Bosnia-Herzegovina

   A southeast European province of the Ottoman Empire from 1463 to 1878. Unusual for most Ottoman provinces on the Balkan Peninsula, Bosnia-Herzegovina was home to a large community of Slav Muslims, living alongside Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs. In 1878, after the Congress of Berlin, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina. Armed resistance against Habsburg rule was crushed by military force. Supervised by a special department within the common ministry of finance, the administration was run by Austro-Hungarian civil servants and officers. The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 caused an international crisis and outraged Serbian and Yugoslav nationalists who wanted to unite the province with Serbia. At least partly successful in modernizing the province, Austria-Hungary’s policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina failed to effectively counter Great Serbian or Yugoslav propaganda campaigns. One of the groups striving to free Bosnia-Herzegovina from Habsburg rule, Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna), managed to assassinate Francis Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, on June 28, 1914. Austria-Hungary perceived this as a legitimate cause to wage war on Serbia that had harbored anti-Habsburg organizations.

   See also <>; <>.

   FURTHER READING:

    Malcom, Noel. Bosnia, A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1994.

   GUENTHER KRONENBITTER