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Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina

M. Sokolović Filip Višnjić S. Milutinović Jovan Dučić V. Ćorović Gavrilo Princip D. Dalipagić Milorad Dodik
Total population
1,484,530 37.9% (1996)
Religion
Serbian Orthodox Christian, secular

The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina are one of the three constitutive nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 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.

Population

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). 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 Jekavian and Ijekavian variant, similar to that of Montenegro and Croatia. Their total population world wide is estimated to be over 2 million.

History

Medieval

Serbs settled the region of Bosnia during the first half of the 7th century. They were led by the Unknown Archont and given Bosnia as a land to settle in by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. Historical records indicate there were two small Serb inhabited cities, Kotor and Desnik, in Bosnia. Bosnia was ruled by Bans and in 753 formed a territorial union with the Principality of Rascia known as Serbia (Surbia, the region called Zagorje) ruled by Grand Princes.

According to the Royal Frankish Annals, in 822, Ljudevit Posavski, the ruler of Pannonia went from his seat in Sisak to the Serbs somewhere in western Bosnia who controlled a great part of Dalmatia ("Sorabi, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur").

The western regions were incorporated into the Croatian state and some Bosnians were later baptised into Christianity by Byzantine missionaries (later Saints) Cyril and Methodus.

The Bosnian Chiefs abandoned the War-of-the-succession-torn Kingdom of Croatia and joined the Serbian Realm of Prince Časlav of Klonimir of the House of Vlastimir up to 931. By the end of the 948 Croatian struggles for the throne, he included all the territories to the river of Vrbas to the west and Sava to the north while western and northern Bosnia remained in the Kingdom of Croatia. The Drina area became the heart of his state. The Hungarian Kingdom had pretensions to conquer Bosnia, so Časlav was forced to fend-off a Hungarian invasion in 955. Prince Časlav saved Bosnia, but was drowned by Hungarian forces in the river of Sava in northern Bosnia in the year 960.

The Bosnian Serbian rule in eastern and central Bosnia crumbled after Časlav's fall. It would take Serbian King Constantine Bodin of Doclea and war against the Byzantines in 1082-1085 to restore it. There he installed a related courtier named Stefan as Ban, whose heirs continued to rule Bosnia.

Austro-Hungarian Era

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.

World War II

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.

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).

• In the first population census conducted in the People's Republic of Bosnia in 1948, there were 1,136,116 Serbs for a total of 44.3% of BiH's population
• In 1953, there were 1,264,372 Serbs in BiH, equaling 44.4% of the total population.
• In the 1961 population census, there were 1,406,057 Serbs, accounting for 42.9% of the total population of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnian War

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 (currently on trial for war crimes at the ICTY). 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: Casulties 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.

Culture

The Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina use regional names among each other, such as the wider: Frontiersmen (Krajišniks), Semberians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians

Folk attire

Music

Herzegovinan clans

Some of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serbs, mostly living in Herzegovina are organised in tribes. The Herzegovinian clans are:

• Grahovo
• Maleševci
• Ljubibratići
• Rudine
  • Bijele Nikšićke Rudine
  • Oputne Rudine
  • Bilećke Rudine
  • Banjani
• Lukovo
• Nikšićka Župa
• Gornje Polje
• Drobnjak
  • Uskoci
  • Jezera
  • Korito
• Šaranci
• Piva
  • Planina
  • Župa
• Krivošije
• Golija
• Gacko
• Zupci

References

1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bk.html CIA Factbook Bosnia and Hercegovina - People
2. Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250
3. Kosovo and Bosnia During World War II

v t e Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Constitutive peoples	Bosniaks Croats Serbs
National minorities	Albanians Czechs Germans Hungarians Italians Jews Kosovars (part of Albanians in Bosnia) Macedonians Montenegrins Poles Roma Romanians Russians Ruthenians Slovaks Slovenians Turks Ukrainians
See also 1991 census 2013 census Demographics Demographic History

• Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina