosna" (Serbian kingdom of Bosnia). That was in the time of Ban Kulin. ("regnum" must have loosely meant kingdom in that time for, Bosnia was then a "banovina") From: I. Kukuljevic, Codex diplom, II, 148, str 21.)

The above are just a few illustrative samples that make their point very clear, thus removing all POV-biased comments by a few Croatians interested in a neighbouring country's history page. So, my dear fellas, this is not a place for nationalistic sentiments.

Point Counterpoint

There are a few obsessive themes Serbian ideology literally hinges on in its effort to prove that medieval (and Ottoman) Bosnia was «ethnically Serb». All in all- it boils down to some 4-6 contentions (which will be proven as either insignificant, dubious or false). But, most laughable spectacle is the complete obsoleteness of such an approach which ignores the fact that pre-Ottoman Bosnia was not ethnically individualized land (even considering lax criteria of late Middle Ages) and its ethnic and national history cannot be squeezed into Procrustean bed of dated national ideologies. So- first a commentary on the points in the above section, then a «counterpoint», and then, a conclusion.

Quot: «Tvrtko Kotromanic was crowned as 'the King of SERBS, Bosnia, the Seacoast and Western Parts" on the grave of St. Sava in the Mileseva. In order to emphasise the relationship of the Nemanjic (Serb in Rascia, the first Serbian state within the borders of modern Serbia) and Kotromanic (Bosnian Serb) dynasties , Tvrtko puts before his own name, the title Stefan, which indicates that he is crowned. In this letter the name Stefan is mentioned often (see for example the last word in the first sentence), just as it is also emphasised in the letter the concept of "Serbian land" or "Serbs" (Srbljem) as one ethnic catagorization. For example, in the fifth line, Tvrtko clearly indicates the roots of his 'parents of Serb nobility". Also, at the end of the letter, on the right side in big letters there is emphasised the title "King of the Serbs.”

Commentary:

  • Tvrtko Kotromanić was not coronated as the king of “Serbs”, but of “Serbia” (which was partially true, although his influence in Serbia was virtually nil and disputed by Serbian nobles). In his official document (which was written by a Serbian scrivener Tvrtko had adopted from the conquered parts of Serbia), the designation “Srb’lem” (and this is what Serbian ideology panically insists on) is not an ethnic, but territorrial designation. For instance, this can be checked in monumental Petar Skok’s “Etymological dictionary of Croatian or Serbian language”, 1.-4., Zagreb 1971.-1978., where under the entry “Srbi”, one founds enumerated many instances of legal documents from Serbia proper where the quasi-ethnic designation refers to the land, and not the people (for instance, the charters of Altomanović, Branković, Lazarević etc.). “Of/from the Serbs” means “of/from the Serbia”- which is further corroborated by Latin document about Tvrtko’s coronation, preserved in Dubrovnik, where we read that he proclaimed himself “rex Rasciae, Bossinae,…”- and not “Rascianorum” or “Serborum” or whatever.

The similar thing is frequent also with Croatian name: both in pre-Ottoman (-1463.) and Ottoman times, where the term “Croats” means land, and not the people. This can be seen in charters of nobility (“I came from the Croats”), as well as in Bosnian Muslim texts (“this treatise if from the Croats”- the Banja luka Islamic theologian in the 17th century). The legend of coronation in Mileševo stems mainly from literary work of Croatian writer and historian Mavro Orbini (who wrote “The kingdom of Slavs” in the 17th century in Italian), whose imagination is boundless, but historical credibility very poor. For instance, he was also a proponent of famous “theory” that Slavs are in fact Germanic tribe Goths. Further historical research has come to conclusion that Tvrtko was coronated in Mile near Visoko, and maybe, for political reasons (to strengthen the legitimacy of his claims on Serbia), in Mileševo. There are no historical documents in Serbian Orthodox church or any other Serbian institution that such event had happened at all. Also, his adoption of the title “Stephanus” means- what ? Queen of England is formally also a queen of France (now, 2004.) and Serbian monarch Dušan called himself “emperor of Serbs and Greeks”. So what ? A dynastic impostor tried to legalize his conquest.

Other things are from usualy Serbian repertory: the reference “Serbian” (mainly for the script (not surprisingly, since Cyrillic was the only script Serbs used, and Croats simultaneously used three scripts: Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Latin)). But, this same Stjepan Kotromanić wrote, in a letter to the pope dated 1347., calling him to send friars conversant with Croatian language “…in fidei doctrina peritos et lingue croatice non ignaros”. So- the same ruler calls the script Serbian and language Croatian. Interesting.

Invocation of Miklošič’s “Monumenta Serbica” is pretty nonsensical. First, Miklošič included in this compendium many expressly Croatian texts (frequently under politically motivated notion that all Cyrillic documents written in area stretching from Slovenia to Albania are “ethnically Serbian”. Such a notion is long since discarded (not only because the authors of these texts call themselves Croats, and this particular type of Cyrillic “Bosnian” or “Croatian” script, but also due to the fact that these Cyrillic documents do not belong to the Serbian written corpus- they did not inluence the Serbian language history, nor are morphologogically and paleographically a part of Serbian heritage.). The representative compendia and, more, pertinent and expert analyses, can be found in: Gregor Čremošnik:Bosanske i humske povelje srednjega vijeka, Sarajevo, 1948.-1952/Charters from medieval Bosnia and Hum; Marko Vego: Zbornik srednjovjekovnih natpisa BiH, 1.-4., Sarajevo, 1962.-1964./A compendium of medieval inscriptions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Milko Brković: Latinske povelje bosanskih i humskih velmoža, Mostar 1997./Latin charters of medieval nobility from Bosnia and Hum.

