Bosanci

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Bosanci is also a commune in Suceava County, Romania, see: Bosanci, Suceava.

Portrait of Ivo Andrić, a famous writer from Bosnia

Bosanci (:in Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian language, IPA: [bɔ'sant͡si], sing. Bosanac: [bɔ'sanat͡s]) are a unitary Bosnian nation, enforced by the Austro-Hungarian governor Benjamin Kallay during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1918.

Bosanci are people who live in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosanac can be anyone who holds a citizenship in the state, including members of the three largest ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats and as well minorities such as Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, and others.

In addition, there is a sizable population in Bosnia and Herzegovina who believe that Bosanci are a nation holding a distinct collective cultural identity. By this usage, a Bosanac would be an individual who belonged to this culture. They assert that this collective identity is capable of diminishing or overcoming existing political and ethnic divisions [1]. However, this claim is denied by the many Croats and Serbs, and even by some Bosniaks.

The name 'Bosanci' is most often translated in English media as, Bosnians. This is however somewhat imprecise as 'Bosnians' can have several meanings, therefore the name will be used in its untranslated version throughout the article, to simplify the understanding.

For disambiguation, see Bosnians (disambiguation).

1 History
2 Bosanci in respect to religion
3 Bosanci today
4 Note on use of term 'Bosnian & Herzegovinian'
5 Maps and demographic illustrations
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] History

About one hundred years ago, the term "Bosniak" had a similar usage to the one "Bosanci" has today. Many of the people who lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina once called and considered themselves "Bosniaks"; including, not only Muslims as today, but also Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews. This meaning has since been relatively replaced.

During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1918, the administration of Benjamin Kallay, the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, enforced the idea of a unitary Bosnian nation (Bosanci) that would incorporate the Bosnian Catholics and Bosnian Orthodoxs as well as Muslim Bosnians. Kallay symbolized this nation with the introduction of a new Bosnian flag, standard Bosnian language and coat of arms. In this way the Bosnian distinctiveness was underlined and distanced from Serbian and Croatian national-politic interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[1]

The idea was fiercely opposed by Croats and Serbs, but also by a number of Bosniaks as it came at a time when neighboring Serbia and Croatia were reinforcing their national and ethnic identity in the process of building their own nation states. Unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian and Serbian understanding of nationhood in late 19th century was more deeply rooted in religion as in bringing people of same religion together into a single nation. This can explain their interests towards assimilating Catholic and Christian Orthodox population of Bosnia and Herzegovina into unified Croatian and Serbian national identity. This policy further clouded the Bosnian national issue and the official use of the name.

At the very beginning, 'Bosniaks' (In Bosnian: Bošnjaci, IPA: [bɔ'ʃɲaːt͡si]) were translated as Bosnier in written German language and as Bosnians, in English language. However, in connection to the new unitary-citizenry nation Bosanci, the "Bosnier/Bosnians" translation was largly rearranged to predominantly apply to 'Bosanci'. And the original "Bošnjaci", slowly began to be translated by new terms in English and German language; Bosniaks/Bosniaken. All of this was made to "neutralize" the ethnicity in "Bosnians", so the population groups of Bosnia would be more easily incorporated into a unitary Bosnian nation.

In the period when Bosnia and Herzegovina was a part of Yugoslavia, neither Bosniaks or "Bosanci" were recognized as a nation, with the motivation that it would "discriminate Croats and Serbs in Bosnia". Instead Bosanci were listed under the category "regional affiliation", and Bosniaks not even mentioned, by the Yugoslavian statistics. This also applied to the last census in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991. Due to the much non-democratic nature of former Yugoslavia, the census format was often the subject of political manipulation. Bosniaks and Bosanci (both almost exclusively Bosnian Muslims, at the time) were not allowed to declare themselves as Bosnians in former Yugoslavia even when they requested that option in the constitutional amendments of 1947 and 1973. Instead they had to declare themselves either as Serbs or Croats until 1963, "undecideds" or "Muslim in a national sense" (with lower case m) until 1973, and Muslims (with capital M) until 1991.

