Given Bosnia Herzegovina's long history as a religious and ethnic melting pot, and her rather sparse settlement before Sarajevo was built, could have medieval Bosnia politically grown into a second Switzerland between her elevation to banate (1154) and her conquest by the Ottomans (1463)?
Confoederatio Illyrica
- Thread starter Homer Simpson & the Brain
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Medieval Bosnia was controlled by a handful of powerful noble families. It had not partaken in the communal movement of the High Middle Ages, so its settlements did not enjoy a high degree of self-government on which Swiss-like political structures could build.
Much rather, if Bosnia could somehow hold off both Hungary (later Habsburgs) and the Ottomans (how though?), a confederal structure could be likened to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although even that analogy isn't very good.
I wasn't expecting for Bosnia to become a carbon-copy of Switzerland, my question was more about whether or not the kingdom could develop the basis of a super-ethnic national identity like that of the Swiss, meaning neither the Croats nor the Serbs who had been living there for centuries would wish to become part of their respective ethnic nation states.
Ah, OK.
Well, no, they couldn't, because the differences between Croats and Serbs, linguistically speaking, are laughable. What separates them is their brand of Christianity. And in the Middle Ages, you also had the Bosnian Church on top of everything, which was neither Catholic, nor Orthodox.
If the confessions got along with each other, that would be a really exceptional thing for Medieval Europe.
But if they did, they would see themselves not as multi-ethnic, but as ONE ETHNICITY. So, no, they can't acquire a multi-ethnic national identity.
Well, no, they couldn't, because the differences between Croats and Serbs, linguistically speaking, are laughable. What separates them is their brand of Christianity. And in the Middle Ages, you also had the Bosnian Church on top of everything, which was neither Catholic, nor Orthodox.
If the confessions got along with each other, that would be a really exceptional thing for Medieval Europe.
But if they did, they would see themselves not as multi-ethnic, but as ONE ETHNICITY. So, no, they can't acquire a multi-ethnic national identity.
If I read wikipedia right, that was actually the case in Bosnia for most of her history, at least internally.
Depends on what you consider "internal". Various Catholic monastic orders, backed by Venice, tried to root out the Church of Bosnia, and they actively supported slave raids against Bosnian Church believers.
I meant that generally none of the Bosnian denominations ever decided to try and oppress the others into submission locally, when it happened it was almost always due external agitators stirring the pot.
Hm, yes. That's a pattern across most of Eastern Europe, though: when a Vlachic-speaking Orthodox voievod wrestles control over an area from a Hungarian-speaking Catholic king, they neither tried to Romanianise, nor forcibly convert to Orthodoxy the various ethnic groups who lived in the region; like the former overlord, their primary interest was in squeezing out resources for their armed bunch of followers and the rump "state" which they embodied.
If that's the case, could it then be said that the root reason Bosnia Herzegovina is an ethnically divided country is the fact Western Shtokavian, the most widely spoken Serbo-Croat dialect in the region before the Ottoman conquest, didn't manage to become the de-facto national language before a very sizable chunk of Serbia's population, Eastern Shtokavian speakers, was displaced by the Turks' invasion of the Balkans?
Nope. The reason for ethnical division is the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the weird mutation of that ideology in the Balkans that went along religious lines (everybody who speaks a south Slavic language and is not Bulgarian, if Catholic is Croatian, if Orthodox is Serbian, culture and traditions not relevant). This ideology screwed the Bosnians (for a long time the Muslims were confused at what their ethnicity was), partially screwed the Montenegrins, almost had the Slovenians accept štokavian (certain Slovenian intellectuals in the Illyrian movement were pushing this), and had the Serbs trying to convince the Macedonians that they were south Serbs during the first Yugoslavia.
Now we have a Croatian nation with 3 “dialects” that are difficult to understand, one of which (kajkavian) is very very similar to Slovenian. I can’t understand either of them and they sound the same to me, but are considered separate languages. Thankfully the Croats use a standardized form of ijekavian that is based on the dialect from Dubrovnik (or it’s original name Ragusa) that was a neo-Latin (Dalmatian) speaking republic that slavicized and took on Hercegovinian ijekavian from the hinterlands.
