Bosniaks (South Slavs)
Nation | Active
1455 CE to 2057 CE
The Bosniaks, or less commonly Bosniacs, are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group inhabiting mainly homeland Bosnia and Herzegovina along with a native minority present in other countries of the Balkan Peninsula; especially in the Sandžak region of Serbia and Montenegro (where Bosniaks form a regional majority), in Croatia, and in Kosovo.Bosniaks are typically characterized by their historic tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional majority adherence to Islam since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, common culture and Bosnian language.
In the English-speaking world, Bosniaks are also frequently referred to as Bosnian Muslims or simply Bosnians, though the latter is also used to denote all inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina regardless of ethnic origin or to describe citizenship in the country.There are well over two million Bosniaks living in the Balkans today, with an estimated additional million settled and living around the world.
Several instances of ethnic cleansing and genocide by Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats have had a tremendous effect on the territorial distribution of the population.
Partially due to this, a notable Bosniak diaspora exists in a number of countries, including Austria, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Turkey, Canada and the United States.
Both within the region and throughout the world, Bosniaks are often noted for their unique culture, which has been influenced by both eastern and western civilizations and schools of thought over the course of their history.
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Most historians believe that the Croats are a purely Slavic people who probably migrated to the Balkans from present-day Ukraine.
A newer theory, however, holds that the original Croats were nomadic Sarmatians who roamed Central Asia, migrated onto the steppes around 200 BCE, and rode into Europe near the end of the fourth century CE, possibly together with the Huns.
The Sarmatian Croats, the theory holds, conquered the Slavs of northern Bohemia and southern Poland and formed a small state called White Croatia near present-day Kraków.
The Croats then supposedly mingled with their more numerous Slavic subjects and adopted the Slavic language, while the subjects assumed the tribal name "Croat."
A tenth-century Byzantine source reports that in the seventh century Emperor Heraclius enlisted the Croats to expel the Avars from Byzantine lands.
The Croats had overrun the Avars and Slavs in Dalmatia around 630, then drove the Avars from today's Slovenia and other areas.
In the eighth century, the Croats lived under loose imperial rule, and Christianity and Latin culture recovered in the coastal cities.
The Franks subjugated most of the Croats in the eighth century and sent missionaries to baptize them in the Latin rite, but the Byzantine Empire continued to rule Dalmatia.
Croatia emerges as an independent nation in 924.
Tomislav (910-ca. 928), a tribal leader, establishes himself as the first king of Croatia, ruling a domain that stretches eastward to the Danube.
The Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Macedonians, and Albanians have virtually independent histories.
The Slovenes will struggle to define and defend their cultural identity for a millennium, first under the Frankish Kingdom and then under the Austrian Empire.
The Croats of Croatia and Slavonia will enjoy a brief independence before falling under Hungarian and Austrian domination; and the Croats in Dalmatia struggle under Byzantine, Hungarian, Venetian, French, and Austrian rule.
The Serbs, who will briefly rival the Byzantine Empire in medieval times, will suffer five hundred years of Turkish domination before winning independence in the nineteenth century.
Their Montenegrin kinsmen will live for centuries under a dynasty of bishop-priests and savagely defend their mountain homeland against foreign aggressors.
Bosnians will turn to heresy to protect themselves from external political and religious pressure, convert in great numbers to Islam after the Turks invade, and become a nuisance to Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century.
A hodgepodge of ethnic groups will people Macedonia over the centuries.
As the power of the Ottoman Empire wanes, the region is contested among the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Albanians and also is a pawn among the major European powers.
Finally, the disputed Kosovo region, with an Albanian majority and medieval Serbian tradition, will remain an Ottoman backwater until after the Balkan wars of the early twentieth century.
Herzegovina’s unofficial capital of Mostar had been first mentioned in 1452.
Only a few years later, it is invaded by the Ottomans.
The Ottomans are the first to begin officially using the name Herzegovina for the region, when the beg of Bosnia Isa-beg Ishaković mentions the name in a letter from 1454.
The Franciscans, who had established a network of friaries in Bosnia during the fourteenth century, have spent more than a century trying to convert members of the Bosnian church to mainstream Catholicism.
This campaign receives the full support of the Bosnian king, Stjepan Tomash, who in 1459 summons the clergy of the Bosnian church and orders them to convert to Catholicism or leave the kingdom.
The back of the Bosnian church is broken when most of the clergy converts.
Most of Bosnia along the upper Bosna and Drina Rivers has gradually fallen to the Ottomans.
After a series of bloody battles, the Turks bring the area under their control in 1463, but the Bosnians continue sporadic rebellion in some areas.
The Turks execute the last Kotromanic king, Stephen Tomashevic, and incorporate Bosnia into their empire.
The Bosnians, however, continue sporadic rebellion in some areas.
Many of the Bogomils, numerous in Bosnia in this and the previous century, adopt Islam.
Most of Hercegovina, heretofore a client state of Hungary-Croatia, falls to the Ottoman Turks shortly after the death of Duke Stjepan Vukcic in 1466.
Many of the Bogomils of Hercegovina and …
… Bosnia, numerous in Bosnia in this and the previous century, adopt Islam.
The Brankovica (and later other local noblemen who assume the throne) had created a Serbian principality in exile under Hungarian protection in what is now Slavonia, Vojvodina, and northern Serbia and Bosnia after the fall of the Serbian Despotate in 1459.
The state will spend its entirety fighting the Ottomans and represents the continuation of what is left of the Serbian Kingdom.
Venice has by 1480 inhabited those Latin and Greek remnants in the Balkan peninsula left free of Ottoman rule, and Genoa, which still controls Corsica in addition to its mainland Italian territory, owns a collection of islands off the western coast of Anatolia.
Austria, Russia's ally since 1726, enters the Russian war against the Ottoman Empire in July 1737, but is defeated a number of times, among others in the Battle of Banja Luka on August 4, 1737.
Russia's ally, Austria, enters Russia’s war against the Ottoman Empire in July 1737.
Austrian troops enter Wallachia and ...