YUGOSLAVIA.
Under Roman rule Bosnia formed part of Illyria (q.v.) ; only with the coming of the Slays did, it de velop an identity of its own, existing precariously between Hun gary and Croatia on the north and Byzantium and the rising Serbian power on the south and east. Bosnia's first ruler of mark was the Ban Kulin (I18o–I2o4), whose reign is depicted by the Ragusan chroniclers as one of great prosperity. In it we find the beginnings of the mining industry, and also of the strange heresy of the Bogomiles (q.v.). Both he and his second successor, Ninoslav, were infected by the new doctrine. The Papacy was eager to extend Catholicism in the Balkans, and the crusade waged by it through the medium of Hungary against Bogomilism was a counterpart of the abortive attempts to de tach the Serbian and Bulgarian dynasties from the Orthodox faith. The Tartar invasion of
temporarily checked Hungarian aggression, but in 1254 Bela IV. asserted the suzerainty of the Hungaro-Croatian kings over the Bans of Bosnia. In the years
two powerful Croat nobles, Paul and Mladen Subic, obtained from the last Arpad kings of Hungary the banships of Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia, but in 1322 these were again separated by Charles Robert. Stephen Kotromanic was invested with Bosnia, held loyally to Hungary and extended his rule to the principality of Hum or Zahumlje, the future Hercegovina, which had led a more or less independent existence since the early loth century, though sometimes subjected by Byzantium or Serbia. He thus acquired a short coastline at the mouth of the Neretva and was in close relations with Venice and Ragusa. He found it expedient to accept Catholicism, thereby securing the support of the west and of Hungary against the encroachments of Tsar Dusan. His connection with Hungary was still further strengthened in 13 53 , when his daughter Elisabeth married Louis the Great.
Kotromanic died in the same year, and was succeeded by his nephew Tvrtko, who, after a stormy minority, found his situa tion much eased by Serbia's rapid decline after the death of Tsar Dusan. Tvrtko took advantage of the dissensions among the great Serbian nobles and, in return for military aid to Prince Lazar, obtained from him a cession of territory near Sjenica, strengthened his hold over Hum and expelled the Balsic family from the little principality of Travunja (Trebinje) in
In 1376 he assumed the title "Stephen Tvrtko, in Christ God King of the Serbs and Bosnia and the Coastland." He had himself crowned at Milesevo at the grave of St. Sava, with the two crowns of Bosnia and Serbia. Henceforth he and all his suc cessors asserted their right to the Serbian throne. He was almost at once recognized by Ragusa and Venice. He married a Bul garian princess, and on Louis the Great's death in 1382 took ad vantage of his cousin Elisabeth's distress to obtain the peaceful cession of Cattaro. Elisabeth and her daughter becoming in volved in conflict with the turbulent Croat nobility, Tvrtko fished in troubled waters and aimed definitely Q.t the conquest of the coast. This design was delayed by the Turkish invasion ; for Tvrtko understood the danger and sent a strong contingent to Lazar's aid at Kosovo (1389). But after this disastrous battle Tvrtko's interest turned westwards once more, and in 1390 he secured the submission of Spalato, Trau and other Dalmatian cities, and assumed the title of "King of Dalmatia and Croatia." In 1391, however, he died before he could consolidate his power, and his brief attempt to unite the Southern Slays failed.
