The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina or Bosnian Serbs, are one of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to data from the 2013 census, the population of ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina was 1,086,733, constituting 30.8% of the total population; they are the second-largest ethnic group in the country (after Bosniaks) and live predominantly in Republika Srpska.
Serbs have a long history of inhabiting the present-day territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as statehood in the territory. Slavs settled the Balkans in the 6th century and the Serbs were one of the main tribes who settled the peninsula including parts of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Parts of Bosnia were ruled by the Serbian prince Časlav in the 10th century while the southeastern and eastern parts became integrated into the Serbian medieval state under the Nemanjić dynasty by the 13th-14th centuries. After the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the majority of the Orthodox Christian population in the region retained their Serbian ethnic and religious identity under the restored Serbian Patriarchate of Peć, while many landowners converted to Islam. Throughout the period of Ottoman rule, the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formed the core of several major uprisings against Ottoman rule. In 1878, following the Congress of Berlin, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, facing resistance from the Serb population, which increasingly aspired to unification with the Kingdom of Serbia, culminating in growing tensions that contributed to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which led to the outbreak of World War I.
After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina supported the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia), seeing it as the realization of national unification with Serbia. During the World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the Nazi-puppet state of Independent State of Croatia in which hundreds of thousands of Serbs were killed in a genocide carried out by the Ustaše regime, while the Partisan fought the Nazi occupiers and their collaborators. In socialist Yugoslavia, Serbs were recognized as one of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, holding significant political influence, while the republic experienced rapid industrialization and inter-ethnic peace until the late 1990s. The Bosnian War, triggered by the republic’s secession from Yugoslavia, saw the displacement of populations; the Dayton Agreement established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a consociational state of two entities, where Serbs today maintain strong political autonomy within the political-territorial entity of Republika Srpska, while continuing debates over centralization, secession threats, and NATO integration persist.
History Early Middle Ages
Slavic settlement in the Balkans began in the 6th century. The territory of present-day southwestern Serbia (Raška or "Rascia") and eastern Bosnia were the center of Serb settlement. Serb tribes and the groups of Slavs identifying with Serbs gradually expanded across Herzegovina and the Adriatic littoral.
Prince Vlastimir (r. 830–850) united the Serbian tribes in the vicinity, and after a victory over the advancing Bulgars, he went on to expand to the west, taking Bosnia and Zachlumia (Herzegovina). It is at about this point that Bosnia emerges in the sources as a distinct territorial entity, in De Administrando Imperio (ca. 960), a political and geographical document written by Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. In a section dedicated to the territories of the Serbian Prince Časlav his lands were described as including "Bosona, Katera and Desnik", demonstrating Bosnia's dependency on Serbs, although the areas comprised were smaller than modern-day Bosnia. Following his death, much of Bosnia was subjected to Croatian rule, before the arrival of Samuel of Bulgaria who subjugated the territory but eventually found himself deposed by the Byzantine Empire.
High and late Middle Ages
Over the course of the 11th century, Bosnia shifted between partial Croatian and partial Serbian governance. To the south of Bosnia proper laid the territories of Duklja, which included Zeta and Zachlumia, who were consolidated into a Serbian Kingdom and ruled by local Serb princes. Under Constantin Bodin, Serbian territory expanded to take most of Bosnia but the Kingdom broke up following his death in 1101. For much of the 12th century Bosnia was in a tug of war between Hungary and the Byzantine empire; Hungary annexed it 1137 before losing it to the Byzantine empire in 1167, and retaking it in 1180. After 1180, Ban Kulin, ruler of Bosnia began to assert his independence and Hungarian control became nominal. For most of the early medieval period Herzegovina was, effectively, Serbian territory with Bosnia proper being tied politically and religiously more towards Croatia. However, neither neighbor had held the territory long enough to acquire their loyalty or to impose any serious claim to Bosnia.
