The paper argues that the narrative of the independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of its capital city Sarajevo under siege (1992-1995) was built on the trope of Sarajevo's European, ...Western-oriented, cosmopolitan cultural identity, based on the image initially nurtured by Socialist Yugoslavia. In the new context of the implosion of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945 -1991) the siege of Sarajevo and the war in one of the Yugoslav republics, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslav socialism was replaced by the multi-ethnic and cosmopolitan character of the young Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I argue that the image of Sarajevo during the siege, as a by-product of foreign attention to the plight of the country and its citizens, was built on the pre-existing premises that promoted Socialist Yugoslavia as Western oriented and therefore progressive, in contrast to other communist countries beyond the Iron Curtain.
In Sarajevo, since the formation of the Jewish religious community, the religious education of children has developed simultaneously. First, four-grade elementary schools, where mostly male children ...went, came forward. Later in the 17th century, Talmud-Torah secondary school was developed, while Yeshiva was only formed in the second half of the 18th century. Until the establishment of the Belgrade Yeshiva by Rav Yehuda Lerma in 5395 (1635) and the Sarajevo Yeshiva by Rav David Pardo in 5528 (1768), there were no rabbinical schools in the territories of the Western Balkans and neither rabbis. In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, there was a need for qualified personnel for the religious education of Jewish children and youth according to general laws, in lower and secondary schools. On June 13, 1928, the Jewish Secondary Theological Seminary was opened, which began operating on November 25, 1928. The Seminary operated until 1941, when it was closed on April 6 by Nazzi Germans. The paper aims to present the development of Jewish religious education from the arrival of Sephardim to Sarajevo in the 16th century until 1941. To show the importance of the development of rabbinic and Talmudic studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the reputation of Sarajevo's Jewish religious schools in Europe and the world.
Based on available archival material and periodicals, the author reconstructs the life story of Javer Effendi Baruch, one of the most respected and wealthy citizens of Sarajevo, during the ...Austro-Hungarian administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The personality of Javer Eff. Baruch has not been thoroughly researched in the historiography so far. It is known that Baruch gained a social reputation during Ottoman rule. After the arrival of Austria-Hungary in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he not only managed to preserve and strengthen his social position but also acquired enviable wealth. This paper aims to present the unusual life path of a Sephardic from Sarajevo. The paper analyzes his life path from a supplier for military needs, a customs tenant, a Sarajevo city councilor, to a convict for insulting majesty. Based on the available historical materials, the existence of changes in the relationship between the then administration and society towards Javer Effendi Baruch after 1887 is examined.
At the height of the Serbian siege of Sarajevo, Ellen Blackman could no longer bear the televised images of wounded children desperate for medical care. So she set off for Bosnia. There she shared ...the tragedies and occasional triumphs of a brave people whose world was crumbling around them while a seemingly indifferent world stood by. And despite tremendous bureaucratic and dangerous obstacles, she got the children out.
This paper explores how citizens took part in educational opportunities in the Ottoman Empire with their endowments (waqfs). The focus is on the charity work for the benefit of maktabs in the City of ...Sarajevo in the Ottoman Era. The paper expounds on the contribution the citizens made to maktabs – the institutions which provided elementary education for the children and youth. The time period the paper examines is 18th and 19th centuries, and the occasion is the event that took place in 1697, when Sarajevo was devastated under the attack of the Austrian Army. The research is based on waqfs dating back to those centuries, the records of which, predominantly in the form of transcripts, may be found in the Archives of the Gazi Husrev-Bay's Library in Sarajevo. It is indicated that over the period of several decades of the recovery of Sarajevo from the suffering of 1697, maktabs were rebuilt and supported for the greater part from endowments made by the citizens of Sarajevo, who donated their own property. In addition to rebuilding those maktabs which had been built next to mosques in the previous centuries, the citizens of Sarajevo also set up independent maktabs, away from the complex of a mosque. The endowments reveal that a rather widespread form of educational support provided by the citizens benefactors, both men and womene, was to allocate the income from an endowment for the teacher salaries. In that way, income for teachers was supplied in situations when the fundamental waqf from which a maktab was supported had been depleted. Examples show that benefactors assigned appropriate duties to the teaching staff in their waqf, which secured them (muallims) additional income. Support to educational opportunities was also reflected in giving gifts to students. Some benefactors specified that a portion of the income from an endowment was to be used to buy clothes for underprivileged students. Most often, students of a maktab, as well as other poorer inhabitants of a street block (mahalla) received from a waqf free bread, particularly in the holy days. The paper reveals that some citizens of Sarajevo allocated in their last will a one-off aid to maktabs from their inheritance. It also presents examples of private maktabs which were set up by wealthy, learned citizens to educate young people. Charity in general, particularly the one which was donated through the institute of waqfs, represented an important aspect of the activities of citizens in the Ottoman period. With those actions for the benefit of maktabs they supported educational opportunities in their own social communities. It was that very form of charity work that the citizens of Sarajevo maintained in the decades that followed after the end of the Ottoman rule.
At the end of the Bosnian War in December 1995, an internal boundary was drawn within the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It came to be known as the Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL). Its ...implementation caused a profound alteration in regional and urban systems, dividing the new State into two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) – Croat and Bosniak majority – and the Republika Srpska (RS) – Serb majority. In this paper, the consequences of this boundary on urban and regional development are analysed, focusing on the effects observed in Sarajevo. The emergence of the IEBL has transformed the city since its region has been divided into two halves analogously to the entities newly created. This division has not affected the main urban area, but has altered the eastern suburban zone due to the creation of East Sarajevo, a new city in the Republika Srpska. The new urban nucleus of East Sarajevo is being built adjacent to these eastern suburbs, causing spatial and social alterations on the border. This complex situation is analysed at different scales – from the scale of planning to that of ethnography – in order to evidence that although the IEBL neither divides the historic city nor is a physical frontier, contrasting processes of homogenisation do exist on each side which maintains a significant social and morphological differentiation.
•After the Bosnian War, the Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL) was created forming two new entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina.•The entities newly created are the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republika Srspka (RS).•The analysis of the plans drawn up by both entities demonstrates that the IEBL has affected regional and urban planning in Sarajevo's territory.•The IEBL has allowed the construction of East Sarajevo on the eastern side of the border, altering the regional and urban system.•Although the IEBL neither divides the historic city nor is it a physical frontier, contrasting processes of homogenisation are taking place on each side.
The article elaborates on the attempts of the editors of the Jewish weekly Jevrejski glas (published in Sarajevo in 1928–1941) to support fostering of the Sephardi tradition and Judeo-Spanish ...language during the period in which an inevitable process of language shift took place among the Sephardi citizens of Bosnia. The column Para noče de šabat, created with the help of the weekly’s readers, was one of the means serving that purpose. In the majority of the texts the main characters were Sephardi women, especially of the older generation, the women called tijas (aunts). For that reason, the paper presents how the authors showed female characters in the context of memory of “the true Sephardi spirit and tradition.” Additionally, we provide basic information on the gathered texts: linguistics and sociolinguistics of the language of the prose (its condition, lexis and local features), as well as the characteristics of narration.
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