Young Bosnia

The region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, populated by Serbs, Croats and Muslims, was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878. After the anti-Ottoman Herzegovina uprising, the region was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878. There was a small phase of modernization, however the region remained mostly underdeveloped, highly illiterate and agrarian. The new occupying authorities suppressed political opposition, though underground political opposition existed. In 1882, an uprising broke out against the Austro-Hungarian occupation authorities, but was suppressed by force. There were a number of youth-oriented organizations before the rise of the movement Young Bosnia, such as United Serb Youth in the 1860s and 1870s. Defining membership and the vague idea of "youth" (omladina) was debated at length among South Slavic intellectuals. One major obstacle to defining and organizing the youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the educational system, which underwent major changes in the Habsburg period. By 1900, a small but growing number of young men from Bosnia were studying in Prague, Zagreb, Vienna, Graz, Istanbul, and Belgrade. This put them in touch with Serbian and Croatian nationalist circles. The rise to power of the popular Karađorđević dynasty in Serbia in the 1900s after the May Overthrow of the Obrenović dynasty by the Serbian Army in 1903, stimulated support by both Serbs and South Slavs for their unification into a state led by Serbia. == Formation, membership and ideology ==

No unified organization was named Young Bosnia, while contemporaries rarely used the term. It had no statute and a hierarchy. Young Bosnia had a decentralized structure consisting of small circles, connected only by designated intermediaries. Young Bosnia has been also defined as "loosely connected secret student organisations based in Bosnia and Herzegovina" and "aggregation of groups and cells of revolutionary youth". and of tyrannicide as its method of political struggle. Petar Kočić led the most ardent anti-Austrian Serb nationalists and had ties to Young Bosnia. Per political scientist Radoslav Gaćinović, the term "Young Bosnia" was first used by Petar Kočić in the journal "Homeland" () in 1907. In June 1910, Bogdan Žerajić killed himself after failing to assassinate General Marijan Varešanin, the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The organization was a youth society led by Ivo Andrić that promoted unity and friendship between Serb and Croat youth and opposed the Austro-Hungarian occupation, but was decried by nationalists and harassed by the government. The members were predominantly students, primarily Bosnian Serbs but also Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats. There were two main ideologies promoted amongst Young Bosnian members, Yugoslavism and Pan-Serbism. Gaćinović did not favor Yugoslavism and he perceived it as "mixing the Croatian water with Serbian wine". His program articles mostly contained only the Serbian national idea. Per historian Ivo Banac: "His utopian vision of Great Yugoslavia was a powerful indication of how the idea of Yugoslavism could be grafted unto Serbian expansionism." The goal of Young Bosnia was to promote the Yugoslav national idea among the locals, Young Bosnia was inspired by a variety of ideas, movements, theorists, and events; Russian revolutionary socialism, and anti-imperialism. Young Bosnians read works by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Mikhail Bakunin, Alexander Herzen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Maxim Gorky. They were also inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Henrik Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, and Walt Whitman. The extent and significance of the influence from neighboring Kingdom of Serbia has been debated by historians, and it seems that the interactions between Young Bosnia and Black Hand agents (disguised as Narodna Odbrana representatives) were largely initiated by the former, rather than the latter. American historian Wayne S. Vucinich credited Young Bosnians with converting Black Hand members from Greater Serbia to Yugoslavism. Young Bosnian activities were supported by the pan-Serbian secret society Narodna Odbrana. == Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ==

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia. It received assistance from the Black Hand, a secret organization founded by members of the Serbian Army. Žerajić's proclamation "He who wants to live, let him die. He who wants to die, let him live", was quoted by Gavrilo Princip in one of the songs he wrote (). == Legacy ==

in Sarajevo The first review article about Young Bosnians was published in August 1917 in the fourth issue of Zabavnik by poet and doctoral student of law in Paris, Božidar Purić, titled "Young Bosnia", where he wrote that "they had no doctrine, or established programme or statute. They had them in themselves. They were not created or unified by an à priori idea, but by their lively and atavistic feeling for freedom, for self abnegation and their impulse for greatness." After World War I, Gavrilo Princip's brother established a committee in Hadžići in 1919 to transfer Princip's remains to Bosnia. In the beginning of 1920, a new committee called "The Committee for the transfer of the bones of the Vidovdan heroes" was created in Sarajevo to transfer the remains of the participants of the assassination to Sarajevo. The remains of Princip and his associates were exhumed. In 1920, their remains were buried in Sarajevo. They were regarded as heroes in Czechoslovak media. A former member of the movement, Borivoje Jevtić, defended the act of the participants of the assassination on the cover page of the newspaper Politika on the 15th anniversary of the assassination in 1929. was consecrated at the Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Sarajevo, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in the absence of Yugoslav officials, except for a military commander. Dedijer described Young Bosnians in his book as "primitive rebels". It displayed a red Cyrillic inscription: "From this place on June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip's shot gave voice to the national protest against tyranny and our nations' centuries‑long aspiration for freedom." Footprints were also added on the spot from which Princip had fired the shots, which were popular among tourists and locals. During the Bosnian War, the museum was renamed to Museum of Sarajevo 1878–1918 by the Sarajevo Canton Assembly. == References ==