Essentially- Miklošič is a dated scholarship.

Other quoted document is the pope’s letter to Ragusans- which was a result of manipulation on the part of Ragusans to obtain lucrative bishropic seat in Bar. Not much of a proof, especially in times when geographical knowledge was thin (the times of the Crusades !). For the sake of honesty, I’ll add a few other quasi-Serbian “arguments”: a part fron Frankisg chronicler Einhard who casually mentions that Croatian duke Ljudevit “fled to the Serbs” (ca. 820)- while there were no Serb settlements (aracheology, architecture, other cultural artefacts like books or tomb inscriptions) in the area west of Neretva-Bosna rivers line in the period preceding Turkish conquest (1463.); some charters mention paired terms of “Serbs and Vlachs”, which was interpreted that Serbs referred to the inhabitants of Bosnia and Vlachs to Ragusans. Both claims were not true, since Bosnian charters explicitely call Ragusans-Ragusans, and this paired notion indicated ethnic Serbs and Vlachs who were employed, by Ragusans and Bosnian rulers alike, in the trade and shepherding.

And- that’s all.

Hey, Miklosich did not included in his Monumenta Serbica any "expressly Croatian texts". If he included MANY "Croatin texts" as you said why you did not mentioted some of them ?! But he includeded ih his "Monumenta Serbica" many diplomas/texts of Otoman Sultans (f.e. diplomas of Muhamed II.; Suleiman II., etc,) writen in Cirillyc scripts .
Your misery lies are so Tragicomicall.
--80.225.252.189

Counterpoint

Croatian claims are pretty stronger: no Serbian Orthodox sacral objects in Bosnia proper before Turkish conquests- only Catholic; all Bosnian bans and kings were Catholic-and this was well after Serbdom was equalled with Eastern Othodoxy (ca. 1150-1200.); cultural unity between medieval Croatian and Bosnian polities (Glagolitic script first, then Bosnian or Croat Cyrillic; artistic forms mainly belonging to Western cultural sphere (pre-Romaneque, Romaneque); linguistic unity (shtokavian ikavian mixed with elements of chakavian dialects- the same vernacular elements one finds in Croatia proper and Bosnia proper), historical records that attribute Bosnia (and Montenegro) explicitly to the Croatian nation (Byzantine chronicles Zonara, Scylitza, Brieniy, ..Venetian John the Diacon and Dandolo, Arab traveller Ibn Idrisi (12th century), Chronicle of the priest of Dioclea (now questionable), Byzantine historian Halcocondyles (15th century, a witness to Bosnia’s fall), the only institution that preserved and cherished pre-Ottoman cultural and political heritage was Croatian Franciscan province Bosna Argentina; etc. etc.

Just 'cause the Catholic Church had quite a hand over Bosnia doesn't make its ancient inhabitants mostly Croatian. Yeah, kings like King Tvrtko were Catholic, and their names seem Croatian as we would recognise them today. Emphasis on today, notice? 'Cause back then, although 'Stjepan' has been considered quintessentially Croatian for quite a few centuries now, back then (mediaeval times) it only differed from 'Stefan' on a religious-linguistic basis. That is, 'Stefan' being based on Greek pronunciation, and 'Stjepan' being derived from a Latin pronunciation. 'Stephanos' and its Latin form 'Stephanus' mean 'crowned'. The Serbian rulers used this word, Stefan, given that it was under Byzantine influence. Remember that Tvrtko used the term 'Stjepan', didn't he? Hmm...
As for dialects, ikavian is only found in the Cazinska Krajina. Bosnia is an ijekavian land.
Montenegro a Croatian land? What the fuck?...
Alan. --81.77.151.125 08:01, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Characteristically Serbian traits are non-existent in medieval Bosnia-except in marginal passages that came from contacts with Serbian nobility. All other characteristics: the intrusion of the vernacular into sacral texts (of Bosnian Church), their morphological and scriptory form, Romanesque illumination, onomastic and other marks (the most important documents of Bosnian church were written by Croats in coastal Dalmatia); the fact that virtually all sacral texts were transcripts from Croatian Glagolitic originals; expressly Croatian designation of Bosnia’s inhabitants in the heartland of Bosnia (Bobovac-Vareš-Kraljeva Sutjeska, where friars wrote “books in Croatian language” in 1586., which were just revisions of liturgical works from Trogir in Croatian Dalmatia); the fact that Serbian heritage in Bosnia proper begins in ca. early 1500s with manuscripts and books written in language and script (the Resava orthography) that is clearly different from those found in Bosnia’s legal documents (pre-1463.) and in tombstone/stećci inscriptions (more than 60,000 tombstones, more than 500 inscriptions analyzed); the fact that Turkish defters found less than 5% of Orthodox Christians in Bosnia proper in early late 1400s – all this is the proof that Serbian “historical” claims are ludicrous.

Conclusion

Who, then, were old Bosnians ethnically ? Simply- we don’t know. They were Slavs who had some common traits with Serbs, but enormously more with Croats, and a few distinct features (Bosnian Church). This was a typical medieval unit (like Transylvania or various eastern European principalities; also, Flemish and German duchies) with mixed population that did not succeed in developing its own ethnic identity (the confusion of names is significant here) due to many reasons (no cities lege artis, no intelligentsia, no developed bourgeois class, no ecclesiastical unity, ..) and vanished in the Ottoman conquest. The three nations in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs) are the result of process that lasted ca. 3 centuries (from 1500s to 1800s) and cannot be “read back” into the obliterated history of pre-Ottoman Bosnia. Everything else is either propaganda or illusions plaguing ignorants of all sorts.

