Academic literature on the topic 'Bosnian War stories'

The “Serbian Adolf” figures as one of many parallels between the Nazi aggression of World War II and the more recent wars in Bosnia (1992–1995). Though many recognized and drew attention to the atrocities committed against Bosnian civilians, the stories and images of deportation, mass murder, and concentration camps failed to stir an effective response from the international community of states, which had, fifty years before, promised to defend civilians from such abuses. This occurred despite clear signals that the Serb leadership meant not only to run an expansionist campaign to divide Bosnia with Croatia but also to destroy the Bosnian Muslim population. Instead, there were arguments about whether or not the Serb campaign in Bosnia was genocide, and if it was not genocide, whether it required intervention by other governments, especially by the Western powers. This is to say that although the experiences of World War II produced institutions to limit the excesses of war, especially as it affects civilians, this experience does not seem to have significantly changed the narrow political calculus of most states. In fact, the ideals enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations or the international law that applies to the conduct of modern warfare, such as the Geneva Conventions, are often viewed as outside or antithetical to the “reality” of international politics. It is more productive for the purposes of explanation to recognize that principled institutions, such as the UN or international law, are as much a part of world politics as are the interstate norms of sovereignty or national security. Yet while the institutions that are designed to promote collective security and provide relief from the vagaries of the international state system have gained in the postwar world, they are still beset with the contradictions of those same vagaries, namely, that states must both submit to and enforce the principles that would constrain them. The failure to intervene in Bosnia, at least on behalf of the civilian population if not also for the state of Bosnia itself, is a case in which governments that should have championed principles of international law found it more convenient to demur, despite an international awareness of the war’s excesses.

Hitler was drawn into an armed intervention in the Balkans by Mussolini’s rash attack on Greece. He had preferred to exploit the region’s material resources for his expansionist policies in the East. Once committed, his policies revealed a highly improvisational and often contradictory character. He compromised his racial policies with respect to the Slavs and the volksdeutsch. He quickly discovered that the main collaborationists, the Croat Ustaša, Serb Chetniks, Bosnian Muslims, and Slovene Guards were ineffective or unreliable in repressing the Partisans. He allowed his subordinates great latitude in carrying out his vague instructions. He maintained his friendship with Mussolini but deplored Italy’s ineffective occupation policies. His main concern during the war was to secure the region against landing by Western forces. After the surrender of Italy, his forces disarmed the Italians and took over their occupation duties, finding only the Albanians welcomed them.

ON THE PHENOMENON OF COFFEE AND PLACES WHERE IT WAS PREPARED IN BOSNIA IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES The paper follows the chronology and the methods of spreading coffee in the Ottoman Empire, which relatively quickly reached from Yemen to the Hijaz, i.e., Egypt, then to Istanbul, and finally to other cities in the Eyalet of Bosnia. Considering the fact that this was a very important phenomenon, which relatively quickly became a very active and influential social factor, the paper also points out the role of different groups of people in the spread of this drink. Among them, the most important role was played by merchants, students, pilgrims, dervishes, and Ottoman dignitaries, who brought coffee to the places where they performed their duties. All this influenced the adoption of this practice by various classes of society at the time. The paper also discusses the cyclical attitude of the Ottoman ulema and Porte towards coffee, which ranged from disapproval and strict prohi-bition to acceptance and approval, which accompanied the massive expansion of the coffeehouses. In the 17th century, this attitude changed again, after the great fire broke out in Istanbul in 1633, which served as an excuse to re-ban coffee and demolish a large number of coffeehouses, but this situation did not last long.Special attention was paid to the first news about coffee and coffeehouses in several cities in Bosnia. Based on the analysis of the text from Pečewī’s History, where the first coffeehouse in Bosnia was mentioned, it was determined that he actually described a coffeehouse for meeting distinguished people of Ayalet that was within the Pasha’s court in Banja Luka, and not in Sarajevo as was previous-ly thought. In addition to the coffeehouses in Banja Luka, there were also similar places where coffee was prepared in cities like Sarajevo, Foča, and Mostar. The paper draws attention to the fact that the gathering places of people, where they hung out over coffee, were different – the courts of Ottoman dignitaries, houses of city dignitaries, bazaar and mahala cafes, the coffeehouses near fortresses, 181O fenomenu kahve i mjestima gdje se pila u Bosni u 16. i 17. stoljećuhammams, and places in the open air where the army drank coffee while resting during a military campaign.Also, a prominent fact came from the source of that time that coffee and coffee-houses were the reason for intellectual meetings, but also a place where stories from history and oral tradition were told, as well as a place for singing heroic songs with fiddle or traditional music instrument called saz similar to the lute. Keywords: Coffee, coffeehouse, social life, Bosnia, court, guesthouse, bazaar

The chapter analyzes teaching traditions among Muslim women in Bosnia and how Islamic knowledge is transmitted, embedded in practices such as prayers, Quran recitation, singing and teaching. A case is provided of some Sarajevo women’s recitation gathering (mukabela) at the end of Ramadan which included instructive speech of some length. A young preacher (vaiza) made use of the common genre elements for a Muslim sermon and moved with confidence between comments on the Quran, paraphrases of narratives from the hadith and moral stories set in the present. The vaiza’s legitimacy to speak in the mosque was based on her formal education, reputation of personal piety and knowledge of local prayer and song traditions. Hence the audience accepted the preacher’s authority to give ethical guidance and included her interpretations of contemporary Muslim life with their conceptions of national heritage.