BOSNIA (Serbian BosNA) and HERZE GOVINA, the extreme northwestern prov inces, or pokraine of the Balkan Peninsula, bounded north by Croatia and the river Sava, west by Dalmatia and the Adriatic, east by Serbia, from which they are separated by the river Drina, and south by Montenegro, are now constituent parts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The area of the provinces is 51,199 square kilometers. The principal rivers are the Vrbas, the Una and the Dena, all tribu taries of the Sava. Through Herzegovina flows the river Neretva. With the exception of the Sava and the lower course of the Drina, none of these rivers is navigable. The northern part of Bosnia is level and very fertile but the south, and especially Herzegovina, is very mountain ous and picturesque. The provinces are divided into six departments, which are subdivided into 50 ukotar0 (districts.) The capital of Rosnia is Sarajevo (51,919 inhabitants) where is the seat of the local government and where, on 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his consort were assassinated by two fanatic Austrian malcontents, which precipitated the great European War. Other important towns are Mostar (20,000 inhabitants), Banjahika, (numbering about 1,900,000), are almost exclu sively Serbians, but there are also Turks, Greeks, Jews, Gypsies, etc. They are partly Orthodox (856,158), partly Roman Catholic (451,686), and Mohammedan (626,649). The language of the population is most predomi nantly Serbo-Croatian, but other languages (German, Turkish, etc.) are also spoken. The Bosnian Serb is the best conserved type of the entire Serbian race. The women, like the men, are well and strongly made and mostly good looking with their dark eyes and complexion.
Agriculture, mining and for estry are the principal occupations of the popu lation. The annual harvest amounts to about 1,000,000 quintals of wheat, 9,000,000 quintals of hay and great quantities of potatoes, prunes and raisins. The annual value of the mineral exports amounts to about $3,000,000 and that of the timber export to about $6,000,000. The breed of cattle is excellent and the moun tains furnish good iron of which a great part is manufactured in the country into guns and blades. The other articles manufactured are leather, morocco and coarse woolen cloth. The wines of Herzegovina are renowned for their excellence and the salt beds at Tuzla consti tute one of the chief resources of national wealth. There is a sugar refinery at Doboj and at Sarajevo there are several mills produc ing beautiful and well-made carpets and rugs.
Bosnia and Herzegovina have been constituent parts of the Roman empire known as Illyricum. In the course of the 10th century, Bosnia formed a distinct bandom, or principality, suzerain to the Croatian crown, but the first Ban who succeeded in securing a form of independence for his province was Boris, the illegitimate son of Kolornan, King of Hungary. Yet the true history of Bosnia begins only with the rule of her Ban Kulin (1180-1204), the contemporary of the Serbian Grand Zupan Nemanja, who extended the boundaries of his territory to a considerable degree and accepted and spread throughout his realm the Bogumil heresy. His son Stefan continued the spread of Bogumilism, an act which not only alienated the friendship of the Serbian rulers who prosecuted that heresy, but which gave rise to a vehement influence from Rome and Hungary.
The pope Honorius VI (and later Gregory VII) made several alliances with the Hun garian princes and started crusades against the Bogumils. The country was devastated and the majority of the heretics extermi nated; those who survived took refuge in the mountains iqaccessible to the Magyar horsemen. Ban Pavle Subic (bonus Croatorum et Bosnia dominus) annexed Herzegovina to Bosnia but both provinces were conquered and incorporated in the Serbian empire by Emperor Dugan the Mighty. It was only after the death of this Serbian Emperor (1355) that Ban Stefan Tvrtko (1353-91) detached definitely Bosnia from the Serbian empire and proclaimed him self king. Ban Tvrtko also conquered Dal matia with exception of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and his kingdom reached its summit in de velopment as an independent state. How ever, this did not save Bosnia from her final downfall, for Sultan Mohammed II, after hav ing utterly defeated the Magyars, turned with his 150,000 men against Bosnia (1463) and dev astated the land. Bosnia's Ban Stefan VII TomiC was taken prisoner and both Bosnia and Herzegovina became Turkish vilayets. Through out the 17th and 18th centuries there were con tinuous wars between Austria and Turkey for Bosnia and Herzegovina, until 1831 a national insurrection took place under the leadership of Hussein-Bey in the course of which Rashid Pasha was chased out of the land and the in surgents threatened the Sublime Porte with a definite separation from the Ottoman empire. This, however, was frustrated by Kara Mahmud-Pasha who, with his army of 60,000, drove Hussein-Bey to Austria and severely punished the restless population ; 30,000 boys of seven years of age were taken away to Con