Mir Harven 10:43, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bullshit. Yes, they can be read back into the not-so "obliterated" pre-Ottoman past, Mir Harven.
Alan.

History of Bosnia and Herzegowina

Bosnia and national identity

"We are apt to speak of the Serbs of Serbia as 'the' Serbians, and to forget that modern Serbia is a recent state mapped out arbitrarily by the Powers." by Mary E. Durham

Indeed, the Serbs in Bosnia feel themselves equally an essential part of the Serbdom. Even as the leaders of the struggle for the unification of all Serbs. This idea is recalled today in the way the Serbs in Bosnia refer to their land. Besides the name Bosnia, you will also hear them call it Serbska, meaning 'the Serb land'.

Bosnia and national identity

• Ban (viceroy) Matej Ninoslav • Ban (viceroy) Matej Ninoslav, 1240 • The Kotromanic dynasty • The Language • Western sources and literature 

   • The Governing of An Empire (De administrando imperio)
   • The annals of the Frankish chronologist Einhard
   • The letter of the Roman Pope to Dubrovnik
   • The Rodoslov of Bar
   • Encyclopedia Britanicca

• Linguistic Variants • The concept of the term 'state' in the middle ages • The titles of rulers • Links • The page on the nobility.




Ban Matej Ninoslav 


The text which speaks that Bosnia, according to the following Bosnian ruler, is inhabited only by Serbs and Vlachs

This is an without a doubt proof that within midieval Bosnia Serbs were the main inhabitants even while Bosnia stretched from Sarajevo to Zenica only (the valley of the river "Bosna"). In the international accord on the lack on Bosnian-Dubrovnik relations, the Ban (viceroy) Ninoslav explicitely calls his subjects "Serbs" (Srblji) and the Dubrovnikers "Vlachs" (Vlasi). For deciet by a Vlah of a Serb, a Bosnian court was to be conveyed. But for deciet of a Serb over a Vlach, a court was to be convened in Dubrovnik. Calling Dubrovnikers "Vlachs" as well as the Latin origin of their prince's name, tells us that, at the time, the Dubrovnikers were still ROMANS and not Slavicized, whereas the Bosnians where "Serbs" who felt the difference enough to use two different names to describe themselves. This was all writen when Bosnia eas was only 100 km from the Dubrovnik border, and the agreement does not does not apply to Serb tribes within Dubrovnik. Serbia, at the time was under the rule of the Nemanjic Kings and at the time, they also bordered Dubrovnik.

From:Lj. Stojanovic - "Old Serbian Documents", I., 8, 9-10.



Ban Matej Ninoslav (from old Slavic to Serbian)


1232-1235

In the name of the father, son and the holy ghost! I, God's slave, Matej, branch of Ninoslav, great viceror of Bosnia, swear unto the prince of Dubrovnik Dubrovnik's Zan Dandole (Gianni Dandolli) and all the regions of Dubrovnik. I swear just as Ban Kulin swore before me: For the Vlachs to walk freely as they did in the time of Ban Kulin, freely without deciet and evil...thus if a Serb decieves a Vlach, may he be held in the Ban's court.

(Letter to the Dubrovnikers)



Ban Matej Ninoslav, 1240

In the international accord on the lack on Bosnian-Dubrovnik relations, the Ban (viceroy) Ninoslav explicitely calls his subjects "Serbs" (Srblji) and the Dubrovnikers "Vlachs" (Vlasi). For deciet by a Vlah of a Serb, a Bosnian court was to be conveyed. But for deciet of a Serb over a Vlach, a court was to be convened in Dubrovnik.



Bosnian rulers called themselves Serbs, as they called Serbs their own subjects.

Tvrtko Kotromanic was crowned as 'the King of SERBS, Bosnia, the Seacoast and Western Parts" on the grave of St. Sava in the Mileseva. In order to emphasise the relationship of the Nemanjic (Serb in Rascia, the first Serbian state within the borders of modern Serbia) and Kotromanic (Bosnian Serb) dynasties , Tvrtko puts before his own name, the title Stefan, which indicates that he is crowned. In this letter the name Stefan is mentioned often (see for example the last word in the first sentence), just as it is also emphasised in the letter the concept of "Serbian land" or "Serbs" (Srbljem) as one ethnic catagorization. For example, in the fifth line, Tvrtko clearly indicates the roots of his 'parents of Serb nobility". Also, at the end of the letter, on the right side in big letters there is emphasised the title "King of the Serbs.

For a source, see the letters of the midieval rulers which are microfilmed in their original and are kept in the Dubrovnik archives. Also see the letters of the Bosnian ban (viceroy) Ninoslav.


The letters of the Bosnian nobles of the Kotromanic dynasty in which we clearly see how they felt their ethnicity to be Serbian


Stefan Tvrtko Kotromanic

Stefan Dabisa Kotromanic

Stefan Ostoja Kotromanic

Stefan Ostojic Kotromanic

Stefan Tvrtko II Kotromanic

Stefan Tomas Kotromanic



All the above mentioned letters were written in the cyrillic script.There is a piece of the Zografic bible for those who think cyrillic and glagolictic are interchangeable (11th century).

Zografsko jevandjelje




Bosnian Rullers called their Language Serbian

Bosnian ban (viceroy) Stjepan Kotromanic (1322-1353) declares in 1333. a letter to Dubrovnik in which he states: "thus I evoke to the noble ban Stefan my golden seal, so that all may know and see the truth. This is why the seals are equal, two in Latin and two in Serbian and all are sealed in gold".


At the time, it was a tradition to give out four letters of the same text in Serbian and Latin. This letter may be found in

Franc Miklosic, Monumenta Serbica, Vienna 1858. str. 105-109 Lj. Stojanovic - "Stare Srpske povelje i pisma" (old Serbian letters), I, 46.


