CHAPTER TWELVE
BOSNIA AND THE HERZEGOVINA
The Lamp of the Past illumines the Present.
The summer of 1906 saw me no longer restricted to two months' travel, but free to go where I pleased for as long as I liked. I planned a great scheme for the study and comparison of the traditions and customs of all the Balkan races, and in August started for Bosnia.
In ancient days all Bosnia and the Herzegovina formed part of Illyria, and was inhabited by the ancestors of the modern Albanian. Thousands of prehistoric graves, similar to those found also in Serbia and Albania, are scattered over the land. A huge cemetery exists at Glasinatz above Serajevo. The multitude of objects found in these graves reveal a very early Iron Age. Bosnia was one of Europe's earliest "Sheffields." Iron tools and bronze ornaments show that their makers were skilled workmen. The ornaments are of particular interest, as many are very similar in design to those still worn by Balkan peasantry, and as the bulk of Balkan silversmiths are Albanians or Vlachs both craft and design would appear to have been handed down from very ancient days.
The Illyrians were great warriors. "The difficulty," says J. B. Bury, the eminent historian of the later Roman Empire, "experienced by the Romans in subduing and incorporating the brave tribes is well known." Briefly, Rome's first punitive expedition to Illyria was in 230 B.C., but the land was not finally annexed till 169 A.D.
The Romans colonized Illyria. Christianity reached the coast early and slowly penetrated inland. Illyria formed part of the Patriarchate of Rome, and Latin became the official language throughout the Peninsula, save in the extreme south and south-east coast-line. Up-country and in the mountains the people evidently retained their own speech, that from which modern Albanian derives. The people in the plains, in direct contact with the Roman settlers, developed a sort of bastard Latin speech and doubtless intermarried largely with the Romans. They and their language exist to-day. They are known as the Kutzovlachs, and are thickly settled on the old Roman routes and the hill-tops. As frequently happens in history, but is invariably forgotten by those who go out to conquer, the marked individuality of the vanquished speedily re-asserted itself and gradually absorbed the victor. The Roman Empire shortly split in twain, and the East was largely ruled by Emperors of native Balkan blood, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, and many of lesser note. Greatest of all was Justinian (527-565), who was of Illyrian birth and succeeded his uncle Justin, a common soldier risen to the purple.
"In four departments," says Bury, "Justinian has won immortal fame. In warfare, in architecture, in law and in Church history." To him the world owes St. Sofia. He and his uncle Justin both strove against the schism between the Roman and Byzantine Churches, and he was powerful enough to carry a measure which tended to unity by modifying, the Synod of Chalcedon without breaking with Rome. And he prided himself upon speaking Latin. Yet there are those to-day who would hand over his Church of the Holy Wisdom to Greek propagandists. He dealt the final blow at Paganism and denounced the Manicheans—of whom we shall hear much later—and enacted severe laws against them.
The history of modern Bosnia begins in Justinian's reign. The Slavs then began to threaten the Empire. Tribes began to drift across the Danube and settle in groups already in the fifth century, but were stopped for a while by the Huns and Ostrogoths, who swept over the Peninsula and infested Illyria and Epirus.
"The departure of the Ostrogoths," says Bury, "was like the opening of a sluice. The Slavs and Bulgars, whom their presence had held back, were let loose on the Empire. . . . The havoc made by these barbarians was so serious that Justinian made new lines of defence." In 548 and 551 A.D. masses of Slavs ravaged the land. "The massacres and cruelties committed by these barbarians," says Bury, "make the readers of Procopius shudder." The readers of the Carnegie report of 1913 do likewise.