stantinople to the celebrated military training schools which furnish the irresistible hordes of Janissaries to the Sultans of Turkey. A state of anarchy ensued and Bays became almost independent of Constantinople; there were some who openly advocated the exter mination of the Christians. Such a state of af fairs alarmed the Sublime Porte which immedi ately sent one of its best generals, Omer-Pasha, at the head of a huge army to restore order and the sovereignty of the Sultans. A wholesale Ottomanisation of the Serbian population made the existence of the Christians almost impossible and the numerous deputations to Constantinople imploring protection remained without avail. The landlords embraced the Koran and be came absolute feudal lords of the enslaved popu lation. This unbearable state of things led directly to a revolution (in 1875) in Herzego vina which speedily spread over all Bosnia under the leadership of the ever-watchful Catholic priests who obtained support from Rome and, more especially, from covetous and Catholic Austria. The Turks immediately
started a campaign against the insurgents but a fresh insurrection was kindled in Montenegro which involved Turkey in a fierce war with that principality and with Serbia. As the movement of the Christians spread even in the Tartar Bulgaria, the Russian Tsar intervened and, in 1877, declared war on Turkey which ended successfully for the Christians by the Treaty of Peace at Saint Stefano (1878). By virtue of that treaty Bosnia and Herzegovina obtained autonomy and a Christian governor; but the Treaty of Berlin changed completely the position of those provinces, for Austria was allowed to occupy the territories with her troops for the purpose of introducing order among the insurgents and establishing an equit able administration of the country. The occu pation was, however, bitterly opposed by the Bosnian Serbs under the leadership of their native general Hadzi-Loja. Herzegovina, de riving its name from Herzog, or Duke (aDuke of St. Sava," i.e., Stefan VukK who ruled the province independently' in 1448) was oc cupied without any serious opposition on the part of the population. As early as 1879 the Austrian Reichsrat wished to ef fect a definite annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Sublime Porte ener getically and successfully defended its soy eign rights over the provinces on the basis of the fact that such an action does not belong to the competence of the Austro Hungarian government but to all the powers signatory of the Treaty of Berlin. Yet in wanton violation of that treaty and upon the advice of her ally, Germany, Austrian sovereignty was formally announced on 5 Oct. 1908, which act nearly led to an armed conflict between the dual monarchy and Serbia. Russia, which was utterly unprepared to intervene, counselled Serbia to patience and moderation and war was avoided, or rather postponed. The political life previous to the annexation consisted chiefly in the struggle for autonomy of the Orthodox and Moslem Serbs against the proselytizing Austrian regime. In order to give some satis faction to the seditious population, whose na tional dream it was for centuries either to obtain an autonomy or to effect a political union with the Serbian kingdoms of Serbia and Monte negro into one homogenous state, Austria a sort of charter which can hardly be called constitution, for the electoral system, provided by that instrument, is based on a di vision of the electors according to their relig ious belief, and the ballot is public so that it is absolutely subjected to the influence and con trol of the Vienna government. The Home Diet (Sabor) has a purely local authority and is not permitted to deal with the matters bear ing upon imperial affairs, such as the establish ment of the military contingent, customs regu lations, foreign affairs and commerce, amend ments of the constitution, etc., nor can the bills be discussed in the Sabor to which the imperial government is in no wise responsible. The president of the Sabor, who is appointed by the Emperor upon the recommendation of the gov ernment, exercises practically absolute power over the sessions. As an intermediary between the central government and the Sabor there is a Country Council (Zemaljsko Vieee), the depu ties for which are chosen from amongst the members of the Sabor. This council acts as an advisory board to the Vienna government. In the Council of the Empire and the Imperial Parliament Bosnia and Herzegovina are repre sented by the Austrian Imperial Minister of Finance, who is, at the same time, Minister of Home Affairs for Bosnia, and it is in this latter capacity alone that he is responsible to the sov ereign. Consequently in spite of the constitu tion the government of Bosnia and Herze govina has remained purely absolute in charac ter, and, in certain respects, it is even less rep resentative of the people than before its official introduction.
Report on the Administra tion of Bosnia and Herzogovina, published an nually by the Common Ministry of Finance in Vienna; Asboth, J. de,
Woisi.Av M. Prritovrrcii, Chief of Slavonic Division, New York Public Library.