His brother, Stephen Dabisa, had to surrender Croatia and Dalmatia to Sigismund of Hungary, and dying in 1395 left the throne to a minor, whose mother vainly defended him against the great Bosnian magnates. The first Turkish inroad into Bosnia (1398) helped to rally the country round Stephen Ostoja (1398-1404 and 1408-18), who is believed to have been an illegitimate son of Tvrtko. Neither he nor his son Ostojic (1418-21) were capable of arresting the slow decline of Bosnia, which was a prey to warring factions among the nobles and weakened by the old religious struggle. In 1421 Tvrtko II. asserted his right to his father's throne; but he, too, was unequal to the situation and became involved in profitless conflicts with. his own Voivodes (q.v.)—such as Rado sav Pavlovic, wile made war on his own account upon the Repub lic of Ragusa (1432)—and with his neighbours Stephen Lazarevic and George B;-ankovie of Serbia. In
while at war with the latter, he was attacked by his own rebellious vassal, Sandalj Hranic, and forced to fly to Hungary, where he remained three years in exile. Bosnia thus offered an easy prey to the Turks, who imposed in 1436 an annual tribute of 2 5,000 ducats. Meanwhile Stephen Vukcic, the nephew of Hranic, made himself master of the south and ruled as "Great Voivode" of the districts, which thus acquired the name of Hercegovina (Herzegovina) or the Duchy." Tvrtko in his need looked to Venice and Hungary, but did not survive King Vladislav's great campaign against the Turks in 1444. Leaving no son, he was succeeded by Stephen Thomas, an illegitimate son of Ostojic, who threw himself into the arms of John Hunyady (q.v.), then the soul of Christen dom's defence against the Turks. In the belief that Bosnia's hope of rescue lay in the west, Stephen Thomas turned away from the Bogomiles, who had grown stronger than ever since the beginning of the century, and accepted Catholicism; but he made the fatal blunder of persecuting his former co-religionists (145o), and the proselytism of the Legate and the Franciscans increased the internal disintegration. Many Bogomiles fled abroad ; some even appealed to the Turks for help. Vukcic, whose daughter Cather ine had married Stephen Thomas, was involved in war with Ragusa just when all Christian forces should have been united against the Turkish danger
; Hunyady's death left Bos nia almost defenceless, and the accession of Mohammed II. had increased the danger. After the death of George Brankovic (1456), Stephen Thomas seized a large section of Serbian terri tory, and in 1458 his son Stephen succeeded as despot of Serbia, with the active approval of King Matthias and the Hungarian parliament. But in 1459 the Turks overran Serbia; rightly or wrongly, the king of Bosnia was blamed by Hungary and the pope as responsible for the disaster. Stephen Thomas died in 1 461 and his son Tomasevic, relying on help from the west, re fused tribute to the Sultan. Thereupon Mohammed invaded Bosnia in person (1463), captured and executed King Tomasevic on a hill near Jajce, and reduced the country to a Turkish prov ince. The kingdom was at an end, but Matthias in the same year recovered the north-west districts, including Jajce and Banjaluka, and held it as a banat under the Hungarian Crown. Hercegovina still resisted under Stephen Vukcic, and after his death in 1466 under his three sons; but in 1483 it also was completely overrun by the Turks. Finally the banat of Jajce fell into Turkish hands in 1528, as a result of the collapse of Hungarian power at Mohacs two years earlier.
Under Turkish rule Bosnia and Hercegovina formed more than ever a world of their own, isolated not merely from Europe but even from Constantinople itself. The religious discords which had rent them in mediaeval times were perpetuated in a new form ; for the great nobles— partly to save their lands and power, partly because as Bogomiles they preferred Islam to militant Catholicism—apostatized as a class. Thus a large section of the native population became Muslim, few true Turks settling in the two provinces. A gov ernor imposed by the Porte resided at Banjaluka or Travnik, and later at Sarajevo, but interfered very little with local affairs so long as the taxes were paid. The real power lay in the hands of 48 hereditary kapetans, exercising feudal jurisdiction over their tenants and liable to provide military service for the sul tan. Thus there grew up the institution of the ci f lik—a whole village holding its lands from one of the big lords or lesser land owning begs, on condition of paying him one-third of its total product. Though called "Turks" for ecclesiastical reasons, the Muslims of Bosnia continued to speak the purest Serb and never adopted polygamy. The new era did not make for prosperity; the famous mediaeval mining industry decayed and finally dis appeared, trade and commerce, though upheld for a time by the Ragusans, languished after the great earthquake of 1667, which dealt so deadly a blow to their republic ; the manufacture of weapons and wrought metals alone survived. Many Bosnians, how ever, rose to high distinction in the Turkish service—among them
such famous grand viziers as Mohammed Sokoli (or Sokolovic).
During the i6th and 17th centuries Bosnia was an important Turkish outpost in the constant warfare with the Habsburgs and with Venice. When Hungary was at last reclaimed from the Turkish yoke, the imperialists in their turn penetrated into Bos nia, and in 1697 Prince Eugene captured Sarajevo. By the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) the Save, forming the northern boundary of Bosnia, became also the northernmost limit of the Turkish empire; and by that of Poiarevac (Passarowitz, 1718) Novi and part of Bosnia east of the Una were ceded to Austria. These were restored to Turkey in 1739, and the frontiers remained un changed till 1878.