The Serbs are no better. In Serbia proper they mostly speak ekavian, with a sprinkle of Torlakian. The Serbs in Bosnia speak ijekavian like everybody else in Bosnia. The Montenegrins don’t consider themselves Serbs anymore (well part of them) and now they speak a specific ijekavian that is officially Montenegrin.
Compared to them Bosnia is more or less culturally homogeneous (thanks to the Ottoman Empire), and more or less speak the same, share the same cuisine... etc. But due to different religions they are an ethnically messed up country.
In my opinion this mess started because there were not a lot of educated people at the time of this nation building and most of those that were educated were priests with a political agenda.
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So PoD needed wouldn't be changing the outcome of a historical event, but rather keeping the nationalistic ideas in the Balkans in line with those of the rest of Europe?
I'm not sure that that would give you the result you are looking for. If nationalism in the Balkans persisted in it's European form than Bosnia would be a single ethnic state with 3 major religions (more like Albania then Switzerland) or it ends up in an ATL Illyria/Yugoslavia (which is more likely to happen) that has less people defining themselves as Croats and Serbs (outside of Croatia proper and Serbia proper) and probably more people that define themselves on a regional level (as Bosnians, Dalmatians, Slavonians, Hercegovinians...etc).
To get a 2 Switzerland in Bosnia you would have to start 3 generations into the future from now not before 1900.
To be honest, the only result I'm actually looking for is having no one in the Balkans making unrealistic territorial claims based on ethnographic data at least five centuries out of date.
That's possible. It all depends on political factors far down the line, which we can't really predict. It'll be a long time between 1463 and the birth of modern nationalism.
Now arguably, there was a supra-ethnic "Bosnian identity" in the middle ages. It started in the 13th century and existed until the fall of the Kotromanic kingdom. However, this identity only really existed in central Bosnia - it didn't make any ground among the Serbs of Herzegovina or the Croats of the western regions.
And we can't say whether it would have evolved into a true national identity or not. I kind of doubt it, since late medieval Bosnia was not exactly a success story. It was a heavily oligarchic state. It suffered a severe decentralization between several aristocratic clans. IIRC, the conditions of the peasantry were pretty bad by the standards of the region. And, last but not the least, religious strife was starting to flare up (for example, the last two kings of Bosnia carried out an aggressive campaign of forced Catholicization against the heretics.)
What if the Kotromanics acknowledged the fact their kingdom was neither fish nor meat on the religious front and decided to pull an ante-litteram Henry VIII by bringing everyone in the country, no matter their former religious denomination, under the aegis of a newly created Dalmatican Church with the reigning monarch at its head?
I think that's an interesting idea, actually...but interesting does not necessarily mean it's viable. They'd get curbstomped by Catholic and Orthodox neighbors with much help from Catholic/Orthodox loyalists and separatists within the kingdom.
While the 15th century Catholicization campaign was - arguably - unwise, we can't really blame the Kotromanics for picking a side.
The Dalmatican Church wouldn't need to last that long, just be successful enough to leave an enduring stereotype of the Bosnian people as the religious oddball among the South Slavs, something the form of nationalism that took root in the Balkans centuries later could latch on as a defining characteristic, leading to this being the most widely accepted way to classify the ethnic groups in the region in the 19th century:
Don't speak Serbo-Croat and are Catholic = Slovenes
Don't speak Serbo-Croat and are Orthodox = Bulgarians
Speak Serbo-Croat and are Catholic = Croats
Speak Serbo-Croat and are Orthodox = Serbs
Speak Serbo-Croat and are neither Catholic nor Orthodox = Bosniaks
If they survive the wrath of the Pope, then sure this could work. But the chances of them succeeding is small. Their enemies are too strong.
Given that this would have a chance to happen only during Bosnia's time as an independent kingdom, which happened to coincide with the rise of the Ottomans, I'd think try and keep the Turks at bay would have had a much higher priority than reasserting religious dominance over the, at the time, least populated region in the Balkans.
Very true. But if the Ottomans prove to be a threat to their neighbors then it will be a threat to the Bosnian kingdom itself, so I have doubts that the king will turn his back to the Pope at that dangerous time.
Only alternative I can see is for the Bosnian king to accept a subordinate status towards the Ottomans. This way he gains an ally against the Catholics and doesn’t have to worry about an invasion from the Ottomans. But a new problem with this is how will the population react to the Kings decision to side with the Turks. Could be problematic.