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| Total population | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1,484,530 37.9% (1996) |
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| Regions with significant populations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Republika Srpska 90+%
Federation 2.3% ; Drvar 99.31% Bosansko Grahovo 94,91% Glamoč 79.29% |
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Serbian Orthodox Christian, secular |
The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina are people of Serb ethnicity inhabiting the Balkan regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or, since the establishment of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state in the 1990s, the Serbs who have its citizenship. The Serbs are one of the three constitutive nations of this state, predominantly residing in its political-territorial entity named Republika Srpska. They are frequently referred to as Bosnian Serbs in English, regardless of whether they are from Bosnia or Herzegovina.
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The last 1996 UNHCR population census registered 1,484,530 Serbs or 37.9% of the total population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The modern estimate is that they form more likely about 37.1% (2000).[1] The vast majority live on the territory of the Republika Srpska, and West Bosnia and Una-Sana cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnian Serbs are the most territorially widespread nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of Bosnian Serbs are adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church, while some are atheists. The Bosnian Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina speak the Serbian language in its Ijekavian accent, similar to that of Montenegro and Croatia. Their population is estimated to be over 2 million.
The Slavs came to the Balkans during Justinian I rule (527–565), when eventually up to 100,000 Slavs raided Thessalonica. The Western Balkans was settled with Sclaveni (Sklavenoi), the east with Antes.[2] In 577 some 100,000 Slavs poured into Thrace and Illyricum, pillaging cities and settling down.[3]
According to 10th-century De Administrando Imperio, Serbs settled a part of present day Bosnia and Herzegovina during the rule of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641).[4] Their leader, the Unknown Archont, was given lands that would subsequently evolve into principalities; Pagania, Zahumlje, Travunija, Duklja and Rascia.[4] Bosnia, centered at river Bosona, was mentioned as one of the regions that were then under Serbian rule, in casu under Prince Časlav. Bosona had two inhabited cities; Kotor and Desnik.[4] Herzegovina was part of Zahumlje and Travunija;[4] present-day Canton 10, West Herzegovina, Herzegovina-Neretva and Trebinje Region.
The regions were constantly changing hands, as the Slavic nobles fought each other for the supreme rule.
Prince Višeslav, who managed to unite several provinces and tribes,[5] directly ruled the hereditary lands (Županias) of Neretva, Tara, Piva, Lim.[6][7] Višeslav ruled during Charlemagne (fl. 768-814)).[8]
According to the Royal Frankish Annals (822), Pannonian Duke Ljudevit fled his seat in Sisak to the Serbs (during the rule of Radoslav or his son Prosigoj) who controlled a great part of Dalmatia ("Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur").[9][10]
Prince Vlastimir (r. 831-851), after defeating the Bulgars in the three-year Bulgarian–Serbian Wars (839-842), continued to expand to the west, taking southeast Bosnia and northeast Herzegovina (Hum).[11][12] Vlastimir ensured further unity by marrying his daughter to Krajina Belojević, who gained the title of Prince of Trebinje.[4][12]
During the rule of Mutimir (r. 851-891), the Serbs were Christianized. Serbia became an important Byzantine ally; The fleets of Zahumlje, Travunia and Konavli (Serbian Pomorje) were sent to fight the Saracens who attacked the town of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in 869, on the immediate request of Basil I, who was asked by the Ragusians for help.[13]
Prince Petar (r. 892-917), defeated Tišemir of Bosnia, annexing the valley of Bosna.[14] He continues taking the Neretva, annexing the Narentines, where he seems to have come into conflict with Michael, a Bulgarian vassal ruling Zahumlje (with Travunia and Duklja).[15]
The golden age of Serbs in the early Middle Ages comes with Prince Časlav (r. 927-960), who managed to incude all former territories; He concluded a voluntary confederation with the chiefs of Bosnia that brought them out of Venetian-Croatia's control. With other Slavic principalities of Zahumlje, Pagania, Travunia, Duklja and Raška, Časlav established a state that encompassed the shores of the Adriatic Sea, the Sava river and the Morava valley as well as today's northern Albania. Časlav defeated the Magyars and their ruler Kisa on the banks of river Drina when protecting Bosnia, however, in the second battle against the Magyars, Časlav was hurt in battle, captured and thrown to drown together with his fellow Serbian warriors, in the Sava.[16]
The Serbian rule in westernmost Bosnia crumbled after Časlav's fall. It would take King Constantine Bodin and war against the Byzantines in 1082-1085 to restore it. There he installed Stefan of Bosnia as Ban.[17][18]
After the Ottomans occupied Bosnia in the 15th century, many Serbs from east Herzegovina migrated up north and to the Bosnian frontier, the Bosnian Krajina, in the west.