The Kotromanić noble and later royal dynasty would rule Bosnia from the second half of the 13th century until Ottoman conquest in 1463. It began with Stephen II in 1322, who managed to expand the realm of the Bosnian state with the acquisition of territories that included Herzegovina, enabling the formation of a single Bosnia and Herzegovina political entity for the first time. The Kotromanić intermarried with several southeastern and central European royal houses which aided their dynastic development. Stephen II's nephew, Tvrtko I, a descendant of the Serbian Nemanjić dynasty, succeeded him and established the Kingdom of Bosnia in 1377, crowning himself as "The King of Serbs and Bosnia". The last sovereign, Stephen Tomašević, ruled briefly as Despot of Serbia in 1459 and as King of Bosnia between 1461 and 1463, before losing both countries and his life to the Ottomans.
By the Middle Ages, Eastern Orthodoxy had become entrenched in Herzegovina, and during the Nemanjić dynasty the Serbian Orthodox Church's influence grew in the region. However, Orthodoxy lacked consequential progression into Bosnia until the Ottoman conquest. According to some historians, there was a general awareness in medieval Bosnia, at least amongst the rulers, of belonging to a joint state with Serbia and the same group of people. That awareness diminished over time, due to differences in political and social development, although it was kept in Herzegovina and parts of Bosnia, which were a part of the Serbian state.
Ottoman rule
The conquest of Bosnia by the Ottomans brought significant administrative, economic, social and cultural changes to the country. The Ottomans however, allowed for the preservation of Bosnian identity and territorial integrity by merely making Bosnia an integral province of its Empire. Under the millet system, Christians were granted a level of autonomy by the provision of local leaders who served the Ottoman state for religious, social, administrative, and legal purposes. The Ottomans allowed Christian communities to band together around these religious leaders and preserve their customs. Consequently, this system also made a clear distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims, paving the way for Islamic supremacy and discrimination towards Christians. For instance, non-Muslims had to pay additional taxes and could not own any land or property or hold positions in the Ottoman state apparatus. Thus, conversion to Islam was advantageous to Bosnians and the 15th and 16th centuries marked the beginning of the Islamization period. A major effect of this system was also the development of three distinct ethnic identities among the Bosnians during the 19th century. Given the threat of the Habsburg Empire to the Ottoman Empire, the Catholics of Bosnia faced strenuous religious oppression, although this same level of discrimination was also applied to the Orthodox population with the rise of an independent Serbian state in the 19th century. During the same period, Ottoman policies favored the settlement of a sizeable Orthodox Christian population into Bosnia proper, including some Vlachs from the central Balkans. The conversion of the adherents of the Bosnian Church also aided the spread of Eastern Orthodoxy. Later, some areas abandoned by Catholics during the Ottoman–Habsburg wars were settled with both Muslims and Orthodox Christians.
Construction of Orthodox monasteries and churches throughout Bosnia started in the northwest in 1515. An Orthodox priest was present in Sarajevo already in 1489, and the city's first Orthodox church was constructed between 1520 and 1539. The Serbian Patriarchate of Peć established a separate metropolitanate for Orthodox Christians in Bosnia, with metropolitan formally transferring his seat to Sarajevo in 1699. A turning point in relations between the Orthodox Church and the Ottomans occurred when Orthodox clergy renounced loyalty to the sultans and started encouraging and aiding peasant rebellions, and seeking Christian allies in neighboring lands, which in turn resulted in the persecution of their clergy. A major Serb uprising against Ottoman rule occurred during the Long Turkish War (1593–1606) when Serb clan chieftains in Herzegovina rose in rebellion actively supporting the Habsburg-led Holy League against the Ottomans and pursued the broader aim of restoring an independent Serbian state. The Herzegovina clan leaders coordinated with the Republic of Venice and with the Spanish viceroy of Naples, who provided promises of military and financial aid for the anti-Ottoman cause.
Around a quarter of rebel leaders (voivodes) of the Serbian Revolution were born in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina or had their roots in the region of Bosnia or Herzegovina. Mateja Nenadović met with local Serb leaders from Sarajevo in 1803 in order to negotiate their part in the rebellion, with the ultimate goal being that the two armies meet in Sarajevo.