"The Bosnian Identity " a Bosnia and Herzegovina Travel Page by travelife

Not surprisingly, Bosnia & Herzegovina brings on the picture of war-reporting and the overused term of 'ethnic cleansing'.

Both Serbian and Croatian scholars tend to identify Bosnians as their own people, thus to claim a larger territory of their own. But the Bosnians say something else: The all three people living in this area were always isolated by mountains or river (Drina, Sava etc.) and share more in common within than with... though historic Croatian border was at some point upto Jaice. Even after the announcement of independence of Bosnia there were 'peace rallies' from all sides in support of the Bosnian state and against the intervention of Belgrade. A reason for those peace rallies was that a large number of mixed marriages among Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox. As the question concerns whether Bosnians are former Catholics or Orthodox ---- the answer would be some from both of them but the most from the members of Bosnian church which was loosely related to Rome and severed ties with international Roman catholicism around 12th century. Bosnian Church remained a low key church without any control over the state and tolerated by the later Catholic rulers until 1459 when Papal aid against the Turks became conditional, i.e. elimination of the Bosnian church. A weak institution throughout its existence, members overwhelmingly converted to Islam to avoid persecutions from kings and also gained positions in Ottoman hierarchy.

As there has been a sense of differentiating from the sister Serbo-Croatian language and because of a new religion, many words from Arabic, Persian and/or Turkish were incorporated into Bosnian language. A slightly distinctive accent has also been developed this way. The term 'Bosniak' is used to refer Muslims. But the term 'Bosnian' should include all three people. This is a country where you are expected to be 100% politically correct!