Sarajevo

   Under Ottoman rule, the administrative center of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the midnineteenth century. When Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in the aftermath of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Austro-Hungarian administration was located in Sarajevo, too. The multiethnic city with large Croatian, Serbian, and Muslim communities was modernized and prospered, but conflicts between the major ethnic groups and between parts of the Slav population and Austro-Hungarian authorities could never be settled. In the aftermath of the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, the new provincial diet was established in Sarajevo. Several political organizations that shunned parliament and tried to get rid of Habsburg rule by propaganda campaigns and political violence were active in Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna), a group supported by the Belgrade-based Black Hand, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent, Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, precipitating the July Crisis. Austria-Hungary’s leaders decided to use the assassination of Francis Ferdinand as legitimate cause for an ultimatum and finally a war against Serbia.

   See also <>.

   FURTHER READING:

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

    Strachan, Hew. The First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

   GUENTHER KRONENBITTER