Western sources and literature


The Governing of An Empire (De administrando imperio) , 10-th century

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus aka: CONSTANTINE VII FLAVIUS PORPHYROGENITUS (r. Septembar 905, Constantinople [now Istanbul, Turkey]. Nov. 9, 959), the Byzantine emperor from 913 to 959.

His writings are an emense source regarding the empire and neighbouring lands. His work "De administrando imperio" is kept in its original manuscript in the Vatikan library. It deals primarily with the Slavic peoples of the Balkans and its a huge account of geographical and cultural as well as political situation of the Balkans at the time. Porfirogenitus does not only discuss the events of his lifetime, but of earlier periods such as that of Heraclius (610-641) and earlier.

Heading 32 od De Administrando Imperio of Konstantin Porfirogenitus, is called "On the Serbs and the lands in which they live". It speaks of the territories inhabited by Serbs in which he mentions Bosnia, specifically two inhabited cities, Kotor and Desnik, both of which are in an unidentified geographic position.

The annals of the Frankish chronologist Einhard, 9-th century

A source older than that of the the is that of the frankish chronicler Einhard . In his anals, so precious to Serb history, he describes the uprising of the Pannonian prince Ljudevit (818-823). In his work, he claims that Ljudevit ran from Sisak and went "among the Serbs". Accordingly, Serbs must have lived somewhere around Una, maybe even to the west, likely where the modern Serbian Krajina (region of Lika) lies.

"Liudevitus Siscia civitate relicta, ad Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatie partem obtinere dicitur, fugiendo se contulit" , that is: [Ljudevit (prince of Lower Panonia 822. - prim. CafeHome) having left the city of Sisak, ran toward the Serbs, for whom the people say inhabit the greater part of Dalmatia). Franjo Racki, the Croatian historian, says, that as the Roaman province of Dalmatia stretched from the Adriatic to Panonia, under those Serbs, who are mentioned by Einhard, we must look ate all those lands between, and the people inhabiting them, ie: Bosnia to be considered Serbian lands, inhabited by Serbs.

The letter to Dubrovnik

The Pope sent in 1188 to the bishop of Dubrovnik a letter and in it he acknowledges all the old rights of the dubrovnik church. In the letter, he mentions Serbian Bosnia: "regnum Servilie, quod est Bosna" (Serbian kingdom of Bosnia). That was in the time of Ban Kulin.

("regnum" must have loosely meant kingdom in that time for, Bosnia was then a "banovina")

From: I. Kukuljevic, Codex diplom, II, 148, str 21.)

The Writings of father Diocletian (Dukljanin) also known by its Serbian acronym LPD, 12-th century

The LPD, also known as the Bar document is one of the oldest known writen sources and kept in its Latin translation from the XVI century. It is a the work of a priest from Bar fro. 1196.

The LPD divided Serbia into two parts as follows: "Surbiam autem quae et Transmontana dicitur, in duas divisit provinciam: unam a magna flumine Drina contra occidentalem palagam usque and montem Pini, quam et Bosnam vocavit, alteram vero ab eodem flumine Drina contra orientalem plagam usque ad Lapiam et [ad paludem Labeatidem], quam Rassam vocavit".

The LPD called Bosnia and Raska (the name of the first Serbian state within the borders of modern Serbia) by the common name "Serbia", which clearly indicates the united Serbian national identity.

Encyclopedia Britanicca

1. The first recorded mention of Bosnia was written during this period by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, who described "Bosona" as a district in "baptized Serbia."

2. TVRTKO KOTROMANIC (b. c. 1338--d. 1391), probably the greatest ruler of Bosnia, ruling as Bosnian ban (provincial lord, subservient to the king of Hungary) from 1353 and king of the Serbs and Bosnia from 1377.

3. The Ottoman Turks invaded Bosnia in 1386, and after many battles it became a Turkish province in 1463. Hum held out longer under rulers who styled themselves herceg ("duke") of St. Sava--a name recalled today in Herzegovina.



Linguistic variants

Stjepan, Stepan, Stipan, Scepan, Stefan, Stevan was one and the same name. Because the letter "J" did not exist before Vuk Karadzic's (Serbian reformer) reforms, but the letter "JAT" did exist, the reader could interpret the sound to be read in any way, depending on which dialect he spoke and how the dialect or regionalism pronounces the sound "J".

The Serbian Epic of the emperor Stefan Dusan: "Zenidba Dusanova" (wedding of Dusan) :

When the Serbian Czar Stephan, looked to marry a wife, In the Latin city of Ledjin, of the Latin king Michael, a maden by the name of Roksana

(Vuk KaradzicII/28)

Thus from king Tvrko all rulers carried the name STEPHAN.

http://members.tripod.com/cafehome/serbdom-eng.htm#Povelje (see their letters.)

Surely, nobody would take that as proof that those were Serbs. The indicators of national feelings are those documents where Bosnian rulers write that they and their forfeathers were Serbs and that those they rule are Serbs as well and that they speak the Serbian language.


The concept of a state in the middle ages

If we study the middle ages we must analize the concept of the state. Modern states have the tendency to be national in character, ie: to occupy the area encompassing the memebers of a given nation. Because of that they are much larger today. As is lnown, in the middle ages, belonging in the administrative sense to a geographic area says nothing about ones ethnicity. It is known that ruling dynasties used relations, marriages, so that they could expand their influence which would not even constituite territorial continuity. For example: the Spanish kings ruled land which was thousands of kilometers way from the mainland, even Belgium at one point. That doesn't say that the population of Belgium at the time was ethnically Spanish. In the same way, an ethnic mass could encompass over ten or even more fiefdoms, provinces, kingdoms, as was the case with the Germans, Irish and French. That does not mean that two seperate German states were two seperate nationalities. The same goes for religious differences. The faith of the people was determined by the faith of the ruler, and that faith is known to have changed many times over. Even today it is not uncommon to see peoples with two or three faiths like the Germans or the Magyars.

