Muslimani / Bošnjaci u Slavoniji: ratni sukobi, identitet, suživot
Muslims / Bosniaks in Slavonia: Armed Conflicts, Identity, Coexistence

Summary/Abstract: This text analyses social, demographic and identity processes within the Muslim/ Bosniak national corpus in Croatia, particularly in one of its parts, in three Slavonian counties: Osijek-Baranya (Osijek), Vukovar-Srijem (Gunja) and Brod-Posavina (Slavonski Brod). Additionally, the analysis comprehends: the socio-political status in this area, immigration time and causes, acceptance in the new environment, coexistence experiences, participation in armed conflicts and post-war multi-ethnic coexistence. During the process of the breakup of Yugoslavia, immediately prior to as well as during the armed conflicts, numerous issues of nationality and nation were raised, such as how certain ethnic groups had developed as well as their recognition of or challenges to them by larger groups in the territory of the SFRY (Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia) as well as sovereignty issues and the rights of the states created during the process of the breakup of former Yugoslav state to be constituted. The Muslims as a ‘young’ nation were placed in a particularly difficult position; in addition, they were challenged from adjacent larger nations, especially from the protagonists of Serbian and Croatian ethno-nationalism. The problematic attachment of the nation to religion led within the Muslim national community to the debate of who and what Muslims were. In the midst of the armed conflicts in the territory of former Yugoslavia when Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Muslims in it suffered extremely severe consequences, the intellectual elite of this national community proposed and adopted the national name Bosniaks for Muslims. In the wake of these changes and self-interrogation and with the objective of understanding the role the Muslims/Bosniaks played during the war in Croatia (Slavonia), semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the national community in Gunja, Osijek and Slavonski-Brod. In total eighteen (18) interviews were conducted with men aged between 56 and 77. After analyzing the interviews, the researchers gained insight into the organization of the Bosniaks in Slavonia, their activities in preserving their national identity, the relationship to the new national name and their role in the armed conflicts in the 1990s in defending the Republic of Croatia.

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