In 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina became a protectorate of Austria-Hungary, which the Serbs strongly opposed. On June 28, 1914, Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip made international headlines after assassinating Arch Duke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo. This sparked World War I leading to Austria-Hungary's defeat and the incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
During the Second World War, Bosnian Serbs were put under the rule of the fascist Ustaša regime in the Independent State of Croatia. Under Ustaša rule Serbs along with Jews and Roma people, were subjected to systematic genocide, known as the Serbian genocide, where hundreds of thousands of civilian serbs were murdered.[19]
Between 1945 and 1948, following World War II, approximately 70,000 Serbs migrated from the People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Vojvodina after the Germans had left. Serbs were the larger of the two constitutive nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina (later the second largest of three, when Bosniaks, then known as Muslims by nationality, gained constitutive status in 1968).
After the government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, which was not accepted by the federal Serb controlled government of Yugoslavia, the Serbian Autonomous Area of the Bosnian Frontier was formed in the western Bosnian Frontier region of Bosnia and Herzegovina with its capital in Banja Luka, which was not recognised by the central government. SAO Bosnian Frontier made attempts to unite with the Autonomous Region of the Serbian Frontier in Croatia. The Serb political leadership martialled its own force assisted by the Yugoslav People's Army and declared independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina in late 1992. During this period there was notable support for the idea of a Greater Serbia being made reality, both within Bosnia and in Serbia proper. This ideology advocated the joining of Serb-populated regions into a contiguous territory. BiH's Bosniak and Bosnian Croat dominated government did not recognize the new Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose president was Radovan Karadžić seated in Banja Luka. The Serb side accepted the proposed ethnic cantonization of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Carrington-Cutileiro peace plan), as did the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat sides in Lisbon in 1992, in the hope that war would not break out. The Bosniak political leadership under President Alija Izetbegović of Bosnia and Herzegovina subsequently revoked the agreement refusing to decentralize the newly created country based on ethnic lines. The Bosnian War began.
Throughout most of the war the Serbs fought against both the Bosniaks and the Bosnian Croats. During Bosniak-Croat hostilities the Serbs co-operated largely with the Croats. There were exceptions to this however, as Serb forces were also allied with the pro-Yugoslav Bosniaks of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia under Fikret Abdić. Serb forces also carried out ethnic cleansing operations against non-Serbs living within their territory, the most formidable was the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. However, many Serbs also were targets of atrocities during the war. During most of the war, the Serb Republic comprised around 70% of Bosnia and Herzegovina's soil. During the entire length of war the Army of the Serb Republic maintained the Siege of Sarajevo, allegedly in order to tie down the Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) forces and resources in what was the capital of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian state. Serb Republic maintained close ties with the Republic of the Serb Frontier and received volunteers and supplies from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the war. The Serb Republic received a large number of Serb refugees from other Yugoslav hotzones, particularly non-Serb held areas in Sarajevo, Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatia. In 1993, the Owen-Stoltenberg peace treaty was suggested that would give 52% of BiH to the Serb side. It was refused by the Bosniak side as too large of a concession.
In 1994, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia imposed sanctions after the National Assembly of the Serb Republic refused the Vance-Owen peace plan. In 1995, Operation Storm eliminated the Republic of the Serb Frontier. The Croatian Army continued the offensive into the Serb Republic under General Ante Gotovina (convicted of War Crimes by the ICTY and sentenced to 24 years). Some 250,000 Serbs fled to the Serb Republic and Serbia from Croatia, as the Serb side continued a full retreat of Serbs from the Una to the Sana river. The Croatian Army, supported by the forces of the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina came within 20 km of the de facto Bosnian Serb capital, Banja Luka. The war was halted with the Dayton Peace Agreement which recognized Republika Srpska, comprising 49% of the soil of BiH, as one of the two territorial entities of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Serb side suffered a total 30,700 victims - 16,700 civilians and 14,000 military personnel, according to the Demographic Unit at the ICTY. Although exact numbers are disputed, it is generally agreed that the Bosnian War claimed the lives of about 100,000 people - Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. See: Casualties of the Bosnian War
The demographics of Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as Republika Srpska were tremendously affected by the war. Current estimates indicate that some 400,000 Serbs no longer live in the Federation of BiH. By the same token, it is estimated that some 450,000 Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats that used to live in Republika Srpska no longer live there. Many Bosnian Serbs emigrated abroad to Canada, the United States, Australia, western Europe, Serbia and Montenegro.
The Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina use regional names among each other, such as the wider: Frontiersmen (Krajišniks), Semberians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians.
A part of the Bosnian Serbs trace their origins in some of the Serb clans.
Serbian schoolchildren in Glamoč, a municipality which is of Serb majority under the local government of Canton 10 based in Livno (which is of Croat majority), are still denied schooling in the Serbian language, instead, the school teaches in the Croatian language (2010).[20]
The municipality of Glamoč has asked the government to return hundreds of hectars of land that have been taken from ethnic Serbs and has become the land of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They sent a plea beginning in 2006, with more than 187 suits, seeking return of lands, restoration of destroyed land and objects, but the government has declined. Some 2,000 Serbs are in very low state, without any jobs, and this is a way to fix the problem, says Radovan Marković, head of the Glamoč municipality.[21]
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