As a relevant source for the study of national identity, the population of an area maps are not an excellent source. What could be better for the study of national feeling in the middle ages than the documents of the rulers who give clear signs of themselves, their subjects and the language they spoke?


To illustrate on tof the above arguments see the map of Europe in this period, say 1400 (while the Ottomans had not yet conquered Bosnia). Clearly we are bombarded by a pile of administrative bodies divided into many nationalitis, eg: France and Germany, however there are also single bodies encompassing whole nations or more than one.




Titles

It is interesting to see what titles the rulers of the middle ages carried and what the "states" at the time were called.

The title of the Nemanjic rulers was as follows: "The King of the land of Rashka, Dioclea, Travunija, Dalmatia and Zahumia." (in time, Dioclea was to be called Zeta)

Czar Dusan the Great as a Czar (emperor) takes the title "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks" (Romans) which he bestows to his son Uros, and the next emperor to have that title would be Tvrtko because he saw himself to be clearly "King of the Serbs", thus all kings from Bosnia would carry that title, without even mentioning another nationality, but only geographic areas which they ruled.

Only in Latin sources, however did they call Raska Serbia, though all Serbs called Raska 'Raska".


The title od King Tvrtko was "King of Serbs, Bosnia and the Seacoast ".



Untill 1390, Tvrtko carried the title je do 1390. "King of Serbs, Bosnia and the Seacoast and Western Areas". From this title we can see that he ruled only one people, the Serbs. When Tvrtko conquered parts of lands inhabited by another nation, like fore example, the Croats, his title was changed in 1390 to "King of Rashka, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia and the Sea Coast. When he conquered the lands of another nation (the Croats) he changed his title so that there would be no ethnic distinction "King of Serbs" because the Serbs were not the only people which he ruled, because lands inhabited by Croats were incorporated into the empire. From this, we clearly see to what extent Tvrtko was concsious that he was a Serb and that SERBS live in Bosnia, because whilehe ruled only Bosnia and parts of Raska and the Sea Coast, he was KING OF THE SERBS. When Bosnia lost parts of Croatia which it had conquered, after Tvrtko, the next Bosnian ruler took the title "King of the Serbs", because they no longer ruled Croatia but returned again to ruing Serbs only. This all speaks of how concsious the Bosnian nobles were that they were Serbs.

All Bosnian Kings call themselves "King of the Serbs" which is the only ethnic name used in the title. They were ofcourseKings of Bosnia but they only mention Bosnia as a territory just as they sw other lands as territories. They make no mention of any nation over which they rule exept Serbs, and Tvrtko even mentions his forefathers in his letters. They called their subjects Serbs as well even before the incorporation of Serbia and Raska. In passing, Tvrtko called the state of the Nemanjic kings Raska because it was the only name of that land which we today call Serbia.

"Historical" rubbish

Looks like people who try to impose the notion of Serbian identity of pre-Ottoman Bosnia are incapable of rational and clear thinking, as well as completely ignorant of methods of historiography. The "history" above is a patchwork pasted from a site usually accessible from Serbian cafe (not very serious place), and is, in the texts I've quoted, shown to be either insignificant or false. That goes for usual repertory ("King of Serbs"- it isnt "Serbs", but "Serbia"; charters that mention "Serbs and Vlachs"; title "Stephanus" etc.). It's worth is- nil. Those conversant with Croatian (Bosnian, Serbian) can see the futility and obsoleteness of such jabberwock on the following pages:

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/posebna/mitovi/mitovi_dzaja.htm

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/posebna/mitovi/mitovi_agicic.htm

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/posebna/mitovi/mitovi_antic.htm

Bibliography of virtually all works on various aspects of medieval history of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be found on the page:

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/prilozi/29/29_esad_kurtovic.htm

All interested in serious historiographical works can visit the following pages:

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/prilozi/pii_31.htm

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/prilozi/pii_32.htm

In English, except on the preceding chapter (Point Counterpoint), myths on Serbian character of medieval Bosnia, are refuted (without much effort, since the authors' intentions were much more ambitious than just to dabble with amateurish propaganda):

http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/medi.html

The author is academician Raukar: http://www.hazu.hr/Akademici/TRaukar.html

http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/feeling.html

The author is probaly the most authoritative modern historian from BiH, Mladen Ančić. For instance, this is a magnificent exposition (presented in 300 pages book) he reserached and organized:

http://www.mhas-split.hr/eng/frames/tekstovi/hrvati_karol/karol_1.htm

So- Serbdom "arguments" from Serbian cafe are, essentially- a joke and nothing more.

Mir Harven 09:56, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"In English, except on the preceding chapter (Point Counterpoint), myths on Serbian character of medieval Bosnia, are refuted (without much effort, since the authors' intentions were much more ambitious than just to dabble with amateurish propaganda):
[8] (http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/medi.html)"
Bullshit! None of what that page says actually refutes any Serbian claims, Mir Harven.
While this one [9] (http://www.mhas-split.hr/eng/frames/tekstovi/hrvati_karol/karol_1.htm) doesn't even mention Bosnia, let alone claim that Bosnia is/was Croatian.
Perhaps what you say is not so much a joke, so much as bullshit!
Alan.