Among the fortresses built by Justinian was Singidunum, now Belgrade, which, founded to hold back the Slav, is now his capital. The invading Slavs were pagan, the natives largely Christian. "The Christians," says Presbyter Diocleas, "seeing themselves in great tribulation and persecution, began to gather on the mountains and tried to construct castles and strongholds that they might escape from the hands of the Slavs until God should visit and liberate them." This is probably the origin of the Vlach settlements on hill-tops and the Albanian mountain strongholds. "The year 581," says John of Ephesus, "was famous for the invasion of the accursed Slavonians . . . who captured cities and forts, and devastated and burnt, reducing the people to slavery, and made themselves masters of the country and settled it by main force. Four years have elapsed and still they live in the land . . . and ravage and burn." The Romans and their civilization were swept coastward, and in Dalmatia their civilization never quite died out. In later times the term "Romanes" was used in a special sense to denote the Romans who maintained their independence against the Slavs. Ragusa and Cattaro are some of the towns they founded.
Of the native population many refuged in the Albanian mountains, where they retained their language. Many doubtless remained and were absorbed by the Slavs. Traces, however, of the Illyrian still remain in Bosnia. Tattooing is still common there in many districts. Tattooing is not a Slav custom, but is specially noticed by classic authors as a characteristic of the ancient Balkan tribes. Neither have the Bosnians, as a whole, ever been attached to the Orthodox Church as have the remainder of the Balkan Slavs.
The early history of the Slavs in the Peninsula is obscure. They were a tribal people, and were for some time dominated by the Bulgars. Not till the end of the twelfth century did they unite under their very able line of Nemanja princes and rise to be a power. Even under the Nemanjas the local chieftains were semi-independent, and their inability to cohere proved the undoing of the realm.
Bosnia at an early date—it is said A.D. 940—was ruled by elective Bans. Stefan Nemanja the First Crowned of Serbia, called himself King of Serbia, Dalmatia and Bosnia, but the title seems to have been but nominal. The Bans did as they pleased and intrigued constantly with the Hungarians against the Serbs. The Bosniaks, too, became sharply divided from the Serbs by religion. Already in Justinian's time many of the Slavs near the Dalmatian coast had been converted to Christianity by priests from Rome, and much of the Herzegovina has ever since been Catholic. The mass of the Slavs, however, were pagan till the ninth century, when they were converted by the great mission led by Cyril and Methodius from Salonika.
Manicheism had already, in Justinian's time, taken a strong hold in the Balkan Peninsula. It now became amalgamated with a form of Christianity. A sect known as the Paulicians arose in Samosata in Asia Minor, which combined Manicheism with a peculiar reverence for the teaching of St. Paul. Fiercely persecuted by the Christians, they revolted, joined with the Mahommedans, and wasted much of Asia Minor. The Emperor Constantino Copronymus (A.D. 741), in order to weaken them, transported a great number to Thrace to serve as frontier guards. John I. Zimisces (A.D. 969) settled another large body in the Balkan valleys. Thence their doctrines spread fast. It would be of interest to know how much of their physical qualities were transmitted also. The new faith was known as Bogumil (dear to God) from its reputed Slav leader.
The rapidity with which it spread shows the very slight hold Christianity had as yet taken. The sun and the moon, which figured prominently in it, probably appealed to the old pre-Christian nature-worship of the Slavs. Alexius Comnenus vainly tried to extirpate the heresy by savage persecution. Basil, its high priest, was burnt alive. The sect fled westward and Bosnia became its stronghold. Religion in the Middle Ages was a far greater force than race. Nationality was hardly developed. Bosnia, into which the Orthodox faith seems to have penetrated but little, if at all, was thus cut off from the Serb Empire, for the bulk of the Bosniaks were either Bogumil or Roman Catholic.
We find a great many monuments of the Bogumils scattered through Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Huge monolithic gravestones often curiously carved. The sun, the moon and the cross appear as symbols, and portraits of warriors kilted and armed with bows and arrows and a cuirass, which give a good idea of the chieftain of the Middle Ages. The kilt is still worn by the Albanians.
Of the Bogumil creed not much is known, and that chiefly from its enemies. Catholic and Orthodox alike regarded the heresy with horror. But even its enemies allowed the Bogumils to have been an ascetic and temperate people. They abhorred the use of ikons and images, and unless the subterranean chapel at Jaitza be one, have left no church. Their doctrines spread into west Europe, and by the end of the twelfth century had developed in France into the sect of the Albigenses which was suppressed by the Roman Church with terrible ferocity. It is of interest that the rayed sun and the moon are still found in the armorial bearings of South of France families.
