"This book focuses on the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1870s. After an introduction to the region and the political zeitgeist of the late 1860s and early 1870s, it examines in detail the dramatic years beginning in the summer of 1875, when the outbreak of violent unrest in the eastern Herzegovinian region bordering Montenegro led to a massive refugee catastrophe. The study traces the surprising further political and social dynamics to the summer and fall of 1878, when a Habsburg army finally invaded the Bosnian Vilayet and took control of the province - but only after months of fighting against massive local resistance throughout the province. This book cannot be viewed in isolation from larger political dynamics, which are also constantly present in this study as they unfolded. However, as this book attempts to show, it is hardly possible to understand the often contradictory effects of these larger political dynamics without delving deeper into the complex local rationalities and constraints on the action of the actors involved in them. The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia will appeal to students, teachers, and researchers in late Ottoman and Bosnian history"--

This book focuses on the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1870s. After an introduction to the region and the political zeitgeist of the late 1860s and early 1870s, it examines in detail the dramatic years beginning in the summer of 1875, when the outbreak of violent unrest in the eastern Herzegovinian region bordering Montenegro led to a massive refugee catastrophe. The study traces the surprising further political and social dynamics to the summer and fall of 1878, when a Habsburg army finally invaded the Bosnian Vilayet and took control of the province - but only after months of fighting against massive local resistance throughout the province. This book cannot be viewed in isolation from larger political dynamics, which are also constantly present in this study as they unfolded. However, as this book attempts to show, it is hardly possible to understand the often contradictory effects of these larger political dynamics without delving deeper into the complex local rationalities and constraints on the action of the actors involved in them. The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia will appeal to students, teachers, and researchers in late Ottoman and Bosnian history.

In Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia, Ines Aščerić-Todd explores the involvement of Sufi orders in the formation of Muslim society in the first two centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia (15th - 16th centuries C.E.). Using a wide range of primary sources, Aščerić-Todd shows that Sufi traditions and the activities of dervish orders were at the heart of the religious, cultural, socio-economic and political dynamics in Bosnia in the period which witnessed the emergence of Bosnian Muslim society and the most intensive phase of conversions of the Bosnian population to Islam. In the process, she also challenges some of the established views regarding Ottoman guilds and the subject of futuwwa (Sufi code of honour).

Notwithstanding the advantages of physical power, the struggle for survival among societies is not merely a matter of serial armed clashes but of the nation's spiritual resources that in the end always decide upon the victory. In Europe, there indeed exist independent countries, insignificant from the point of view of the entire civilization, and born by sheer coincidence, yet, this coincidence, this fancy, or diplomatic ploy that created them can just as easily bring them to an end---the nations that count in the political calculations are only the enlightened ones. Therefore, our nation should not merely grow in power, strengthen its character, and foster in people the feeling of love for homeland, but also---inasmuch as it is possible---breath the fresh breeze of humanity's general progress, feed it to the nation, absorb its creative energy. Until now, we have trusted and lived only in the weary conditions, conditions devoid of health-giving elements---now, as a result the nation's heart beats too slowly and its mind works too tediously. We ought to open our windows to Europe, to the wind of continental change and allow it to air our sultry home, since as not all health comes from the inside, not all disease comes from the outside.

Distinguished scholar James D. Tracy shows how the Ottoman advance across Europe stalled in the western Balkans, where three great powers confronted one another in three adjoining provinces: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia. Until about 1580, Bosnia was a platform for Ottoman expansion, and Croatia steadily lost territory, while Venice focused on protecting the Dalmatian harbors vital for its trade with the Ottoman east. But as Habsburg-Austrian elites coalesced behind military reforms, they stabilized Croatia’s frontier, while Bosnia shifted its attention to trade, and Habsburg raiders crossing Dalmatia heightened tensions with Venice. The period ended with a long inconclusive war between Habsburgs and Ottomans, and a brief inconclusive war between Austria and Venice. Based on rich primary research and a masterful synthesis of key studies, this book is the first English-language history of the early modern Western Balkans. More broadly, it brings out how the Ottomans and their European rivals conducted their wars in fundamentally different ways. A sultan’s commands were not negotiable, and Ottoman generals were held to a time-tested strategy for conquest. Habsburg sovereigns had to bargain with their elites, and it took elaborate processes of consultation to rally provincial estates behind common goals. In the end, government-by-consensus was able to withstand government-by-command.

Vance-Owen peace plan, the tenuous resolution of the Dayton Accords, and the efforts of the United Nations to keep the uneasy peace.

Bosnia enjoyed a special status within the Ottoman Empire. Many of the empire's 'janissaries', an elite military stratum of soldiers and nobleman, hailed from this Balkan region. So when Sultan Mehmet II abolished this warrior class in 1826, and this curtailed the regions access to influence in Constantinople, Bosnia rebelled. Under the leadership of Husein Gradascevic, the 'dragon of Bosnia', the kingdom declared independence and waged war with the Ottoman Empire. For the first time, Fatma Sel Turhan illuminates a period of crucial importance to the Balkan regions. She argues convincingly that the uprising was a response to Ottoman moves towards modernization designed to save the Ottoman Empire from decline, but which eventually led to its demise. She assesses how far the uprising can be considered a nationalist movement, who the rebels were, and how the central authorities dealt with and punished the perpetrators. "The Ottoman Empire and the Bosnian Uprising" is a major fresh contribution to our understanding of the late Ottoman world and the history of the Balkans.