Middle Ages Slavic settlement in the Balkans began in the 6th century. The territory of present-day southwestern Serbia (
Raška or "Rascia") and eastern Bosnia were the center of Serb settlement. Serb tribes and the groups of Slavs identifying with Serbs gradually expanded across
Herzegovina and the Adriatic littoral. Prince
Vlastimir (r. 830–850) united the Serbian tribes in the vicinity, and after a victory over the advancing
Bulgars, he went on to expand to the west, taking
Bosnia and
Zachlumia (Herzegovina). It is at about this point that Bosnia emerges in the sources as a distinct territorial entity, in
De Administrando Imperio (ca. 960), a political and geographical document written by Eastern Roman Emperor
Constantine VII. In a section dedicated to the territories of the Serbian Prince
Časlav his lands were described as including "Bosona, Katera and Desnik", demonstrating Bosnia's dependency on Serbs, although the areas comprised were smaller than modern-day Bosnia. Following his death, much of Bosnia was subjected to Croatian rule, before the arrival of
Samuel of Bulgaria who subjugated the territory but eventually found himself deposed by the
Byzantine Empire. Over the course of the 11th century, Bosnia shifted between partial Croatian and partial Serbian governance. To the south of Bosnia proper laid the territories of
Duklja, which included
Zeta and Zachlumia, who were consolidated into a Serbian Kingdom and ruled by local Serb princes. Under
Constantin Bodin, Serbian territory expanded to take most of Bosnia but the Kingdom broke up following his death in 1101. For much of the 12th century Bosnia was in a tug of war between Hungary and the Byzantine empire; Hungary annexed it 1137 before losing it to the Byzantine empire in 1167, and retaking it in 1180. After 1180,
Ban Kulin, ruler of Bosnia began to assert his independence and Hungarian control became nominal. For most of the early medieval period Herzegovina was, effectively, Serbian territory although Bosnia proper was tied politically and religiously more towards Croatia. It is generally accepted that neither neighbor had held the territory long enough to acquire their loyalty or to impose any serious claim to Bosnia. The Kotromanić
noble and later
royal dynasty would rule Bosnia from the second half of the 13th century until Ottoman conquest in 1463. It began with
Stephen II in 1322, who managed to expand the realm of the Bosnian state with the acquisition of territories that included Herzegovina, enabling the formation of a single Bosnia and Herzegovina political entity for the first time. The Kotromanić intermarried with several southeastern and central European royal houses which aided their dynastic development. Stephen II's nephew,
Tvrtko I, a descendant of the Serbian Nemanjić dynasty, succeeded him and established the
Kingdom of Bosnia in 1377, crowning himself as "The King of Serbs and Bosnia". The last sovereign,
Stephen Tomašević, ruled briefly as
Despot of Serbia in 1459 and as
King of Bosnia between 1461 and 1463, before losing both countries and his life to the
Ottomans. By the Middle Ages,
Eastern Orthodoxy had become entrenched in Herzegovina, and during the Nemanjić dynasty the
Serbian Orthodox Church's influence grew in the region. However, Orthodoxy lacked consequential progression into Bosnia until the Ottoman conquest. According to some historians, there was a general awareness in medieval Bosnia, at least amongst the rulers, of belonging to a joint state with Serbia and the same group of people. That awareness diminished over time, due to differences in political and social development, although it was kept in Herzegovina and parts of Bosnia, which were a part of the Serbian state.
Ottoman rule (
UNESCO World Heritage Site), 16th century , depicting the
Herzegovina uprising The conquest of Bosnia by the Ottomans brought significant administrative, economic, social and cultural changes to the country. The Ottomans however, allowed for the preservation of Bosnian identity and territorial integrity by merely making Bosnia an integral province of its Empire.
