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Serbs in Sarajevo

{{Short description|Ethnic Serbs who live in the Bosnian capital}}

{{serbs}}

Serbs in Sarajevo numbered 157,526 according to the 1991 census, making up more than 30% of the ten pre-war municipalities of the Sarajevo metropolitan area: Centar, Stari Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Novi Grad, Ilidža, Ilijaš, Vogošća, Hadžići, Trnovo, and Pale.

Today, following the Bosnian War, few Serbs remain in central areas of Sarajevo. Most have moved abroad (to Serbia or other countries), or to Istočno Sarajevo, a new city on the outskirts of Sarajevo located in Republika Srpska. Many parts of the pre-war Sarajevo metropolitan area in Istočno Sarajevo: Istočno Novo Sarajevo, Istočna Ilidža, Istočni Stari Grad, Pale, and Trnovo.

History

=World War I=

After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, Anti-Serb rioting took place in Sarajevo on 28 and 29 June 1914, incited by Austro-Hungarian authorities.{{cite book|title=Sarajevo: A Biography|author=Robert J. Donia|date=2006|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACvJHam2_-oC&pg=PA123|page=123|isbn=9780472115570}}{{cite book |last1=Bennett |first1=Christopher |title=Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences |date=1997 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-81471-288-7 |page=31 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6mQVCgAAQBAJ |quote=In the aftermath of Franz Ferdinand's assassination, anti-Serb sentiment ran high throughout the Habsburg empire and in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it boiled over into anti-Serb pogroms. Though these pogroms were clearly incited by the Habsburg authorities..}} Two Serbs, Pero Prijavić and Nikola Nožičić, died some days later as a result of the injuries they sustained after they were beaten and a total of fifty people were treated at Sarajevo hospitals following the two-day rioting.{{cite book |last1=Lyon |first1=James |title=Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-47258-005-4 |pages=21–22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vMkfCgAAQBAJ}} Whole stocks of goods as well as monies from Serb shops and homes were gone due to the plundering. The devastation left a profound impact on Serb-owned business and industry given the minority Sarajevo Serb population's prominence in those areas.

=World War II=

During WWII, Serbs living in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a German-installed puppet state, were subjected to genocide by the Croatian fascist Ustaše regime. In the summer of 1941, Ustaše militia periodically interned and executed groups of Sarajevo Serbs. In August 1941, they arrested about one hundred Serbs suspected of ties to the resistance armies, mostly church officials and members of the intelligentsia, and executed them or deported them to concentration camps.{{cite journal|last=Balić |first=Emily Greble|title=When Croatia Needes Serbs: Nationalism and Genocide in Sarajevo, 1941-1942|journal=Slavic Review|volume=68|issue=1|pages=116–138|year=2009|doi=10.2307/20453271|jstor=20453271|doi-access=free}} The Ustaše killed at least 323 people in the Villa Luburić, a slaughter house and place for torturing and imprisoning Serbs, Jews and political dissidents.{{cite book|last=Yeomans|first=Rory|author-link=Rory Yeomans|title=The Utopia of Terror: Life and Death in Wartime Croatia|year=2015|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=9781580465458|page=124|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8HEDCwAAQBAJ}}

=Bosnian war=

On 1 March 1992, a Bosnian Serb wedding procession in Sarajevo's Baščaršija quarters was attacked, resulting in the shooting death of the father of the groom, Nikola Gardović, and the wounding of a Serbian Orthodox priest. The attack took place on the last day of a controversial referendum on Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence from Yugoslavia, in the early stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars.{{cite book |last1=Morrison |first1=Kenneth |title=Sarajevo's Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War |date=2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781137577184 |pages=87–88 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s2FBDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA87}} Gardović, an ethnic Serb, is often regarded as the first casualty of the Bosnian war.{{cite book|last=Carmichael|first=Cathie|year=2015|title=A Concise History of Bosnia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, England|page=139|isbn=978-1-10701-615-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rMfSCQAAQBAJ}}