In the 19th century the great Bosnian families, intensely con servative and fanatical, resented all interference from Constanti nople and denounced Mahmud II. as the "Giaour (or Infidel) Sultan." A first revolt broke out in 1821, while the Porte was occupied with the Greeks, and a second during the Russo-Turk ish War of 1828, under the leadership of Mustafa Skodra Pasha, a reputed descendant of the Crnojevic dynasty, who made his headquarters at Scutari. Even more formidable was the rising of 1831; Hussein Kapetan, known as "the Dragon of Bosnia," preached a holy war against the sultan and denounced reform. He and Mustafa together overran most of Macedonia, northern Albania and even parts of Bulgaria. After a severe struggle the Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha quelled the rebellion, helped largely by internal dissensions. Eventually the Dragon was driven across the frontier into Croatia, and ended his days in banishment at Trebizond. In 1837 the abolition of the Kapetanates led to fresh trouble, and the Hattisheriff of reforms with which Abdul Medjid inaugurated his reign was keenly resented. The Her cegovinian chief, Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic, who had sided with the Porte during the earlier rising, made himself virtually inde pendent and had his own quarrels and reconciliations with Montenegro, regardless of the views of the Porte, whose author ity was only effectually restored in 185o by Omer Pasha, the famous renegade Croat, who had begun life in an Austrian fron tier regiment, fled the country owing to embezzlement, embraced Islam and made a rapid career at Constantinople. By ruthless measures he destroyed the old feudal regime in Bosnia, introduced a new, centralized administration and a system of taxation which opened the door to every kind of licence and exaction. In 1862 the Christians in their turn revolted under Luka Vukalovic. They were eventually reduced, but unrest was chronic and discontent universal; Christians and Muslims, despite acute differences, united in their dislike of Ottoman bureaucracy and corruption.
In 1875 local troubles near Nevesinje, in Hercegovina, spread rapidly into in surrection throughout the two provinces. Only a few weeks earlier Francis Joseph had paid his first visit to Dalmatia, and at Ragusa, so near to the disturbed area, had been ostentatiously greeted by Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, who urged joint Austro-Russian intervention at the Porte. In August the consuls of the three imperial Powers tried to mediate between the Turk ish authorities and the insurgents, but without success; and the Sultan's decree of Oct. 2, offering reduction of taxes, religious liberty and a provincial assembly, was also rejected. Count An drassy's note (Dec. 3o, 1875), proposing a limited autonomy, did not go far enough, and the so-called Berlin memorandum of May 1876 failed owing to the abstention of the British Govern ment. The situation was complicated by the Bulgarian rising and massacres and by a revolution in Constantinople itself. Ex citement had been steadily growing in Serbia and Montenegro, union with which was the insurgents' avowed aim. Princes Milan and Nicholas hesitated to move, in view of the disapproval of the Powers, but their hands were forced, not merely by the mutual rivalry of Obrenovic and Petrovic—each aspiring to the throne of an enlarged and united southern Slav State—but also by the presence of Prince Peter Karageorgevic (head of the third native Serb dynasty) as a leader of the insurgent bands. The liberation of Bosnia had long been an aspiration of Serbian public opinion, and its partition between Serbia and Austria Hungary had been seriously considered by Beust and Andrassy, though, since the Russophil current in Serbia again became pre dominant in 1871, Austria-Hungary developed the design of ex clusive annexation by herself. On June 3o Serbia and Monte negro declared war upon Turkey, while the insurgents proclaimed union with them, and numerous Russian volunteers joined the Serbian army. Turkey's speedy victory upset the calculations on which Austria-Hungary and Russia had reached a secret agree ment at Reichstadt (July 6). Serbia's renewed defeat in Oc tober, of ter the expiry of the armistice, ended her real hopes of winning Bosnia. Indeed, as early as September the tsar, in an autographed letter to Francis Joseph, had made clear that he also disapproved of "a large Serb State," and actually proposed Austria-Hungary's occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina. By the se cret convention of Budapest (Jan.–Mar. 1877) Russia recognized Austria-Hungary's right to occupy, as a condition of her neu trality in the impending war with Turkey. Serbia re-entered the war three days after Plevna's surrender; but could no longer influence events. At the Congress of Berlin (see BERLIN, CON GRESS OF) her aspirations and those of the insurgents were en tirely disregarded, and Bosnia-Hercegovina assigned to Austria Hungary by a mandate of all Europe, on the proposal of Lord Salisbury. Francis Joseph and Andrassy could have secured approval for full annexation if they had wished, but mainly for reasons of internal politics preferred the more provisional formula of occupation. The insurgents attempted armed resistance, and Austria-Hungary had to mobilize an army of 200,000 men. Gen. Filipovic occupied Sarajevo on Aug. 19, 1878, and with the fall of Bihac a month later the rising was virtually at an end (see also EASTERN QUESTION) .
