1.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in short, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city, in the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the northeast is predominantly flatland. The inland is a larger region and has a moderate continental climate, with hot summers and cold. The southern tip of the country has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region that traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age, during and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally, politically, and socially, the country has a rich history, the Ottomans brought Islam to the region, and altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country. This was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which lasted up until World War I. In the interwar period, Bosnia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after World War II, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the country proclaimed independence in 1992, which was followed by the Bosnian War, lasting until late 1995. The country is home to three ethnic groups or, officially, constituent peoples, as specified in the constitution. Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, with Serbs second and Croats third, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is identified in English as a Bosnian. The terms Herzegovinian and Bosnian are maintained as a rather than ethnic distinction. Moreover, the country was simply called Bosnia until the Austro-Hungarian occupation at the end of the 19th century, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member Presidency composed of a member of each major ethnic group. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is itself complex and consists of 10 cantons, additionally, the country has been a member of the Council of Europe since April 2002 and a founding member of the Mediterranean Union upon its establishment in July 2008. The name is believed to have derived from the hydronym of the river Bosna coursing through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root bos or bogh, meaning the running water. According to English medievalist William Miller the Slavic settlers in Bosnia adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna, the name Herzegovina originates from Bosnian magnate Stephen Vukčić Kosačas title, Herceg of Hum and the Coast. Hum, formerly Zahumlje, was a medieval principality that was conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. Bosnia is located in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia to the north and west, Serbia to the east and it has a coastline about 20 kilometres long surrounding the city of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E, the countrys name comes from the two regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have a very vaguely defined border between them
2.
Republika Srpska
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Republika Srpska is one of two constitutional and legal entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The administrative centre is Banja Luka, in Serbo-Croatian, Republika Srpska means Serb Republic. The second word is an adjective derived by adding the suffix -ska to srb-. The -ps- sequence rather than -bs- is a result of voicing assimilation, in a session on 14–15 October 1991, the Peoples Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina approved the Memorandum on Sovereignty, as had already been done by Slovenia and Croatia. The Union of Reform Forces soon ceased to exist but its members remained in the assembly as the Independent Members of Parliament Caucus, on 9 January 1992, the assembly proclaimed the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina, declaring it part of Yugoslavia. The republic was part of Yugoslavia and could enter into union with political bodies representing other peoples of Bosnia, the referendum had a 64% turnout and 92. 7% or 99% voted for independence. On 6 March the Bosnian parliament promulgated the results of the referendum, the republics independence was recognized by the European Community on 6 April 1992 and by the United States on 7 April. On the same day the Serbs assembly in session in Banja Luka declared a severance of ties with Bosnia. The name Republika Srpska was adopted on 12 August 1992, the political controversy escalated into the Bosnian War, which would last until the autumn of 1995. The boundary lines between the entities were delineated in Annex 2 of the Agreement, between 1992 and 2008, the Constitution of Republika Srpska was amended 121 times. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in changes in the country. Some two million people, about half the population, were displaced. In 1996 there were some 435,346 ethnic Serb refugees from the Federation in Republika Srpska, in 1991, 27% of the non-agricultural labor force was unemployed in Bosnia and this number increased due to the war. By 2009, the unemployment rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina was estimated at 29%, ethnic cleansing reduced the numbers of other groups. Serb police, soldiers, and irregulars attacked Bosniaks and Croats, though on the other side, Bosniaks and Croats did the same atrocities to the Serbian population in the region of Herzegovina and the villages surrounding Srebrenica. Some were killed on the spot, others were rounded up and killed elsewhere, the number of Croats was reduced by 135,386, and the number of Bosniaks by some 434,144. Some 136,000 of approximately 496,000 Bosniak refugees forced to flee the territory of what is now Republika Srpska have since returned home, in the early 2000s, discrimination against non-Serbs was alleged by NGOs and the Helsinki Commission. The International Crisis Group reported in 2002 that in parts of Republika Srpska a non-Serb returnee is ten times more likely to be the victim of violent crime than is a local Serb
3.
