BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

officially Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Herzegovina also spelled Hercegovina, Serbo-Croatian Bosna i Hercegovina country of the west-central Balkan Peninsula that was formerly, from 1918 to 199192, part of Yugoslavia. Herzegovina consists of the southernmost triangular sector that includes Mostar (the principal city); Bosnia, far larger, consists of the broad central and northern sectors and includes Sarajevo. For most of its history, Herzegovina has been subject to Bosnia. Bosnia and Herzegovina is bordered on the east by modern Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and is surrounded on three sidesnorth, west, and southby Croatia. A narrow corridor gives Herzegovina outlet to the sea at Neum, on the Neretva Channel of the Adriatic Sea; the corridor splits Croatia along the Dalmatian coast about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Dubrovnik. The capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is Sarajevo. Area 19,741 square miles (51,129 square km). Pop. (1991) 4,365,639; (1998 est.) 3,366,000. officially Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Herzegovina also spelled Hercegovina, Serbo-Croatian Bosna i Hercegovina, country of the western Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered on the north, west, and south by Croatia, on the east and southeast by the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro, and on the southwest by the Adriatic Sea along a narrow extension of the country. Roughly triangular in shape, it occupies an area of 19,741 square miles (51,129 square kilometres). The larger region of Bosnia occupies the northern and central parts of the republic, and Herzegovina occupies the south and southwest. The capital is Sarajevo. The land has often felt the influences of stronger regional powers that have vied for control over it, and these influences have helped to create Bosnia and Herzegovina's characteristically rich ethnic and cultural mix. Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism are all present, the three faiths corresponding to three major ethnic groups: Bosniacs (formerly known as Muslims), Serbs, and Croats. This multiethnic population, as well as the country's historical and geographic position between Serbia and Croatia, have long made Bosnia and Herzegovina vulnerable to nationalist territorial aspirations. In 1918 it was incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and after World War II it became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the disintegration of this state in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina gained independence, but it was immediately drawn into the broader Yugoslav war. Additional reading William G. Lockwood, European Moslems: Economy and Ethnicity in Western Bosnia (1975), by a social anthropologist, studies village life in the 1960s, focusing on a Muslim community and suggesting the ways in which economic activity in the regional marketplace integrates different ethnic group members. John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation (1975), a highly detailed study of religion and conversion patterns in pre-Ottoman and Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina, argues powerfully against the Bogomil interpretation. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (1984), deals with the period between the two world warssee especially pp. 359378, which consider Muslim political activity and self-perceptions. Two books cover the entire history of Bosnia from early medieval times to the 1990s: Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (1994); and Robert J. Donia and John V.A. Fine, Jr., Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition Betrayed (1994). Mark Pinson (ed.), The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1994), contains essays on the Muslim population from the early Ottoman period to the present. Valuable information on Austro-Hungarian policy is presented in Peter F. Sugar, Industrialization of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 18781918 (1963). Bosnia's international significance in the years before World War I is discussed in Bernadotte E. Schmitt, The Annexation of Bosnia, 19081909 (1937, reprinted 1970); and the background to the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand is vividly presented in Vladimir Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo (1966). On the war that began in 1992, the report by Helsinki Watch, War Crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2 vol. (199293), contains both cool analysis and a mass of carefully substantiated detail. Noel R. Malcolm Administration and social conditions Government In 1990 the League of Communists of Yugoslavia fragmented, and multiparty elections were held in each of the country's six constituent republics. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the national partiesthe Party of Democratic Action (Muslim), the Serbian Democratic Party, and the Croatian Democratic Unionformed a tacit electoral coalition. The three swept the elections for the bicameral parliament and for the seven-member multiethnic presidency, which had been established by constitutional amendment to allay fears that any one ethnic group would become politically dominant. They attempted to form a multiparty leadership, but their political and territorial ambitions (and those of their associates in Zagreb and Belgrade) were incompatible. The parliament failed to pass a single law, and war began in spring 1992. An agreement negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., in November 1995 established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state composed of two largely autonomous entities, the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The latter is a decentralized federation of Croats and Bosniacs. Each entity has its own legislature and president. The central institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina include a directly elected tripartite presidency with one Bosniac, one Serb, and one Croat member. The presidency appoints a multiethnic Council of Ministers with one Bosniac and one Serb cochairman, rotating weekly, and one Croat vice-chairman. The parliament is bicameral. Members are directly elected to the 42-seat lower house (House of Representatives), in which 28 seats are reserved for the federation and 14 for the Serb Republic. Members of the upper house (the House of Peoples, with five members from each ethnic group) are chosen by the entity parliaments. Defense The Yugoslav People's Army was designed to repel invasion, and as part of its strategy it used the geographically central republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a storehouse for armaments and as the site of most military production. Bosnian Serb forces, aided by the Yugoslav People's Army and fighting for a separate Serb state, appropriated most of this weaponry. Elsewhere, the Croatian Defense Council, aided by Zagreb, and the (mainly Bosniac) Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were formed, but cooperation between them soon broke down. The Dayton agreement provided for the state to retain two separate armies, one from the Serb Republic and the other from the federation. Cultural life Mediterranean, western European, and Turkish influences are all felt in the cultural life of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there are considerable variations between traditional and modern and between rural and urban culture as well. Family ties are strong and friendship and neighbourhood networks well-developed. Great value is placed on hospitality, spontaneity, and the gifts of storytelling and wit. Summer activities include strolling on town korza (promenades), and throughout the year popular meeting places are kafane (traditional coffeehouses) and kafici (modern caf-bars). Bosnian cuisine is a matter of pride and displays its Turkish influence in stuffed vegetables, coffee, and sweet cakes of the baklava type. Folk songs remain popular and well-known. In the 1970s Sarajevo was the centre of Yugoslav rock and pop music. Bijelo Dugme (White Button) was the best-known band from this period. Emir Kusturica's internationally distributed films depict the private face of Yugoslavia's history; his Sjeca li se Dolly Bell? (Do You Remember Dolly Bell?) won the Golden Lion award at the 1981 Venice Film Festival. The socialist state supported theatres in Sarajevo, Zenica, Banja Luka, Tuzla, and Mostar, and there were numerous small amateur theatres as well. Mountains and open spaces offer hiking, skiing, and hunting, and there are large national parks at Sutjeska and Kozara. Basketball and football (soccer) are particularly popular sports. In comparison with much of eastern Europe, the news media in Yugoslavia were relatively independent, censorship being achieved more through implicit threat than through direct intervention. Of the many newspapers, magazines, and journals circulating in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the most widely distributed were the dailies Oslobodenje (Liberation) and Vecernje Novine (Evening News). The republic had almost 50 radio stations and one television station; in addition, television broadcasts were received from Belgrade and Zagreb.