Could a Bosnian Empire be possible?

Obviously IOTL Bosnia never even reached major regional power, but there's a lot of talk about how any nation could be an empire.

Is there any realistic way Bosnia could have become its own Empire, or has it been doomed to relative wider irrelevance for all of history?
 
A decisive Serbo-Bosniak victory at Kosovo Field in 1389 against the Ottomans prevents the latter party's expansion into the western Balkans. Tvrtko I of Bosnia also lives longer, allowing for more dynastic stability. Bosnia's hegemony over the post-Dusan Serb principalities continues, and the kingdom absorbs them piece by piece, alongside a conquest of Croatia from Hungary.
 
A decisive Serbo-Bosniak victory at Kosovo Field in 1389 against the Ottomans prevents the latter party's expansion into the western Balkans. Tvrtko I of Bosnia also lives longer, allowing for more dynastic stability. Bosnia's hegemony over the post-Dusan Serb principalities continues, and the kingdom absorbs them piece by piece, alongside a conquest of Croatia from Hungary.
That means a pre Islamic Bosnian ?
 

Vuu

Banned
Isn't that basically serbian?

That's the biggest problem - depending on who's in control, they shifted from being a Croat state to a Serb one, the latter being the normal state most of the time. There could be a Bosnian Empire, but it would just become Serbia the instant all others are subsumed
 
If we talk about Muslim bosnia, Maybe a bosnian version of Muhammad Ali Egypt and eventually said state control otl serbia, montenegro (and maybe dalmatia coast if we pushing it harder) territory. Plus Kosovo and part of Macedonia if really lucky.

Although there are some problem need to be address about it.
1. Either Austria disintergrate or at very least have bigger problem to deal with. To Allow potential bosnian state to develop in its crucial early year.
2. Ottoman strong enough to hold of Russia at bay but not to the point of reconquer bosnia is more worth than the trouble. Can be count as allies sometime. Maybe stay as nominal vassal but more and less independent.
3. Support of other power like France. Like diplomatic support to keep potential enemy think twice.

Bonus:
-No Italian unification or at least later.
-All slavic muslim in this bosnian empire is counted as bosniak and indentify as that. To keep the state as bosnia rather than mini Yugoslavia in all but name.
 
Isn't that basically serbian?

That's the biggest problem - depending on who's in control, they shifted from being a Croat state to a Serb one, the latter being the normal state most of the time. There could be a Bosnian Empire, but it would just become Serbia the instant all others are subsumed
Orthodox South Slav =/= Serb
Tvrtko's orthodox subjects wouldn't have all have called themselves Serbs.
 
Obviously IOTL Bosnia never even reached major regional power, but there's a lot of talk about how any nation could be an empire.

Is there any realistic way Bosnia could have become its own Empire, or has it been doomed to relative wider irrelevance for all of history?
Maybe Bosnia seperates from Ottoman and pulls an Mehemet Ali. Maybe even a rebel Ottoman prince with Bosnian heritage. This ATL Bosnia maybe somehow controlls the European part of Ottoman Empire.
 

Vuu

Banned
The peasantry? Probably tucked away somewhere. Most of these "who is who" discussions wouldn't be if the eternal german didn't decide to bomb our national library back in '41
 
The peasantry? Probably tucked away somewhere. Most of these "who is who" discussions wouldn't be if the eternal german didn't decide to bomb our national library back in '41

Did fourteenth century Balkan (or would that be Haemus?) peasants even know how to read and write?

For your other point, I feel that nationalism was a mistake anyway and that the South Serbs are so tremendously similar to each other that Balkanic nationalism especially is tragic so I don’t disagree
 
If we talk about Muslim bosnia, Maybe a bosnian version of Muhammad Ali Egypt and eventually said state control otl serbia, montenegro (and maybe dalmatia coast if we pushing it harder) territory. Plus Kosovo and part of Macedonia if really lucky.

Although there are some problem need to be address about it.
1. Either Austria disintergrate or at very least have bigger problem to deal with. To Allow potential bosnian state to develop in its crucial early year.
2. Ottoman strong enough to hold of Russia at bay but not to the point of reconquer bosnia is more worth than the trouble. Can be count as allies sometime. Maybe stay as nominal vassal but more and less independent.
3. Support of other power like France. Like diplomatic support to keep potential enemy think twice.

Bonus:
-No Italian unification or at least later.
-All slavic muslim in this bosnian empire is counted as bosniak and indentify as that. To keep the state as bosnia rather than mini Yugoslavia in all but name.

The problem is... Mehmed Ali was far away and too ambitious. I can't tell who could rule Bosnia and be ambitious like that. Maybe Osman Pazvantoğlu but he resides in Vidin and has more of a Bandit than a real government official like Mehmed Ali.
 
The overwhelming majority of them would have. Identity in medieval Bosnia was...complicated...but it wasn't that complicated.
Are we talking a wider definition here of Serb here? They certainly wouldn't have called themselves Rascian for example. Which was the impression I was initially given.
 
Are we talking a wider definition here of Serb here? They certainly wouldn't have called themselves Rascian for example. Which was the impression I was initially given.

We're talking about "Serb", which - I suppose - could be considered the wider definition.

It's true that they wouldn't have called themselves "Rascian", but the people living in the middle of "Rascia" wouldn't have called themselves "Rascian" either - that was not an ethnonym, just a secondary political term.

The medieval ethnonyms you had in these parts were Serb, Croat, "Vlach"...etc etc. And after the mid-1200s you also had some "Bosnians", but only in central Bosnia.
 
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