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
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The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two political entities that compose Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Republika Srpska. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of 10 autonomous cantons with their own governments and it is inhabited primarily by Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, which is why it is sometimes informally referred to as the Bosniak-Croat Federation. It is sometimes known by the shorter name Federation of B&H, the Federation was created by the 1994 Washington Agreement, which ended the part of the conflict whereby Bosnian Croats fought with Bosniaks. It established a constituent assembly that continued its work until October 1996, the Federation has a capital, government, president, parliament, customs and police departments, two postal systems and an airline. It had its own army, the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the capital and largest city is Sarajevo with 438,443 inhabitants and the total population of 688,354 in its metropolitan area. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav Peoples Army attacked Croatia from Bosnia and Herzegovina and their first target was Croatian village Ravno that was attacked on 2 November 1991 and completely destroyed. Yugoslavia effected an economic blockade of Bosnia and Herzegovina, thus trying to keep it as part of Yugoslavia, later, Yugoslavia claimed territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a Serb majority and the capital Sarajevo. Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was declared on 27 March 1992 with the goal to incorporate parts of Bosnia, because of superiority in armaments, support from Belgrade and an embargo on the importation of arms into Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbs achieved their goals by June 1992. The Bosniak leadership was still indecisive concerning a conflict, so the Croats were the first to participate in the war. They organized military units, Croatian Defence Forces in November 1991 and those units were partly composed of Bosniaks. The Territorial Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, later Army of the Republic of Bosnia, by November 1992 Serbs had conquered 70% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and held Sarajevo in limbo by terrorizing its population by shelling and constant sniper fire. The creation of a Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia was a matter of dispute for Bosniaks, Croats accused Bosniaks of Islamization of the country and attempts to create Bosniak domination in all areas. So they withdrew the ethnic Croat representatives from Parliament, Government, due to expulsions by Bosnian Serbs, Bosniaks moved to other areas and thus disrupted the Croats area and altered their pre-war ratio. Political disputes and minor incidents in central and northern Bosnia and in northern, the Vance-Owen plan was presented in January 1993. It was planned to create 10 cantons on the territory of the whole of Bosnia and this plan increased conflict between Croats and Bosniaks. A number of crimes against civilians were committed on both sides, hostility between Croats and Bosniaks ended with mediation by the United States and the signing of the Washington Agreement on 18 March 1994. The cooperation between Croats and Bosniaks was renewed, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Bosniak, there was also a proposal to create a confederation of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Croatia. The joint command of ARBiH, HVO and Croatian Army was established in March 1995, after the Operation Storm, the Serbian hoop around Bihać was broken and Croatian and Bosnian armies continued to liberate western Bosnia
4.
Bosna (river)
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It is the namesake of Bosnia. The Bosna flows for 271 kilometers, the river is possibly mentioned for the first time during the 1st century AD by Roman historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus under the name Bathinus flumen. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root *bhoĝ-, meaning the running water. The Bosna river also makes up the Bosna River Valley, the industrial center and home to close to a million people. The rivers biggest tributaries are the Željeznica, Miljacka, Fojnica, Lašva, Gostović, Krivaja, Usora and its source is at the spring Vrelo Bosne, at the foothills of the Mount Igman, on the outskirts of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The spring is one of Bosnia and Herzegovinas chief natural landmarks, from there, the Bosna flows northwards, through the heart of Bosnia, eventually becoming a right tributary of the Sava River in Bosanski Šamac. The Bosna flows through a number of cantons, from its starting point in the Sarajevo Canton, it flows through Zenica-Doboj Canton, Doboj Region, and Posavina Canton, in that order. On its way north the River Bosna also passes through the cities of Visoko, Zenica, Maglaj, Doboj, Modriča and Bosanski Šamac
5.
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
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The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script for the Serbian language, developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two used to write standard modern Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, the other being Latin. During the same period, Croatian linguists led by Ljudevit Gaj adapted the Latin alphabet, in use in western South Slavic areas, using the same principles. As a result of this joint effort, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets for Serbo-Croatian have a complete one-to-one congruence, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž counting as single letters. Vuks Cyrillic alphabet was adopted in Serbia in 1868, and was in exclusive use in the country up to the inter-war period. Both alphabets were co-official in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in Serbia, Cyrillic is seen as being more traditional, and has the official status. It is also a script in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro, along with Latin. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was used as a basis for the Macedonian alphabet with the work of Krste Misirkov, Cyrillic is in official use in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Serbian language in Croatia is officially recognized as a minority language, however, Cyrillic is an important symbol of Serbian identity. In Serbia, official documents are printed in Cyrillic only even though, according to a 2014 survey, Glagolitic appears to be older, predating the introduction of Christianity, only formalized by Cyril and expanded to cover non-Greek sounds. Cyrillic was created by the orders of Boris I of Bulgaria by Cyrils disciples, the earliest form of Cyrillic was the ustav, based on Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for consonants not found in Greek. There was no distinction between capital and lowercase letters, the literary Slavic language was based on the Bulgarian dialect of Thessaloniki. Part of the Serbian literary heritage of the Middle Ages are works such as Vukan Gospels, St. Savas Nomocanon, Dušans Code, Munich Serbian Psalter, the first printed book in Serbian was the Cetinje Octoechos. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić fled Serbia during the Serbian Revolution in 1813, there he met Jernej Kopitar, a linguist with interest in slavistics. Kopitar and Sava Mrkalj helped Vuk to reform the Serbian language and he finalized the alphabet in 1818 with the Serbian Dictionary. Karadžić also translated the New Testament into Serbian, which was published in 1868 and he wrote several books, Mala prostonarodna slaveno-serbska pesnarica and Pismenica serbskoga jezika in 1814, and two more in 1815 and 1818, all with the alphabet still in progress. In his letters from 1815-1818 he used, Ю, я, Ы and Ѳ, in his 1815 song book he dropped the Ѣ. The alphabet was adopted in 1868, four years after his death
6.