two provinces were at first administered by a special commission inside the foreign office at Vienna, under Joseph Szlavy, but when in 1880 he be came joint Austro-Hungarian finance minister they were placed permanently under the control of that ministry, the local admin istration being concentrated in Sarajevo under a governor, a so called Ziviladlatus, and several heads of departments. In 1882 Benjamin Kallay became finance minister and for 21 years di rected every department of Bosnian policy. Six years' residence as Austro-Hungarian diplomatic agent in Belgrade had given him a unique knowledge of Southern Slav problems, but his whole influence was exercised in an anti-national sense. He tried to evolve a "Bosnian" consciousness, to check Serb national feeling, to create dissensions between Serb and Croat and between Or thodox, Muslim and Catholic, and to prevent so far as possible all intercourse of the two provinces with Serbia and even with Croatia. Meanwhile he set himself to establish public order and material prosperity, and achieved really remarkable results ; he built a network of roads and railways, and many public institu tions, founded an incorruptible bureaucracy and a system of law, and fostered trade and industry. But though he also opened a number of admirable secondary and technical schools, primary education wa§ sadly neglected, and no serious attempt was made to solve the land question, which continued to envenom the whole situation. Further defects in Kallay's regime were the reduction of the Orthodox hierarchy to a state of subservience, and the cre ation of a widely ramified police system. His whole outlook towards the Southern Slav problem had been that of a Magyar, in terested in disunion between Serb and Croat for reasons of Hungarian internal policy; and on his death (1903) Bosnian affairs were again entrusted to a Magyar, Baron Stephen Burial'. During the next decade there was a rapid growth in national feeling in the provinces, stimulated by events in Serbia after the fall of the Obrenovic regime and in Croatia and Dalmatia (q.v.) since the departure of Count Khuen. Burian, faced by the clamour of the Bosnian Serbs for self-government, made cer tain concessions. In 1905 the Orthodox Church received a charter of autonomy and its Serbian nationality was recognized for the first time. In 1907 an assembly of 71 Serb delegates from every district was allowed to put forward a programme of reform, in which the land question figured prominently, with, most sig nificant of all, the demand for an autonomous position as part of the Turkish empire. Meanwhile the Croats of Bosnia were organizing politically, and the Catholic archbishop of Sarajevo, Mgr. Stadler, was extremely active, with the backing of the Viennese Clericals, and aroused heartburnings among the Muslims by his proselytizing tendencies.
Faced by the growing ferment inside the provinces, Austria-Hungary was already con vinced of the need for some change in status, when the Turkish Revolution of 1908 brought matters to a head. The Young Turks contended that Bosnia-Hercegovina must be represented in the new parliament at Constantinople, and the Bosnian nationalists saw in this demand a convenient legal basis for their agitation. Influenced also by the strategic considerations pressed upon him by the general staff, Baron Aehrenthal advised Francis Joseph to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina to the dual monarchy and thus solve once and for all their constitutional status. This was done by an imperial rescript of Oct. 7, 1908, and the opposition of the Triple Entente Powers to this attempt to amend the public law of Europe by a one-sided and arbitrary act, instead of by formal revision at a fresh congress, made the Bosnian question the main issue in a prolonged international crisis. In Serbia in particular the annexation was keenly resented, as giving perma nence to a situation which the Serbs had persisted in regarding as provisional and which shut the door upon national unity. Serbia's main backing came from Russia, who was secretly em barrassed by the existence of a whole series of engagements to support Austria-Hungary's claim to Bosnia (Reichstadt, 1876; Budapest, 1877; at the Congress of Berlin, 1878; and under the Dreikaiserbund of June 11, 1881). Some obscurity still sur rounds the interview between Aehrenthal and Izvolsky at Buch lau in Sept. 1908, at which it is alleged that Russia's consent to the annexation was given in return for Austro-Hungarian support regarding the straits. On March 25, 1909, Russia yielded to Ger man pressure, and in April the annexation was recognized by all the Powers, without a fresh congress being convoked. From this time dates the acute friction between Austria-Hungary and Serbia which culminated in the explosion of 1914. (See BIS