Coup de grace

Since we're now witnessing another attempt of Serbian propagandists to sell their version of history (for very mundane and very contemporary reasons), I think it's OK to try to inform average puzzled outsider what's going on- with a few remarks on the debatable points.

1. users Igor, ARD, Smolenski,.... are trying to present Bosnian history as something «ethnically Serb» and medieval Bosnians (populace, rulers, nobles) as «Serbs». These are claims supported by a few mentions of Serbian name in medieval documents and sources (say, 5-8). One could ask: why ? How can be of any importance ethnic composition of a region in, say, 1300., especially having in mind that nationality in 1300s was essentially a non-existent notion, even in Western Europe (and let alone in southern or eastern), submerged under more important loyalties of Church, monarchy or feudal polity ? Or- considering great migrations following the Ottoman conquest (1463.), it is ludicrous to speak of any ethnic continuity of modern nations (Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs) in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not surprisingly, what we see now is a rather crude and dated propaganda effort aiming to counterbalance bad reputation Serbs got for their involvement in war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991-not 1992., since Serbian JNA was engaged in aggression against Croatia in Bosnian soil- 1995). The message would, in all likelihood, be: how can we (Serbs) be blaimed for committing atrocities in Bosnia war, since this is our ancestral land and we are the original inhabitants of it ? These are just ancient hatred that exploded, because we had been subjected to the Turkish/Muslim harrassment on our own soil (ie., Bosnia) for more than 4 centuries ? Putting aside stupidity of the «argument» (anyone can commit atrocity against everyone, regardless of time and place and history)- this is also a piece of historical revisionism and a lie. Having seen the motive for such a misrepresentation (the vindication of Serb cause in recent wars), let's analyze the misrepresentation itself.

2. the majority of people reading this don't know much (or anything) about such an obscure subject like medieval (say, 900.- 1450.) Bosnian history. Why should they ? Especially when the disputed contentions do not have anything to do with historical (aracheological, paleographic, architectural, historical linguistics,..) narrative one expects to find on the page treating the subject- but only obsessive attempts to delineate Bosnian medieval ethnic composition as «Serb».

3. be as it may, with all its faults, the best book on Bosnian history in English remains Noel Malcolm's «Bosnia: a short history». It draws upon many historical sources on several languages and is the best introduction to the story. Among older works, only five representative texts dealing with medieval Bosnian history had appeared since: 3 Croatian (authors Vjekoslav Klaić (1882.), a composite work headed by Perojević (1942.) and Nada Klaić (1988., reprints)) and 2 Serbian (Vladimir Ćorović (1940.) and Sima Ćirković (1964.)). These works are in many ways obsolete (although worthy in not few passages), and the situation has not improved by emergence of Bosnian Muslim ideologized historiographies that have been flooding the market since 1991. Now, the situation is following: there is NOT A SINGLE synthetic reliable work on medieval Bosnian history (in any language), but there are many valuable works in Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, German (Srećko Džaja) langauges that describe various aspects of Bosnian medievalistics: Čremošnik, Vego, Mošin, Kuna (on language and literature), Kovačević-Kojić, Ćirković (on mining and economy), Babić, Anđelić (general cultural history), Petrović, Šidak, Fine, Šanjek (Bosnian church).