Bosnian War
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The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following a number of violent incidents in early 1992, the war is commonly viewed as having started on 6 April 1992, the war ended on 14 December 1995. The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia and this was rejected by the political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs, who had boycotted the referendum. The Croats also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian, Events such as the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre later became iconic of the conflict. After the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, NATO intervened in 1995 with Operation Deliberate Force targeting the positions of the Army of the Republika Srpska, which proved key in ending the war. The war was brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia, Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio and were finalised on 21 November 1995. According to a report compiled by the UN, and chaired by M, the report echoed conclusions published by a Central Intelligence Agency estimate in 1995. By early 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had convicted 45 Serbs,12 Croats and 4 Bosniaks of war crimes in connection with the war in Bosnia, the most recent estimates suggest that around 100,000 people were killed during the war. Over 2.2 million people were displaced, making it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II, in addition, an estimated 12, 000–20,000 women were raped, most of them Bosniak. There is debate over the date of the Bosnian War. Mulaj reports that Misha Glenny gives a date of 22 March, Tom Gallagher gives 2 April, while Mary Kaldor and Laura Silber, philip Hammond claimed that the most common view is that the war started on 6 April 1992. The Sijekovac killings of Serbs took place on 26 March and the Bijeljina massacre on 1–2 April. Some Bosniaks consider the first casualties of the war to be Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić, the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia as a result of the weakening of the system at the end of the Cold War. In Yugoslavia, the national communist party, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, was losing its ideological potency, meanwhile, ethnic nationalism experienced a renaissance in the 1980s, after violence broke out in Kosovo. While the goal of Serbian nationalists was the centralisation of Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia aspired to the federalisation, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former Ottoman province, has historically been a multi-ethnic state. According to the 1991 census, 44% of the population considered themselves Muslim,32. 5% Serb and 17% Croat, with 6% describing themselves as Yugoslav. In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian Constitution which allowed the government of Serbia to dominate the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina
7.
Trebinje
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Trebinje is the southernmost municipality and city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Located in East Herzegovina, it is part of the Republika Srpska entity, the Trebišnjica river flows through the heart of the city. The citys old town dates to the 18th-century Ottoman period. The city lies in the Trebišnjica river valley, at the foot of Leotar, in southeastern Herzegovina, some 30 km by road from Dubrovnik, Croatia, on the Adriatic coast. There are several mills along the river, as well as several bridges, the river is heavily exploited for hydro-electric energy. After it passes through the Popovo Polje area southwest of the city, Trebinje is known as the city of the sun and platan trees, and it is said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The city is economic and cultural center of the region of Eastern Herzegovina, Trebinje enjoys a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with short warm winters and long blazing summers. Trebinje is one of the warmest in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the average annual temperature in the city is 16.6 °C and the average January temperature is 8.3 °C, while the July temperature is 26.5 °C. In the summer, daytime temperatures can be high as 35 °C, the highest recorded temperature was 42.5 °C on 22 July 2007 and the lowest recorded temperature was −9 °C on 8. Trebinje is one of two created from the former Yugoslav municipality of Trebinje of the 1991 census, the other being Ravno in the Federation of Bosnia. De Administrando Imperio by Constantine VII mentioned Travunija, as a land of the Serbs, Serbian Prince Vlastimir married his daughter to Krajina, the son of Beloje, and that family became hereditary rulers of Travunija. The town commanded the road from Ragusa to Constantinople, which was traversed in 1096 by Raymond IV of Toulouse and it belonged to the Serbian Empire until 1355. Trebinje became a part of the expanded medieval Bosnian state under Tvrtko I in 1373, there is a medieval tower in Gornje Police whose construction is often attributed to Vuk Branković. The old Tvrdoš Monastery dates back to the 15th century, in 1482, together with the rest of Herzegovina, the town was captured by the Ottoman Empire. The Old Town-Kastel was built by the Ottomans on the location of the fortress of Ban Vir. The city walls, the Old Town square, and two mosques were built in the beginning of the 18th century by the Resulbegović family. The 16th-century Arslanagić bridge was built at the village of Arslanagić,5 kilometres north of the town, by Mehmed-Paša Sokolović. The Arslanagić Bridge is one of the most attractive Ottoman-era bridges in Bosnia and it has two large and two small semicircular arches
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