If a reporter in
early 1914 had posed the question “What is the most dangerous ‘hot spot’ in the
world today?”, any well informed European in early 1914 would have said “the
Balkan peninsula,” and most would have specifically said “Bosnia.” In fact, Bosnia was seething with
revolutionary discontent. At the center
of it all was a group of revolutionary teenagers called Young Bosnia, a
movement that had spread throughout the high schools of the region. What was Young Bosnia? What were the goals of the movement? And why were many people in Bosnia so
dissatisfied with the current state of affairs that they were willing to
sacrifice their lives and even the stability of Europe
to bring about change?
In 1914 Bosnia was part
of the Austro-Hungarian (or Habsburg) Empire, but it hadn’t been part of the
empire for very long. Indeed, the
parents of those revolutionary students of Young Bosnia had been born under a
different empire, the Ottoman Empire, which
had ruled Bosnia
for centuries. Unlike in other areas of
the Balkans, in Bosnia
a large percentage of the local nobility had converted to Islam after the
Ottoman take-over and so had maintained their power. In other words, in Bosnia it was local Muslims who
ruled, people who spoke the same language as the rest of the people, not
Turkish-speaking “foreigners.”
Because religion
had been the important identifying marker under Ottoman rule, in the new age of nationalism (which arose in the 19th century), religion became the
method of determining one’s national identity in Bosnia. Speakers of the Bosnian (Serbo-Croatian) language who were of the
Catholic faith were called Croats even when they lived in Bosnia, not Croatia. Those who spoke a variant of the same
language but were Orthodox Christians were called Serbs, even those who had
never set foot in Serbia. Those Bosnians who converted to Islam were
simply called Muslims. In other words, there was not a separate “Bosnian”
nationalism but many different “nationalities” within Bosnia, all of
which spoke the same language but had very different cultural traditions.
Because of the
movement of people during the years when the Balkans became the battleground
between Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East, the population of the area
became ethnically mixed. In Bosnia all the
nobility and some of the peasants were Muslims. Other villages or sections within villages were made up of Orthodox
Christians (Serbs) or Catholics (Croats), and, of course, there were large
Jewish, gypsy, Turkish, and other minority groups as well. This was no American “melting pot” but more
of a tossed salad in which various elements were mixed together but continued
to exist as distinct elements side by side.
At its height in
the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman
Empire had provided security and effective government. However, the empire had gone through a slow
decline in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the standard
of living had fallen. And just across
the border was “the West” (represented by the Austrian Empire) which had become
more powerful and advanced, politically and economically. With the rise of nationalism and the
existence of independent states in near-by Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia
experienced continued revolutionary unrest. Because of this, Austria-Hungary
moved in and took control of Bosnia
in 1878 though supposedly this rule was only temporary. Thirty years later, however, in 1908, Austria-Hungary
formally annexed Bosnia,
making it a permanent part of the empire. The annexation was a bitter disappointment to Bosnian nationalists who
had hoped to see their land become independent or, at least, a part of Serbia. The Young Bosnia revolutionary movement arose
as a reaction to this crisis.
So who was
Young Bosnia, and what did it stand for? Young Bosnia was not a formal, unified organization but rather a group
of revolutionary secret societies that had sprung up throughout the high
schools of Bosnia
and among Bosnian students studying in neighboring countries. There were a few differences between these
high school students and students in the United States today. In Bosnia around the year 1910,
education beyond the elementary school level was relatively rare. Since high schools were usually located only
in larger towns, students often had to leave their homes and their villages and
move to town, living with relatives or friends of the family. Because of the difficulty and expense, the
average age of high school students was higher than in the U.S. today,
especially since students would often have to interrupt their studies due to
financial difficulties. Thus, it would
not be rare for young people of nineteen and twenty to be attending high school
along with younger students.
In addition, this
generation of high school students knew that they were among the most
educated people that their society had produced up to that time. This made for a rather large generation gap
as the young people were much more politically aware than their peasant
parents. The students also recognized the importance of their education and took their studies very
seriously. And since this generation of
students considered itself the generation that would transform their society,
they devoted themselves to “revolutionary” subjects, such as national
literature and history, reading widely all the revolutionary writings of the
time. A large number of Bosnian students
in the early 20th century had a deep desire for rapid change since,
unlike most American high school students today, they did not feel that they
had a long period of time to achieve their goals and make their mark in
society; one out of five people in the area died (slowly) of tuberculosis. Indeed, three out of the six Young Bosnians
who were the most directly involved in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand
died of tuberculosis within three years of that fateful June day.
Overall, the
various Young Bosnian groups had some goals in common. First and foremost, they were nationalists,
who wanted the liberation of their country and its establishment either as an
independent state or as a member of a Yugoslav state (joined with at least Serbia and
maybe even Croatia,
Slovenia,
and Montenegro). “Yugoslav” means simply “South Slav” and
described a movement among intellectuals of the time to join all peoples of
similar language background into a large “national” state. This idea was especially attractive in Bosnia because
it solved their identity problem of what to do about the many different
national/religious groups in Bosnia
itself. Since the main opposition to
Yugoslavism, of course, came from Austria, Bosnian nationalists recognized
that, even if Bosnia could break away from the Austrian Empire, Croatia and
Slovenia might not, so they were prepared to compromise and join the already
independent Serbian state. In other
words, the students were a little bit fuzzy on whether they would like Bosnia to be
part of a real Yugoslavia
or of a big Serbia,
but they were very clear that they did NOT want Bosnia to remain under the rule of
the multi-national Austrian Empire!
Young Bosnia’s
second goal, which they felt would follow logically upon the achievement of
independence, was social justice. The
young people wanted a society in which all of the different nationalities would
have equality, in which (freed from foreign control) economic development and
advancement would be possible, even one in which women would have a greater
role in society. The young people, often
encouraged by nationalist teachers, set up secret societies in the high
schools, where they would discuss revolutionary ideals and arrange to attend
illegal Yugoslav meetings in other areas. The Bosnian Serb and Croatian members criticized their elders for
drinking excessively as an escape from their hard lives rather than trying to solve
the problems of their society, so many Young Bosnian groups were organized as
non-drinking groups. (This also showed
the unity of the different nationalities since Muslims are not allowed to drink
alcohol anyway.)
The young
revolutionaries were convinced of the justice of their cause. They had all read their great nationalist
epics of the Battle of Kosovo and how the Serbs had sacrificed themselves at
the Battle of Kosovo for their faith and their country. They felt that their role was to do the same,
to risk their lives in a just war. And
this time the outcome would be different, and their people would rise to take
its rightful place in the community of nations. Yet, how could a small country with no army of its own defeat a powerful
enemy like Austria? Clearly, they needed supporters among the
other powerful nations of Europe, and, in
fact, Russia
was clearly interested in helping a fellow Slavic land with a large Orthodox
Christian population. But how could one
provoke a crisis which would force Russia, and hopefully Britain and France, into
demanding Austria’s
withdrawal from Bosnia? From 1910 – 1914, Young Bosnian students
sought a solution to this problem.
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