Post from Jajce, Bosnia
Elliott and I are traveling in the Balkans (former Yugoslavia) this August. We went to Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar, and Zadar in Croatia last week. Today we went to Plitvice lakes, which is an incredible series of lakes in the mountains surrounded by rain forest (yeah, it was weird to see rain forests in Europe).
Then our hotel owner Damir drove us across the border to Bihač in Bosnia. We had to stop for a few minutes at one point to wait for mine sweepers to finish checking a spot by the road. A bit later we drove through a deserted town which Damir told us was an old Serbian village – The townspeople had fled during the 1990s war (it’s very close to Croatia), and now most of them are afraid to come back because there are 12 unexplained Croatian deaths. We took a bus from Bihač to the medieval mountain castle town Jajce, seat of power of the ancient Bosnian kings. One wall of the house we are staying in is a thousand year old stone tower.
Interesting trivia – The medieval Bosnian kings didn’t like Christianity very much, so they converted the entire country to a primitive religion called Bogomil around 600 AD. When the Turks conquered Bosnia in the 1400s, the people didn’t care much about their old-fashioned religion, so thez were easily converted to Islam. Ergo, By the early 1900s, almost the entire country was made up of ethnically European Muslims. Even after being killed in vast numbers in WW1, then again in WW2, and in the mid 1990s, Bosnia and Hercegovina is still the only country in Europe with a Muslim majority.
Forgive the lack of links – it is really tough to make them on this shit keyboard. Wikipedia anything you’re interested in.
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Love your travel log, however I think you should find a synonym for the word shit.
Glad you guys are enjoying traveling in the Balkans! It’s a fascinating place. As a former Yugoslav, however, I will have to disagree with few points in the post
First, many Croat Serbs did not leave, but were driven out. Property laws (as well as “mysterious” deaths) made it difficult for them to return. Second, majority of Bosnians who have converted to Islam during Ottoman times, converted because of tax breaks. Difference in taxation based on religion allowed only the wealthy or those on the outskirts of Ottoman control to practice Christianity. That being said, Bosnia enjoyed great religious freedoms and understanding leading up to the war (possibly as a result of the country’s Bogomil past, as you suggested, as well as it’s location at the crossroads of the East and the West). It is my opinion, that “ethnic hatred” emerging in the 1990s (since Islam in Bosnia was more of a culture than a religion) was nothing but a political tool to achieve certain goals. Regardless, Bosnian Muslims have witnessed a rebirth following the war, embracing Middle Eastern Islam over European Islam. This is partially due to the fact that they now have a country and a language and partially a result of Iran’s (and other Middle Eastern countries’) conscious effort to make Bosnia a Muslim country in Europe (through aide and bribes – ex. payment to men for growing beard and their wives wearing veils).
PS – Majority of Bosnian Muslims (Boshnjaci or Bonsiaks in English) are ethnic Serbs.