The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia


Book Description

"This book focuses on the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1870s. After an introduction to the region and the political zeitgeist of the late 1860s and early 1870s, it examines in detail the dramatic years beginning in the summer of 1875, when the outbreak of violent unrest in the eastern Herzegovinian region bordering Montenegro led to a massive refugee catastrophe. The study traces the surprising further political and social dynamics to the summer and fall of 1878, when a Habsburg army finally invaded the Bosnian Vilayet and took control of the province - but only after months of fighting against massive local resistance throughout the province. This book cannot be viewed in isolation from larger political dynamics, which are also constantly present in this study as they unfolded. However, as this book attempts to show, it is hardly possible to understand the often contradictory effects of these larger political dynamics without delving deeper into the complex local rationalities and constraints on the action of the actors involved in them. The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia will appeal to students, teachers, and researchers in late Ottoman and Bosnian history"--




The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia


Book Description

This book focuses on the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1870s. After an introduction to the region and the political zeitgeist of the late 1860s and early 1870s, it examines in detail the dramatic years beginning in the summer of 1875, when the outbreak of violent unrest in the eastern Herzegovinian region bordering Montenegro led to a massive refugee catastrophe. The study traces the surprising further political and social dynamics to the summer and fall of 1878, when a Habsburg army finally invaded the Bosnian Vilayet and took control of the province - but only after months of fighting against massive local resistance throughout the province. This book cannot be viewed in isolation from larger political dynamics, which are also constantly present in this study as they unfolded. However, as this book attempts to show, it is hardly possible to understand the often contradictory effects of these larger political dynamics without delving deeper into the complex local rationalities and constraints on the action of the actors involved in them. The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia will appeal to students, teachers, and researchers in late Ottoman and Bosnian history.




Bosnia


Book Description

Vance-Owen peace plan, the tenuous resolution of the Dayton Accords, and the efforts of the United Nations to keep the uneasy peace.




Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia


Book Description

In Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia, Ines Aščerić-Todd explores the involvement of Sufi orders in the formation of Muslim society in the first two centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia (15th - 16th centuries C.E.). Using a wide range of primary sources, Aščerić-Todd shows that Sufi traditions and the activities of dervish orders were at the heart of the religious, cultural, socio-economic and political dynamics in Bosnia in the period which witnessed the emergence of Bosnian Muslim society and the most intensive phase of conversions of the Bosnian population to Islam. In the process, she also challenges some of the established views regarding Ottoman guilds and the subject of futuwwa (Sufi code of honour).




Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States


Book Description

Notwithstanding the advantages of physical power, the struggle for survival among societies is not merely a matter of serial armed clashes but of the nation's spiritual resources that in the end always decide upon the victory. In Europe, there indeed exist independent countries, insignificant from the point of view of the entire civilization, and born by sheer coincidence, yet, this coincidence, this fancy, or diplomatic ploy that created them can just as easily bring them to an end---the nations that count in the political calculations are only the enlightened ones. Therefore, our nation should not merely grow in power, strengthen its character, and foster in people the feeling of love for homeland, but also---inasmuch as it is possible---breath the fresh breeze of humanity's general progress, feed it to the nation, absorb its creative energy. Until now, we have trusted and lived only in the weary conditions, conditions devoid of health-giving elements---now, as a result the nation's heart beats too slowly and its mind works too tediously. We ought to open our windows to Europe, to the wind of continental change and allow it to air our sultry home, since as not all health comes from the inside, not all disease comes from the outside.




Balkan Wars


Book Description

Distinguished scholar James D. Tracy shows how the Ottoman advance across Europe stalled in the western Balkans, where three great powers confronted one another in three adjoining provinces: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia. Until about 1580, Bosnia was a platform for Ottoman expansion, and Croatia steadily lost territory, while Venice focused on protecting the Dalmatian harbors vital for its trade with the Ottoman east. But as Habsburg-Austrian elites coalesced behind military reforms, they stabilized Croatia’s frontier, while Bosnia shifted its attention to trade, and Habsburg raiders crossing Dalmatia heightened tensions with Venice. The period ended with a long inconclusive war between Habsburgs and Ottomans, and a brief inconclusive war between Austria and Venice. Based on rich primary research and a masterful synthesis of key studies, this book is the first English-language history of the early modern Western Balkans. More broadly, it brings out how the Ottomans and their European rivals conducted their wars in fundamentally different ways. A sultan’s commands were not negotiable, and Ottoman generals were held to a time-tested strategy for conquest. Habsburg sovereigns had to bargain with their elites, and it took elaborate processes of consultation to rally provincial estates behind common goals. In the end, government-by-consensus was able to withstand government-by-command.




War, Women, and Power


Book Description

Rwanda and Bosnia both experienced mass violence in the early 1990s. Less than ten years later, Rwandans surprisingly elected the world's highest level of women to parliament. In Bosnia, women launched thousands of community organizations that became spaces for informal political participation. The political mobilization of women in both countries complicates the popular image of women as merely the victims and spoils of war. Through a close examination of these cases, Marie E. Berry unpacks the puzzling relationship between war and women's political mobilization. Drawing from over 260 interviews with women in both countries, she argues that war can reconfigure gendered power relations by precipitating demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. In the aftermath, however, many of the gains women made were set back. This book offers an entirely new view of women and war and includes concrete suggestions for policy makers, development organizations, and activists supporting women's rights.




Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina


Book Description

Based on substantial fieldwork and thorough knowledge of written sources, Xavier Bougarel offers an innovative analysis of the post-Ottoman and post-Communist history of Bosnian Muslims. Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina explores little-known aspects of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, unravels the paradoxes of Bosniak national identity, and retraces the transformations of Bosnian Islam from the end of the Ottoman period to today. It offers fresh perspectives on the wars and post-war periods of the Yugoslav space, the forming of national identities and the strength of imperial legacies in Eastern Europe, and Islam's presence in Europe. The question of how Islam is tied to national identity still divides Bosnian Muslims. Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina places the history of ties between Islam and politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the larger global context of Bosnian Muslims relations both with the umma (the global Muslim community) and Europe from the late 19th century to the present and is a vital contribution to research on Islam in the West.




The Ottoman Empire and the Bosnian Uprising


Book Description

Bosnia enjoyed a special status within the Ottoman Empire. Many of the empire's 'janissaries', an elite military stratum of soldiers and nobleman, hailed from this Balkan region. So when Sultan Mehmet II abolished this warrior class in 1826, and this curtailed the regions access to influence in Constantinople, Bosnia rebelled. Under the leadership of Husein Gradascevic, the 'dragon of Bosnia', the kingdom declared independence and waged war with the Ottoman Empire. For the first time, Fatma Sel Turhan illuminates a period of crucial importance to the Balkan regions. She argues convincingly that the uprising was a response to Ottoman moves towards modernization designed to save the Ottoman Empire from decline, but which eventually led to its demise. She assesses how far the uprising can be considered a nationalist movement, who the rebels were, and how the central authorities dealt with and punished the perpetrators. "The Ottoman Empire and the Bosnian Uprising" is a major fresh contribution to our understanding of the late Ottoman world and the history of the Balkans.




The Bridge on the Drina


Book Description

"A great stone bridge built three centuries ago in the heart of the Balkans ... stands witness to the countless lives played out upon it" and to the sufferings of the people of Bosnia.--Cover.