4. moving from historiography as it is now generally considered to be non-ideologized and modern, we'll mention two phenomena frequently invoked by Serbian propagandists: one are older historical sources and , other a «tally» of claims purportedly affirming Serbian identity of medieval Bosnia. The first is a selective reading of well-known sources (Byzantine emperor Porphyrogenitus DAI, ca. 950., Chronicle of priest of Dioclea (11.-12. cent.). Both these sources are proven to be compilations and fictitious (for instance, DAI mentions Croats and Serbs in chapters 29, 30, 31, 32. Now, a unanimous verdict is that these chapters were composed by a few authors (and not the emperor), and that the chapter on Serbs (32.) is just a rephrasing the story from chapters 30. and 31. (on Croats). Let's repeat: chapters on Croats (30. and 31.) are composed by different authors and are mutually conflicting. The chapter on Serbs (32.) is a «remake» of the chapter on Croats (31.) and not an authentic report. The situation is even more embarrassing with Priest of Dioclea, who mentions the great ruler Svetopeleg (whom some Croatian historians equated with Croatian king Tomislav (920s))- just, no such ruler had ever existed in these parts, nor did the fictious division of the lands that is attributed to him. This is a reflection of Svetopulk, a might Moravian king in the 9th century central Europe (Czechia, Slovakia, parts of Austria)). The other trait of Serbian propaganda is quotation of various dubious and marginal passages from Bosnian history that are investigated and found either spurious or wrongly interpreted. The usual tally goes something like this: the mention of «Serbs and Vlachs» in some 5-10 legal and commercial charters (among more than 1000 such documents, preserved mainly in Dubrovnik archives). Serbian propaganda tried to impose identification of «Serbs» with inhabitants of Bosnia, and Vlachs with Ragusans. Both designations are shown to be wrong, since they refer to these paired ethnicities as foreigners who are intermediaries and employees of both signatories, Bosnian bans and Ragusans. This can be seen in «creative» interpretation of such Serbian historians as Lj. Stojanović or S.Stanojević, who failed to notice that «Serbs and Vlachs» appear only in pair, that documents galore written before them never speak on Ragusans as «Vlachs» but only as Ragusans, and never before and after refer to theinhabitants of Bosnia in other terms than- Bosnians (Bošnjane, Bosnenses). This is noted in charters of ban Matej Ninoslav (and not in any charter preceding his-even this remains a copy's copy), and in a few documents of explicity Croatian nobles in Bosnia (Juraj Hrvatinić/»George Croatson», 15. cent.) that mention «Serbs and Vlachs» again paired, again in the function of shepherding and commercial employees. Another boring incantation is the title of first king of Bosnia, Tvrtko 1. Kotromanić, who was crowned as the king of «Serbia, Bosnia,...». In his Latin title, it goes «rex Rasciae, Bossinae,..». In his Serbian title (yes, Serbian, since he imported scriveners from Serbia proper, which sets some (not all) of his legal charters aside from other documents before and since, as they do not possess linguistic and paleographic characteristics as other documents from Bosnia and Hum do)- its «kral' Srb'lem, Bosni,..»- which was interpreted that «Srb'lem» refers to his ethnic identifiation. As noted before: In his official document (which was written by a Serbian scrivener Tvrtko had adopted from the conquered parts of Serbia), the designation “Srb’lem” (and this is what Serbian ideology panically insists on) is not an ethnic, but territorrial designation. For instance, this can be checked in monumental Petar Skok’s “Etymological dictionary of Croatian or Serbian language”, 1.-4., Zagreb 1971.-1978., where under the entry “Srbi”, one founds enumerated many instances of legal documents from Serbia proper where the quasi-ethnic designation refers to the land, and not the people (for instance, the charters of Altomanović, Branković, Lazarević etc.). “Of/from the Serbs” means “of/from the Serbia”- which is further corroborated by Latin document about Tvrtko’s coronation, preserved in Dubrovnik, where we read that he proclaimed himself “rex Rasciae, Bossinae,…”- and not “Rascianorum” or “Serborum” or whatever. The similar thing is frequent also with Croatian name: both in pre-Ottoman (-1463.) and Ottoman times, where the term “Croats” means land, and not the people. This can be seen in charters of nobility (“I came from the Croats”), as well as in Bosnian Muslim texts (“this treatise if from the Croats”- the Banja Luka Islamic theologian in the 17th century). Other “gems” are the title “Stephanus” (the title of Serbian rulers)- of course, one who pretends to be a ruler in conquered Serbian lands adopts the title; Frankish chronicler Einhard’s description of Croatian duke Ljudevit’s uprising against Franks and his departure (fleeing the powerful Frankish army) “to the Serbs” (in 820s). Just- since Ljudevit’s principality was around western Bosnia and northwestern Croatia, there are no traces of Serb ethnic presence in nearby parts (for instance, central Bosnia) in next centuries (900s, 1000s, 1100s, 1200s, 1300s,..). No chronicle, church, stone inscription, legal or liturgical document attests to the presence of Serbs in contemporary Croatia and Bosnia (except in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is not what’s the story was about). So one must conclude that Einhard’s report is a fiction. In the same time, Croatian name is inscribed in stone in 870s in central Dalmatia, while there is no such (or similar) thing in almost 6 centuries that followed. Aside from the papal letter to Dubrovnik (also, commented: other quoted document is the pope’s letter to Ragusans- which was a result of manipulation on the part of Ragusans to obtain lucrative bishropic seat in Bar. Not much of a proof, especially in times when geographical knowledge was thin). And this is all about imagined “serbdom” of medieval Bosnia: the title of a king (and a few other kings who harbored ambitions to the Serbia’s throne) who conquered parts of Serbia; the letter of a pope to Ragusans; 2 discredited sources (Porphyrogenitus and priest of Dioclea); Einhard’s chronicle; pair “Serb and Vlach” misinterpreted. Essentially- all “serbdom” of medieval Bosnian polity hinges on –let’s see- 6 marginal and disputed (or explained, but in a persuasive and serious manner) remarks. And- this should be a “proof” of Serbian ethnic composition of medieval Bosnian polity ? Sorry, this is laughable.

5. if one was to try to impose Croatian character on medieval Bosnia, one could use enormously broader spectrum of arguments. First-history. Byzantine chroniclers Nicifor Brienij, John Scylitza or Zonara variously call the inhabitants of Dioclea in early times, as well as what is now Herzegovina. For instance, first Dioclean king Michael (1074.-1081) (eastwards of Bosnia) is referred to in Scylitza’s chronicle “..the ruler of those who call themselves Croats”. And this is written ca 100-150 ys after Porphyrogenitus’ DAI who generously “gave” this territory to Serbs. John Cinnamus, another Byzantine historian, describes (in 1100s) the situation: “..the river Drina separates Bosnia from other, Serbian land. And Bosnia is not subjected to the great zuppan (ruler) of Serbs, but is a land for itself- the people who lives according to its own customs and obeys their own rulers.”. Arab geographer and traveller Ibn Idrisi (1099.-1166), describing Dubrovnik/Ragusa (also, more eastward than Bosnia proper): “…this is the last city in Croatia (G.warasiah)”….From Split to Ston (in medieval Hum) population is Croatian”. The archdiacon of Split, Thomas (a Roman who harbored animosity towards Slavic Croats), writes in “Historia Salonitana” (before 1268): “..These were the borders of their kingdom (of Croats): from east the city Duvno (western Bosnia)..from west Krain (Slovenia)….from the north the river Danube and southwards until the Adriatioc sea with all the maritime parts and the duchy of Hum (Herzegovina)”. Andrea Dandolo, Venetian duke (1343.-1354.), writes in “Venetian chronicle” (reflection of Priest of Dioclea’s fantasies: “.. Svetopulk, king of Dalmatia….was coronated on the field of Duvno (in Bosnia)..and he divided his lands in four parts. From Duvno to Istria he named White Croatia; and, from Duvno to Durres (in Albania), he named Red Croatia; mountainous parts he from the Drina river to Macedonia he called Rascia, and from that river here, Bosnia….Modern authors, on the other hand, cal, the entire maritimal region Dalmatia, and the entire mountainous region Croatia”. Byzantine writer Halcocondyles (1432.-1490.), a witness to the fall of Bosnia, writes in his “History of Turkey”: “..Illyrians live from the Drina river to the sea: “. He refers to the Croats as “Illyrians”, and to the Serbs as “Tribals”. The charter of Benedictine monastery in Supetar (a legal document written in Latin in central Dalmatia in 1105.; later edited by Petar Skok and Viktor Novak in 1952.), states: “.. In old times there was a custom in the kingdom of Croats: there were seven bans, who had elected king of Croatia if he was childless: ban of Croatia, ban of Bosnia, ban of Slavonia, ban of Possega, ban of the Drava river area, ban of Albania, ban of Hum (Herzegovina)..” One could go on and on- but it is pointless. The histrorical sources that attribute Bosnia to Croatia (or refer to some unity between them, excluding or not mentioning Serbia) are, at least, 15 to 2 (even priest of Dioclea is “suspicious”: he writes on a king who is Croatian king and rules over some Surbia and Bosnia). So, we got Brieni, Zonara, Cinnamus, Scylitza, Dandolo, Supetar charter, Ibn Idrisi, Halcocondyles, Fl. Biondo, Thomas Archdiacon, Lucić-Lucius (father of Croatian historiography, 1600s), Ritter-Vitezović, friar Lašvanin, historian Farlatti, friar Lastrić (father of Bosnian historiography), king Matthias Corvinus (1468.), Antun Dalmatian (17th cent.), Anton Burgio, papal legate (1526.),…”against” DAI and Einhard.


