Serbs of Sarajevo

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The Serbs of Sarajevo or Sarajevo Serbs, are one of traditional ethnic communities living in Sarajevo, capital and the largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Contents

History

World War I

After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Anti-Serb rioting took place in Sarajevo on 28 and 29 June 1914, incited by Austro-Hungarian authorities. [1] [2] Two Serbs died and a total of fifty people were injured following the two-day rioting. [3] Widespread looting emptied Serb-owned shops, homes, and warehouses of all goods and cash. The destruction dealt a devastating blow to Serb business and industry in Sarajevo, where, despite being a minority, Serbs had traditionally played a prominent role in trade, crafts, and manufacturing. [3]

World War II

During World War II, Serbs living in the Independent State of Croatia, an Italian-German installed puppet state governed by the Croatian fascist Ustaše regime, were subjected to genocide. In the summer of 1941, Ustaše militia periodically interned and executed groups of Sarajevo Serbs. In August 1941, they arrested about one hundred Serbs suspected of ties to the resistance movements, mostly church officials and members of the intelligentsia, executing or deporting them to concentration camps. [4] The Ustaše killed at least 323 people in the Villa Luburić, a slaughter house and place for torturing and imprisoning Serbs, Jews, and political dissidents. [5]

Bosnian War

The first fatality of the Bosnian War is widely considered to be Nikola Gardović, an ethnic Serb from Sarajevo and the father of the groom, who was killed on 1 March 1992 when a Serb wedding procession in Sarajevo’s Baščaršija neighborhood was fired upon, with a Serbian Orthodox priest also wounded. The attack took place on the last day of a controversial referendum on Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence from Yugoslavia. [6] Gardović, an ethnic Serb, is often regarded as the first casualty of the Bosnian war. [7]

Sarajevo - Udeo Srba po naseljima 1991 L.gif
Sarajevo - Udeo Srba po naseljima 2013 L.gif
Share of Serbs in Sarajevo by settlements in 1991 (left) and 2013 (right)

During the siege of Sarajevo, Bosniak paramilitary leader Mušan Topalović and his forces abducted and killed mostly Serbs living in and around Sarajevo. [8] A Kazani pit on the outskirts of the city was used as an execution site and a mass grave for Serbs who were rounded up, beaten and killed, sometimes by having their throats slit and decapitated. [9] [10] The total number of victims killed is not known, with estimates ranging from a few dozen to some hundreds. [11] The actions of paramilitary units led many thousands of Serbs to flee the city, particularly in the summer of 1992. [12] By war's end, the number of Serbs in Sarajevo was estimated to be less than one-fifth of those who had lived in the city before the outbreak of the war. [12]

The Dayton Agreement that ended the war, finalized the administrative line between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, the two post-war territorial units of the country. The Sarajevo suburbs of Ilijaš, Vogošća, Hadžići, and Ilidža, as well as urban Grbavica neighborhood were incorporated into Federation, all being held by Bosnian Serb forces during the war. [13] It was followed by mass exodus of ethnic Serbs in February and March 1996 from those neighborhoods and suburbs mainly to areas that were assigned to Republika Srpska or abroad. [14] Their number was reported in 1996 as 62,000, [15] with sources generally giving an estimate of between 60,000 and 70,000. [13] [16]

Demographics

According to data from the 2013 census, number of ethnic Serbs in Sarajevo stood at 10,422, constituting 3.8% of city's population. Ethnic Serbs constituted almost a third of Sarajevo's population prior the Bosnian War. Following the war there was massive exodus of Serbs from the city in early 1996, with most displaced Serbs moved abroad (to Serbia or other countries) or to Istočno Sarajevo, a newly-built town on the outskirts of Sarajevo, located in Republika Srpska.