Mateja Nenadović met with local Serb leaders from
Sarajevo in 1803 in order to negotiate their part in the rebellion, with the ultimate goal being that the two armies meet in Sarajevo. The pivotal rebellion began in 1875 with an
uprising in Herzegovina on the part of the Christian population, led by Bosnian Serbs. Initially a revolt against overtaxation by Bosnian Muslim landowners, it spread to a wider rebellion against the Ottoman rulers, The Austro-Hungarian administration advocated the ideal of a pluralist and multi-confessional Bosnian
nation. Joint Imperial Minister of Finance and Vienna-based administrator of Bosnia
Béni Kállay thus endorsed
Bosnian nationalism in the form of
Bošnjaštvo ("Bosniakhood") with the aim to inspire in Bosnia's people "a feeling that they belong to a great and powerful nation". The Austro-Hungarians viewed
Bosnians as "speaking the
Bosnian language and divided into three religions with equal rights." On the one hand, these policies attempted to insulate Bosnia and Herzegovina from its
irredentist neighbors (
Eastern Orthodox Serbia,
Catholic Croatia, and the
Muslim Ottoman Empire) and to marginalize the already circulating ideas of Serbian and Croatian nationhood among Bosnia's Orthodox and Catholic communities, respectively. On the other hand, the Habsburg administrators precisely used the existing ideas of nationhood (especially Bosnian folklore and symbolism) in order to promote their own version of
Bošnjak patriotism that aligned with loyalty to the Habsburg state. Habsburg policies are thus best described not as anti-national, but as cultivating their own style of pro-imperial nationalisms. These policies also heightened divisions along national and religious lines. Bosnian Serbs felt oppressed by the Austro-Hungarians who favored
Catholicism, and in turn the Croat population, who were the only members of the three constituent groups with any loyalty to the empire. After the death of Kallay, the policy was abandoned. By 1905, nationalism was an integral factor of Bosnian politics, with national political parties corresponding to the three ethnic groups dominating elections. Austro-Hungarian authorities banned textbooks printed in Serbia and a number of other Serbian-language books they deemed to carry nationalistic content. A number of Bosnian Serb cultural and national organizations were formed in the early 20th century, one of which was the
Prosvjeta. The Austro-Hungarian empire would wind up annexing the territory in 1908. Early in the war, the Austro-Hungarian authorities unleashed a persecution of Bosnian Serbs, which included the internment of thousands in camps, court-martialling and death sentencing of intellectuals, massacres by the
Schutzkorps, looting of property and forced expulsions. Bosnian Serbs served in the
Austro-Hungarian Army during the World War I: on the
Italian front they generally remained loyal and fought reliably, however, when deployed to the Serbian or later
Macedonian front, large numbers deserted, often crossing the lines to join the Serbian army. Significant number of Bosnian and Herzegovinian Serbs served in Montenegrin and Serbian armies as well since they felt loyalty to the overall pan-Serbian cause.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia After World War I, Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the internationally unrecognized
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which existed between October and December 1918. In December 1918, this state united with the Kingdom of Serbia as
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Bosnian Serbs overwhelmingly welcomed unification with Serbia, seeing it as the fulfilment of their long-standing national aspiration, the gathering of all Serbs into a single state. However, part of the Bosnian Serb population were unsatisfied given the fact that there was not a formal establishment between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Bosnian Muslims saw the new arrangement as a form of colonial rule and instead argued for a decentralized unitary state with autonomy rights for constituents. Bosnian Croats meanwhile supported the federalization of Yugoslavia into six units, one of which was to be Bosnia and Herzegovina. In order to secure Bosnian Muslim political support, the Serbian-dominated government of the newly formed state accepted the principal demand of the leading Bosnian Muslim politician
Mehmed Spaho and the
Yugoslav Muslim Organization: it pledged to respect the historical and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and did not redraw the province’s pre-war borders in the 1922-1924 administrative reform. This lasted until 1929 when
King Alexander declared a
dictatorship. The Kingdom was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, divided into new territorial entities called
banovinas, largely based on natural borders. Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into four banovinas, with Serbs constituting a majority in three of them. King Alexander was assassinated in 1934, which led to the end of dictatorship. Faced with killings, corruption scandals, violence and the failure of centralized policy, the Serbian leadership of the country agreed a compromise with Croats. The compromise was based on the following broad principles: banovinas would eventually evolve later into the final proposal for the territorial partition into three parts or three banovinas (one Slovene banovina, one Croatian and one Serb, with each covering most of the traditional ethnic territory of the respective group) with most of the territory of contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina to be incorporated into proposed Serb Banovina/Banovina Serbia, reflecting the fact that Serbs formed the largest single ethnic group in Bosnia nad Herzegovina as a whole and constituted an absolute majority in the east, north-west, and much of Herzegovina. In 1939, the prime minister of Yugoslavia,
Dragiša Cvetković (ethnic Serb), and president of the
Croatian Peasant Party,
Vladko Maček, reached the
agreement according to which a
Banovina of Croatia was created which included most of Herzegovina, and parts of central and northern Bosnia. The Cvetković-Maček Agreement failed to satisfy key demands on either side: many Croats regarded the concessions as insufficient, while Serbs felt aggrieved that no equivalent Serbian banovina had been created. Bosnian Muslims, for their part, were neither consulted nor offered any territorial or administrative alternative of their own. Competing ideologies among Serbs and Croats and their influences on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to a broader extent, a lack of agreement on inter-ethnic relations in the new Yugoslav state and its governance resulted in perpetual instability. Yugoslavia however would only collapse after the Nazi Germany invasion of the country in April 1941, which dismembered the country into three different zones of occupation.