In 1992 a referendum was held for the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina which was to be founded on a principle of a single Bosnian nation (citizenry of Bosnia and Herzegovina) consisting of several constituent ethnic groups. The referendum was followed by a bloody ethnic war.

When the name Bosniaks was re-introduced year 1990, in Velika Kladusa, to replace the term "Muslim", it was too late for that name to be realistically accepted by non-Muslim Bosnians, as they were already naturalized into Serb and Croat nations and further radicalized by the ethnic animosities among all three ethnic groups.

[edit] Bosanci in respect to religion

Bosanci are as multi-religious, as they are a multi-ethnic society, but to say that all of the component religions and ethnicities are homogeneous and independent from each other, would be wrong.

According to Tone Bringa, an author and anthropologist, in respect to Bosnia and Bosanci, she states that "Neither Bosniak, Croat, nor Serb identities can be fully understood with reference only to Islam or Christianity, instead they have to be considered in a specific Bosnian context that has resulted in a shared history and locality among Bosanci of Islamic as well as Christian backgrounds." According to Bringa, in Bosnia there is a singular, “trans-ethnic culture” that encompassed each ethnicity and makes different faiths, including Christianity and Islam, “synergistically interdependent”. ^[2]

A common anthropological trait present among many Bosanci that resulted from influence of religion on history in Bosnia and Herzegovina and which was continually evident among some Bosanci even today is also a preference for mythological method of knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer was very much dependent on oral tradition given that early Bosnian Church was not well organised, and even where it was, there were not many written testaments left to the posterity to learn from. As a result collective memory of many historical events among Bosanci in absence of factual information have become the “facts” of collective memory which are not always in line with historical facts.

Still large numbers of Bosanci are secular which is a trend that has more profoundly found root in the last 60 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina as they were a part of the Communist system that rejected, but tolerated, religion.

[edit] Bosanci today

Recently, the denial of unitary Bosnian nationhood, as a unifying trait of those who stem from Bosnia and Herzegovina, has generally been used by some political factions to drive the constituent ethnicities of Bosnia and Herzegovina further apart.

Because of this pressure and because of its complex history, the overall Bosnian national identity today remains a complex issue among its adherents. Variably members of the unitary Bosnian nation, of various ethnic and religious backgrounds who live or stem from Bosnia and Herzegovina, define themselves as Bosanci primarily as they feel they belong to the same geographical region, which characterizes them with particular cultural and historical traits. However, many choose to declare themselves as Bosanci as a method for overcoming ethnic animosities aroused by the recent war. Due to more recent war and massive relocations of Bosanci they have experienced a significant internationalization of their identity with many considering themselves as having dual identity (one as Bosanci and another of the country where they currently live). As a result in diaspora, Bosanci have shown tendencies towards more or less successful organizing into viable Bosnian communities.

Given heavy involvement of the European community in political integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian nationalization issue is viewed by some as a contemporary European experiment, strikingly similar to modern Europeanism movement.

[edit] Note on use of term 'Bosnian & Herzegovinian'

In terms of regional belonging and the use of the regional names, a Bosanac is not a Herzegovinac (person from Herzegovina, Herzegovinian). However in international media use since the word Bosnian is commonly used as an abbreviation to a correct name of the country Bosnia and Herzegovina similar name convention is applied on both Bosanci and Herzegovci. The abbreviation of the names is used because Herzegovina has historically been a region of the Bosnian kingdom and due to the tongue-twisting nature of the appellation "Bosnian-Herzegovinian" in English. Hence in common discussion Herzegovci often declare themselves also as Bosanci although it may not be their most desired choice. For this reasons many ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in particular Bosnian Croats from Herzegovina and Central Bosnia prefer to state their ethnic identity, as "Croats", over 'Bosanci'. This was also contributed by the fact that today's connotations of the word "Bosanci" and its meaning, is somewhat different to what it previously had meant prior to the re-introduction of the name Bosniaks, and due to the national efforts of some Bosniaks to monopolize the word Bosanci to exclusively imply Bosniaks.

In Bosnia (and Herzegovina), the official way of referring to the country and adjective(s) consists of both parts of the name, i.e. "Bosnian-Herzegovinian music".