Bosniaks are a recognized ethnic minority in Serbia.[3] According to data from the 2022 census, the population of ethnic Bosniaks in Serbia is 153,801, constituting 2.3% of the total population, thus being the third-largest ethnic group in the country, behind Serbs and Hungarians (the largest ethnic minority in Serbia). The vast majority of Bosniaks live in the southwestern part of the country, bordering Montenegro and Kosovo, in the region historically known as Sandžak, and are therefore colloquially referred to as Sandžaklije. Before the 1990s, the majority of the Bosniaks in Serbia self-identified as ethnic Muslims.
The Muslims in Sandžak organized themselves together with the Albanians into the Džemijet party, that was acting in the area of present-day Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Sandžak. The main goal of the Džemijet was the protection of the interests of Muslims and Albanians. District and municipal branches of Džemijet in Sandžak were founded in 1922 at the highly-attended meeting in Novi Pazar. Party advocated for Muslim unity behind Džemijet instead of division by various pan-national political parties, such was the case at the 1920 Constitutional Assembly election, when the Muslims in Sandžak overwhelimgly voted for the People's Radical Party, due to a promise made to several influential Muslims that they would be compensated for losing their lands during the agrarian reform.[5]
The largest concentration of ethnic Bosniaks in Serbia are to be found in Sandžak. They form majority of population in the city of Novi Pazar (79.8% of population), which is a cultural center of Bosniaks in Serbia, as well as in two municipalities: Tutin (92%) and Sjenica (73%). Bosniaks constitute significant part of population in three other municipalities in Sandžak: Prijepolje (39.8% of population), Priboj (17.6%), and Nova Varoš (5%).[6] Ethnographic studies estimate that significant part of population of Sandžak (Pešter area, in particular; specifically Boroštica, Doliće, and Ugao villages) who identify as Bosniak do so on the account of religious identity as Muslims, but are of Albanian ethnic descent. They have adopted a Bosniak identity in censuses, due to intermarriage, during the period of the socialist Yugoslavia, or due to sociopolitical discrimination against Albanians following the breakup of Yugoslavia.[7]
The remaining part of ethnic Bosniak population is scattered throughout the country, mainly to Belgrade, and are consisted of Bosniaks from Bosnia and Herzegovina (and their descendants) that migrated to Serbia during the second half of 20th century as economic inter-Yugoslav migrants.
Politics
The Bosniak National Council is a representation body of the Bosniak ethnic minority in Serbia, established for the protection of the rights and the minority self-government of Bosniaks in Serbia.
↑ Andrea Pieroni, Maria Elena Giusti, & Cassandra L. Quave (2011). "Cross-cultural ethnobiology in the Western Balkans: medical ethnobotany and ethnozoology among Albanians and Serbs in the Pešter Plateau, Sandžak, southwestern Serbia." Human Ecology. 39.(3): 335. "The current population of the Albanian villages is partly “Bosniakised”, since in the last two generations a number of Albanian males began to intermarry with (Muslim) Bosniak women of Pešter. This is one of the reasons why locals in Ugao were declared to be “Bosniaks” in the last census of 2002, or, in Boroštica, to be simply “Muslims”, and in both cases abandoning the previous ethnic label of “Albanians”, which these villages used in the census conducted during “Yugoslavian” times. A number of our informants confirmed that the self-attribution “Albanian” was purposely abandoned in order to avoid problems following the Yugoslav Wars and associated violent incursions of Serbian paramilitary forces in the area. The oldest generation of the villagers however are still fluent in a dialect of Ghegh Albanian, which appears to have been neglected by European linguists thus far. Additionally, the presence of an Albanian minority in this area has never been brought to the attention of international stakeholders by either the former Yugoslav or the current Serbian authorities."
Crnovršanin, Harun; Sadiković, Nuro (2001). Sandžak - porobljena zemlja: Bosna, Sandžak i Kosovo kroz historiju (1. izded.). Wuppertal: Bosanska riječ--Bosnisches Wort. ISBN9783934149793.
Kamberović, Husnija (2009). "Projugoslavenska struja među muslimanskim političarima 1918. godine". Historijska Traganja (in Serbo-Croatian) (3). Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju. ISSN1840-3875.
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