Heritage

Sarajevo is the seat of the Metropolitanate of Dabar-Bosnia of the Serbian Orthodox Church. There are three main Serbian Orthodox churches in Sarajevo: the Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, also known as the "Old Orthodox Church", dating back to the 16th century, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Theotokos, also known as the "Cathedral Church", built in the 1860s, and the Church of the Holy Transfiguration. [17]

Notable people

Sima Milutinovic Sarajlija Sima Milutinovic Sarajlija.jpg
Sima Milutinović Sarajlija
Jovan Marinovic Jovan Marinovic.jpg
Jovan Marinović
Nedeljko Cabrinovic Nedeljko Cabrinovic.jpg
Nedeljko Čabrinović
Momo Kapor Momo Kapor wiki.jpg
Momo Kapor
Zdravko Colic ZdravkoColic (cropped).JPG
Zdravko Čolić
Emir Kusturica Kusturica 2024.jpg
Emir Kusturica

See also

References

  1. ↑ Robert J. Donia (2006). Sarajevo: A Biography. p. 123. ISBN   9780472115570.
  2. ↑ Bennett, Christopher (1997). Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences. New York University Press. p. 31. ISBN   978-0-81471-288-7. In the aftermath of Franz Ferdinand's assassination, anti-Serb sentiment ran high throughout the Habsburg empire and in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it boiled over into anti-Serb pogroms. Though these pogroms were clearly incited by the Habsburg authorities..
  3. 1 2 Lyon, James (2015). Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 21–22. ISBN   978-1-47258-005-4.
  4. ↑ Balić, Emily Greble (2009). "When Croatia Needes Serbs: Nationalism and Genocide in Sarajevo, 1941-1942". Slavic Review. 68 (1): 116–138. doi: 10.2307/20453271 . JSTOR   20453271.
  5. ↑ Yeomans, Rory (2015). The Utopia of Terror: Life and Death in Wartime Croatia. Boydell & Brewer. p. 124. ISBN   9781580465458.
  6. ↑ Morrison, Kenneth (2016). Sarajevo's Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War. Springer. pp. 87–88. ISBN   9781137577184.
  7. ↑ Carmichael, Cathie (2015). A Concise History of Bosnia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 139. ISBN   978-1-10701-615-6.
  8. ↑ Hedges, Chris (12 November 1997). "Postscript to Sarajevo's Anguish: Muslim Killings of Serbs Detailed". The New York Times.
  9. ↑ Wilkinson, Tracy (28 November 1997). "New Confessions of Barbarity Surface in Sarajevo". Los Angeles Times.
  10. ↑ Evangelista, Matthew; Tannenwald, Nina (2017). Do the Geneva Conventions Matter?. Oxford University Press. p. 222. ISBN   978-0-19937-979-8.
  11. ↑ "Les victimes serbes oubliées de Sarajevo" [Forgotten Serb victims in Sarajevo]. www.la-croix.com (in French). Agence France-Presse. 8 July 2016.
  12. 1 2 Donia, Robert J. (2006). Sarajevo: A Biography. University of Michigan Press. p. 323. ISBN   978-0-47211-557-0.
  13. 1 2 Suhrke, Astri; Berdal, Mats, eds. (2013). The Peace In Between: Post-War Violence and Peacebuilding. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-13667-192-0. The single largest case of such displacement was the exodus of approximately 60,000-70,000 Serb civilians in February and March 1996 from the Grbavica neighbourhood and the suburbs of Vogosca, Ilijas, Hadzici and Ilidza, areas of Sarajevo held by the Serbs during the war but which under the Dayton Peace Accords were to be transferred to federation control... Many of these Serbs were resettled in areas formerly inhabited mainly by Bosniaks. The goal was to prevent Bosniaks from returning and in doing so, consolidate Bosnian Serb control over those areas acquired during the war.. Although Bosniak leaders did much to stoke the fears of local Serbs to leave the city in the days before the transfer, the exodus from Sarajevo was initiated and encouraged by the leadership in Republika Srpska. Many were forced to leave under the threat of death and some were killed for disobeying orders.
  14. ↑ Bollens, Scott A. (2007). Cities, Nationalism and Democratization. Routledge. p. 97. ISBN   9781134111831.
  15. ↑ McEvoy & O'Leary 2013 , p. 345:"On the other hand, Dayton's ethnic circumscription of space after the war had detrimental effects on Sarajevo, catalyzing a mass exodus in early 1996 of some sixty-two thousand Sarajevo Serbs from inside what would be the Dayton borders of Sarajevo city and its suburbs and creating today's more monoethnic postwar city (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 1996)."
  16. ↑ Human Rights Watch Staff (1996). Human Rights Watch World Report. Human Rights Watch. p. 204. ISBN   978-1-56432-207-4.
  17. ↑ Old Serbian Orthodox Church Sarajevo, Official Website Archived 2009-11-14 at the Wayback Machine
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