In Bosnia Bogumilism almost superseded all other faiths. In the twelfth century the Catholic Dalmatians and Hungarians in vain tried to suppress it by force. In 1189 Kulin Ban, the ruler of Bosnia, himself turned Bogumil. He recanted under pressure from Rome, but soon relapsed again, and in spite of an Hungarian crusade which ravaged the land, Bogumilism triumphed, the palace of the Catholic Bishop of Kreshevo was burnt and the Catholic episcopacy banished. The Bishop of Bosnia had to reside in Slavonia, and Bogumilism spread into Dalmatia and Croatia.
Bosnia was thus completely divided from the Serb Kingdom of Rashia, which had meanwhile grown up and thrown in its lot with the Orthodox Church. The Bans, in fact, preferred the assistance of the Catholics to the risk of conquest by the Serbs, and in 1340 we find Ban Stefan declaring himself Catholic and agreeing to the establishment of two Bishoprics.
Stefan Dushan, Serbia's greatest Tsar, was now at the height of his power. He succeeded in bringing the south of Bosnia under his control, but the then Ban Stefan Tvrtko (1353) joined with the Venetians and Hungarians against him. Nor was Bosnia as a whole added to Serbia. Tsar Dushan died in 1356 and Tvrtko at once reclaimed his lands, but held them only as a vassal state to Hungary.
The Serb peoples, divided into many small rival principalities, fought each other continuously, though the enemy which was to overwhelm them all was already advancing upon them. The Turk who, be it remembered, had entered Europe at the invitation of the Greeks, to aid them against the attack of Tsar Dushan, had firmly established themselves in the peninsula. Nevertheless the rival native princelings intrigued one against the other, and some even enlisted the help of the Turk instead of banding together against him. The Balkans were an easy prey for any strong foe.
Even after the Turks had beaten the Serbs severely, Stefan Tvrtko, King of Bosnia, seems only to have regarded this as an advantage to himself. He continued extending his realm; had himself crowned "King of Bosnia, Serbia and the coastland" in 1375, and was then the most powerful of the Balkan rulers. As an ally of King Lazar, who ruled over a much reduced Serbia, he, too, sent an army to Kosovo when, far too late, the Balkan people at last united against the Turk. But they lost the day. Union Was impossible to them, and a large part of the Serb Army deserted to the enemy.
Even then the Balkan princelings failed to recognize their danger. Tvrtko, still bent on extending his realm, Instead of opposing the Turks, who did not follow up their victory, gave all his energies to waging war against the Croats and Dalmatians, who at that time were under the King of Hungary. Tvrtko died in 1391, bequeathing a big Bosnia to his heir. But all mediaeval Balkan States were big only during the lifetime of their creator. Tvrtko's brother soon lost the newly acquired Croatian and Dalmatian districts, and Bosnia was further weakened by the breaking off of what is now known as the Herzegovina. It had for long had its own chiefs. One stronger than usual now arose, Sandalj Ranitch. The Turk was almost at the gate, but Sandalj's only object was to make himself a state independent of Bosnia. Kosovo had indeed taught the South Slavs nothing.
The advancing Turk began raiding Bosnia and employed Serbian troops. The Ragusa archives record: "In January 1398, the son of Bajazet, with a great number of Turks and Slavs, entered Bosnia." Stefan Ostoja was now King of Bosnia, but he too seems to have been more intent upon annexing Ragusa than in organizing defence against the Turk. Nor can we stop to unravel the complicated series of quarrels of one Slav prince with another, of their intrigues with Venice, with Hungary, with Ragusa, each playing for his own hand, though the Turks were now established as near as Uskub, and in 1415 invaded Bosnia for the third time. Sigismund, King of Hungary, alone of the neighbouring princes, realized the gravity of the situation and sent an army against the Turks, only to find that the Herzegovina sided with the Turks against him. As a result, we learn from the Ragusa archives, "the whole of Bosnia is laid waste and the barons are preparing to exterminate each other."