World War II Following the
Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina was incorporated into the
Independent State of Croatia, an Italian-German installed puppet state governed by the Croatian fascist
Ustaše regime under
Ante Pavelić. Serbs together with
Jews and
Roma, became victims and primary and most numerous target of a deliberate policy of genocide. According to the US Holocaust Museum, 320,000–340,000 Serbs were murdered under Ustasha regime, of which an estimated 209,000 Bosnian Serbs or 16.9% of Bosnian Serb population were killed. The experience had a profound impact in the collective memory of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. The intensity of the Ustaše-led genocide and mass violence was such that roughly one in six Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina perished, and virtually every Serb family in the region lost at least one member. Others were sent to concentration camps. The
Kruščica concentration camp, located near the town of
Vitez in central Bosnia, was established in April 1941 for Serb and Jewish women and
children. In August 1941, Ustaše forces
massacred between 650 and 850 Serb civilians (mostly women and children) from the village of
Prebilovci in Herzegovina by throwing them alive into the pit near the village of
Šurmanci and later dynamiting the site, making it one of the most brutal single atrocities against Serbs during World War II. , following the
Kozara Offensive carried out by Nazi German and Ustaša forces The genocidal policies of the Ustaše regime provoked a massive and sustained Serbian insurection. In June 1941, Serbs in eastern Herzegovina staged an armed
rebellion against the authorities of the
Independent State of Croatia, which was suppressed after two weeks. Persecution of Serbs resulted in the prevalence of resistance movements in Serb-populated areas. Another rebellion, led by the Partisans, began on July 27, 1941. In the broader Yugoslav context, multi-ethnic resistance movement, the
Yugoslav Partisans led by
Josip Broz Tito, emerged to fight the Axis occupation. Simultaneously, a predominantly Serb nationalist and royalist guerrilla force known as the
Chetniks was formed under
Draža Mihailović; although it began as an anti-Axis resistance movement, it later shifted toward increasing collaboration with the occupying powers. Serb allegiance was split between the Partisans and Chetniks, although Serbs in western Bosnia aligned themselves more with the Partisans who experienced military success in the area. In the early stages of the war, Serbs formed around 90% of Partisan units that were active on the territories of the Independent State of Croatia with most of the combat fought in Serb-populated areas, such as the
Battle of Neretva,
Battle of Sutjeska,
Drvar Operation, and
Kozara Offensive. According to postwar Yugoslav records of recipients of veterans' pensions, 64.1% of all Partisans from Bosnia and Herzegovina were ethnic Serbs. The Partisans liberated Sarajevo on 6 April 1945 and Bosnia came under full control a few weeks later.
Socialist Yugoslavia After World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina became one of the six constituent republics of the
People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Following the post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans from Serbian province of
Vojvodina, the Yugoslav communist government launched a state-sponsored colonization program, peaking between 1945 and 1948, that resettled tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs from
Bosanska Krajina and Herzegovina to Vojvodina. The 1968 constitutional amendments officially recognized Bosnian Muslims as a distinct ethnicity thus elevating them to equal status alongside Serbs and Croats. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bosnia and Herzegovina was often presented as a “Yugoslavia in miniature,” with power-sharing mechanisms among the three constituent nations and a relatively high degree of inter-ethnic coexistence.
Bosnian War Following Slovenia and Croatia's declaration of independence in June 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina was faced with the dilemma of whether to stay in the Yugoslav federation or seek independence. Independence was strongly supported by the majority of Bosniaks and Croats but firmly opposed by most Bosnian Serbs. On 15 October 1991, the Parliament Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a Memorandum on Sovereignty, prompting Bosnian Serb deputies to walk out in protest and effectively boycott the assembly thereafter. Soon afterwards Serb deputies formed the
Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina declaring that the Serb people wished to remain in Yugoslavia. In January 1992, the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the "Republic of the Serb People in Bosnia-Herzegovina" (renamed
Republika Srpska in August 1992). The
Bosnian referendum, held on 29 February-1 March 1992, produced an overwhelming 99.7% vote in favor of independence, but with a turnout of only 63.4 %, owing to a near-total boycott by Bosnian Serbs. Following Bosnia's declaration of independence, violent skirmishes eventually broke out into full-scale war by April 1992. Bosnian Serb forces, reorganized into the
Army of Republika Srpska, backed by Serbia, quickly seized roughly 70% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fighting took place on three main fronts:
Bosniak forces against Bosnian Serb forces, Bosniak forces against
Bosnian Croat forces (throughout 1993), and a fluctuating alliance between Bosniaks and Croats before and after the 1994 Washington Agreement. The war ended after
NATO bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb forces, which led to peace talks and the signing of the
Dayton Agreement in November 1995. The agreement divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into two entities, the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, while keeping the country internationally recognized as a single state. == Demographics ==