Page 43 - Zbornik 39

39/2016 DEOSMANIZACIJSKI PROCESI NA BALKANU.. 43

Safet Bandžović

DEOSMANISATION PROCESSES IN THE BALKAN AND
THE BOSNIAN RESORTS: THE MUHAJIRS IN SANJAK (1908-1912.)

Abstract: History is a multi-significant process. The Balkan was, from the
second half of XIX century, exposed to fast processes of deosmanisation. The
wars contributed to a drastic change of its religious and national structure. The
diplomacy of great power was, even before “Great Eastern Crisis” and Berlin
Congress in 1878, very confused regarding ethnical allocation of its population
in this area. The attempts of ethnical delimitation remained the source of crises,
instrumentalisation, misunderstanding and disputes. At the end of XIX and begin-
ning of XX century, the Muslims in the Balkan felt left and besieged. The emi-
gration of the Bosnians from Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Ottoman Empire
was in several waves (1878-1912.),as a part of a broad process of emigration of
the Muslims from the Balkan, and it represents a strong emigration movement
caused by the action of a line of political, psychological, social, economic and
other factors. The Bosnian muhajirs (emigrants) were spread through the parts
of Sanjak, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania and Epirus to Iagnina, and over Rumelia
areas. A considerable number of Bosnian muhajirs came after 1878, in several
waves, especially after annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, and it
caused among the Bosnians a new political shock and resignation, and in Sanjak-
one of the muhajirs centres in the Ottoman part of the Balkan. Among the motives
of settlement of muhajirs in Sanjak in general was, certainly, besides ethnical
and language familiarity of the local population, to be closer to Bosnia and Her-
zegovina, hoping for the Austrian-Hungarian occupation to be a temporary one,
and Bosnia and Herzegovina would be again under the full Sultan’s sovereignty.
The Council tried in Sanjak, Kosovo and Macedonia, to keep muhajirs from po-
litical and military reasons. After the Balkan Wars 1912-1913, the emigrant wave
of domestic Bosnian population from Sanjak included numerous muhajirs from
Bosnia and Herzegovina. The cutting of the territory of the “Ottoman Europe”
in XIX and XX century, significant changes of its ethnical-religious structure,
the appearance of a new, narrow defining of the national identity, all brought to
discontinuation, deletion or shortening of history, fragmentation of awareness of
the remained Muslims and their sparse communities in this area, the absence of
knowledge on mutual connection of their destinies.