HOD PO TRNJU: MUSLIMANI/BOŠNJACI OD ETNIČKE SKUPINE DO NACIJE
A WALK THROUGH THORNS: MUSLIMS/BOSNIAKS FROM AN ETHNIC GROUP TO A NATION

Summary/Abstract: The denial of national status to Muslims/Bosniaks persisted throughout the existence of both the first (monarchist) and the second (socialist) Yugoslavia. This was also manifested in the obstruction of their autonomist aspirations during the entire period of the monarchist Yugoslavia, including the attempt at its federalization in 1939. Following the collapse of that system due to the fascist occupation in 1941, the National Liberation Struggle (NOB) emerged under the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), with the aim of liberating the country and transforming the existing system so that each nation would obtain its own federal unit, as well as certain multiethnic entities such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sandžak. These commitments were realized through the establishment of ZAVNOS and ZAVNOBiH in November 1943. Muslims were treated as equal to Serbs and Croats, and to Serbs and Montenegrins, respectively. However, only a few days later, at the Second Session of AVNOJ, Muslims remained classified at the level of a “distinct ethnic group” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Sandžak and the Muslims of Sandžak were not mentioned at all. By the end of the war, the partisan autonomy of Sandžak had been abolished, and the region was divided between Serbia and Montenegro along the border line established during the Balkan Wars. Bosnia and Herzegovina remained as the sixth federal unit, while Muslims were treated in the new constitutions as a national minority, with tendencies toward their assimilation into either Serbian or Croatian national identity. After two decades of struggle within socialist Yugoslavia, Muslims attained national status. This was a long and complex process, a true “walk through thorns.” The dissolution of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s brought new challenges in this regard as well.

• Details
• Contents