During the siege of Sarajevo, Bosniak paramilitary leader Mušan Topalović and his forces abducted and killed mostly Serbs living in and around Sarajevo before Bosnian police killed Topalović in October 1993.{{cite web|title=Postscript to Sarajevo's Anguish: Muslim Killings of Serbs Detailed|first=Chris |last=Hedges| url=http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/12/world/postscript-to-sarajevo-s-anguish-muslim-killings-of-serbs-detailed.html?pagewanted=all|work=The New York Times|date=12 November 1997}} A pit on the outskirts of the city was used as an execution site and a mass grave for Serbs who were rounded up, beaten and killed, sometimes by having their throats slit and decapitated.{{cite news |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Tracy |title=New Confessions of Barbarity Surface in Sarajevo |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-nov-28-mn-58557-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |date=28 November 1997}}{{cite book |last1=Evangelista |first1=Matthew |last2=Tannenwald |first2=Nina |title=Do the Geneva Conventions Matter? |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19937-979-8 |page=222 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dWIwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA222}} The total number of victims killed is not known, with estimates ranging from a few dozen to some hundreds.{{cite web |title=Les victimes serbes oubliées de Sarajevo |trans-title=Forgotten Serb victims in Sarajevo |url=https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Les-victimes-serbes-oubliees-Sarajevo-2016-07-08-1300774635 |website=www.la-croix.com |publisher=Agence France-Presse |language=French |date=8 July 2016}} The actions of paramilitary units led many thousands of Serbs to flee the city, particularly in the summer of 1992.{{cite book |last1=Donia |first1=Robert J. |title=Sarajevo: A Biography |date=2006 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-47211-557-0 |page=323 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACvJHam2_-oC&pg=PA323}} By war's end, the number of Serbs in Sarajevo was estimated to be in the low tens of thousands, fewer than 20% of those who had lived in the city in 1991.

After the signing of the Dayton accords, a mass exodus of Sarajevo Serbs took place in early 1996 numbering an estimated 62,000.{{cite book |last1=Bollens |first1=Scott A. |title=Cities, Nationalism and Democratization |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781134111831 |page=97 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S6l8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA97}}

Churches

There are three main Serbian Orthodox places of worship in Sarajevo: the Old Orthodox Church ({{langx|sr|Стара православна црква}} or {{lang|sr-Latn|Stara pravoslavna crkva}}), dating back to the 16th century,[http://www.staracrkva.org/politika_15_april_1931_stara_crkva.htm Old Serbian Orthodox Church Sarajevo, Official Website] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091114104527/http://www.staracrkva.org/politika_15_april_1931_stara_crkva.htm |date=2009-11-14 }} the Cathedral Church (Саборна црква or Saborna crkva), which was erected in the 1860s, and the Church of Sveto Preobraženje in Novo Sarajevo.

Notable people

{{multiple image

| width = 180

| image1 = Sarajevo - Udeo Srba po naseljima 1991 L.gif

| alt1 = 1991 census

| image2 = Sarajevo - Udeo Srba po naseljima 2013 L.gif

| alt2 = 2013 census

| footer = Share of Serbs in Sarajevo by settlements in 1991 (left) and 2013 (right)

}}

Image:Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God.jpg]]

Image:Sarajevo Church-of-the-Holy-Transfiguration 2011-10-16.jpg]]

Image:Sima Milutinovic Sarajlija.jpg, a poet, hajduk, translator and historian]]

Image:Jovan Marinović.jpg, Prime Minister of Serbia (1873 – 1874)]]

Image:Nedeljko Cabrinovic.jpg, a Young Bosnia member]]

Image:Momo Kapor wiki.jpg, a novelist and painter]]

Image:20220710-Rudolstadt-Festival-2022-Goran-Bregovic-7849 (cropped).jpg, a musician]]

Image:ZdravkoColic (cropped).JPG, a singer]]

Image:Kusturica 2024.jpg, a filmmaker, actor and musician]]

Image:Boris Tadić (cropped).jpg, President of Serbia (2004 – 2012)]]

Notable Serbs who were born in or lived in Sarajevo include:

See also

References

{{reflist}}

External links

  • [http://www.prosvjeta.com/ Prosvjeta - Serb Cultural Society]
  • [http://www.mitropolija.org/ Serbian Orthodox Mitropolitanate of Dabro-Bosnia]
  • [http://www.staracrkva.org/ Official site of the Old Orthodox Church]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Serbs In Sarajevo}}

Sarajevo

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