Well- I guess that Serbian propagandists are in trouble. I purposely did not mention other, more important characteristics that are both Croat and Bosnian, and belong to the area modern historiography is all about (archaeology, history of art and culture, historical linguistics and paleography, eccelesiastical and liturgical research, ..). These, much important matters (more important than trying to “spot” contemporary ethnic/national name and translate it some 600 or 800 years backwards) are even more disastrous than simple tallying and quoting dated historical sources. This is, as I see it, finished. If pro-Serbian propagandists try to revert to older version of Bosnia’s history (full of half-truths and one-sided ignorant interpretations)- they better incorporate all these sources and analyses into the main text. Otherwise- the page stays it was after last Joy’s revert.

Woah, MH, easy there :) I don't think anyone will take this last incursion of bias seriously, it only takes a bit of simple reading to see that it's bad-faith editing. I wouldn't worry about it. --Joy [shallot] 20:15, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Zanthalon's new paragraph

Some of this tension was caused by the rise of Muslim nationalism in the republic. Alija Izetbegović, jailed in 1983 for publishing his infamous "Islamic Declaration", openly advocated Bosnia as a Muslim homeland. His banned manifesto was reprinted in 1990. The Bosniaks also began to systematically purge the army and police ranks of Serb and Croat officers.

This reeks of Radovan Karadžić's rhetoric, especially the paragraph placement right after the first mention of problems... curiously enough, this open Muslim nationalism didn't quite prevent the Bosnian Croats in allying with the Bosnian Muslims in the beginning of the war, or this alleged purging of the army and police (statement in the truth of which I highly doubt when applied to the whole republic). --Joy [shallot] 18:33, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Let me clarify the intent of this comment a wee bit... I can understand that SDA could have had a policy of Islamizing Bosnia or making it a Bosniak nation-state. That's all fine and well. However, they had little or no chance to actually pursue any such agenda (given the actual events in the field at the time) to any notable degree, at least no proof of this has been provided, so it is entirely wrong to point this out first with regard to the origin and early development of the Bosnian war. --Joy [shallot] 18:45, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quite to the contrary: they had no chance to pursue such an agenda because of the war. Opposition to this agenda was one of the primary reasons for the war. Nikola 10:45, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It tells something about the said opposition, when it happened before there was anything to be opposed.
Did it happened before it was clearly visible that there will be something which should be opposed? Nikola
Well, I don't know. I certainly can't remember hearing anything to that effect, but I lived in a different republic at the time. Although that counts for something -- if it wasn't notable enough to be heard elsewhere, just how notable was it? Anyway, we'd need some facts here. Just like we don't go about ranting about the Bosnian Serbs being aggressors and instead point out what they did, we shouldn't be ranting about the Bosnian Muslims without evidence and instead simply state what they did. --Joy [shallot]
Hence, it's unfair to just say that it was Muslim nationalism that caused the tension when the Serb nationalism was participating in it just as much if not more. --Joy [shallot]
It is not. Serbian nationalists didn't want to rule entire Bosnia as an Orthodox theocracy. Nikola 12:54, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that that's not the impression the other side got. --Joy [shallot]
Don't bullshit Shallot. You've got a serious problem of creating false impressions. One should ask whether you actually live in the real world or not...
Alan.

Malcolm book

Does anyone have a reliable link to the text of the Noel Malcolm book "Bosnia: A Brief (Short?) History"? We seem to have lost the old one... it's probably copyrighted, but I remember that some external sites carried it nevertheless. --Joy [shallot] 09:19, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Political Science Quarterly article

I'd like to add the following "further reading" item, but I'm not sure how to format it. Here's the reference in an APA-like format (though I'm not sure it's perfectly written): McMahon, P. C. (Winter, 2004 – 2005). Rebuilding Bosnia: A model to emulate or to avoid?. In Political Science Quarterly, 119, 569 – 593. —Vespristiano 18:50, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Amateurish historical revisionism

The reasons for reversion are explained on Talk:Bosnia_and_Herzegovina#Tomoslav_and_Kresimir_IV_-Joy_edits. Next time better arguments, please. Mir Harven 19:34, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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