Venice meanwhile crept down the coast and occupied much of Dalmatia, while the South Slavs fought each other.
Nationality is the craze of to-day. Religion, in the Middle Ages, played a similar part. Catholic, Orthodox, and Bogumil, hated each other more than they hated the less known Turk. Each was willing to use him against the other.
People of the same race and language then fought each other because they differed about religion. To-day, even holding the same religious views, they fight in the sacred name of nationality. But then, as now, there were a few people who recognized the folly of the fashionable differences. At the Council of Basel in 1431 an effort was made to induce the Balkan chiefs, Catholic, Orthodox and even Bogumil, to send delegates to Basel with a view to ending religious strife and opposing a united front to the Turk.
It was vain. The King of Bosnia, and Stefan, Despot of Serbia, declared war on each other and fought for several years. And Sandalj, Lord of the Herzegovina, sided with the Serbs and bought of the Sultan the right to take Bosnia. They failed to do so, but their efforts certainly helped the final destruction of Slav independence.
Sandalj's successor, Stefan Kosatch, assumed the title Duke of Sava (whence "Herzegovina" the Duchy), became Bogumil and consequently fought both the Orthodox of Serbia and the Catholics of Ragusa. And ever the Turk advanced slowly and always found a Slav chief ready to side with him against a neighbour. At Fotcha, in the Herzegovina, I bought a bracelet of a silversmith, who related that his ancestor was the man who had guided the Turks into the district.
Constantinople fell in 1453, and left the Sultan free to complete the conquest of the Balkans. The Hungarians, led by the great Hunyadi, opposed him. But the Orthodox Serbs, led by their Despot George Brankovitch, whose ancestor had deserted to the Turks at Kosovo, hated Catholicism more than Islam, and sided with the Turk against Hunyadi.
The end soon came. The last King of Bosnia, Stefan Tomashovitch, a Catholic, asked help of the Pope, and endeavoured to raise troops among the Catholics of Dalmatia and Croatia. This enraged his Bogumil subjects, who preferred the Turks. The Sultan's army met little resistance; Stefan was taken prisoner and beheaded by the Turks in 1463, and soon all Bosnia was included in the Turkish Empire. As in other Balkan lands, the rights of the Christians were recognized. The Franciscans were appointed as their spiritual head, and several Franciscan monasteries date from these early days.
The Bogumils in large numbers adopted Islam, with which, in its abhorrence of ikons and images, and in its Monotheism, they were in greater sympathy than with either of the Christian Churches, both of which had persecuted them. But Bogumilism lasted into the nineteenth century, possibly into the twentieth, for a case was reported to me in 1911.
Those Christians who objected to Turkish rule fled south into Montenegro, especially from the Herzegovina, which was finally overthrown by the Turks in 1484.
Nor did the enmity between the Bosniaks and the Serbs cease now that they were under a common foe. Throughout the histories of Serbia and Montenegro we find that the Moslems of Bosnia and the Herzegovina were their bitterest enemies and that the armies, sent against them by the Sultans were very largely recruited from these districts. The sense of nationality did not begin to develop until very much later.
Under the Turk the feudal system of the pre-Turk days continued. We get a clear idea of the pre-Turk social conditions from the laws of Tsar Stefan Dushan, which show the strongly marked class difference of noble and serf. The noble was almost tax-free, but had to supply troops. The serf was tied to the land, and could only leave it with his lord's permission. Different punishments were inflicted upon nobles and serfs, the nobles' being naturally the lighter. So independent was the noble that he could build his own church or monastery in his land and chose its bishop. The serfs were judged by the noble upon whose land they were. They paid taxes; had to give him two days' work a week, and three if he had vineyards; cut hay and corn for him, and so forth. In pre-Turk days the rule of the chieftain seems to have been severe. Under the Turk the system continued, and the "Turk" of many a ballad who oppresses his Christian peasant was in fact the Slav feudal nobleman who, having turned Moslem carried on the ancestral tradition, and to the tyranny of the feudal noble added religious intolerance.
There was little organized government under the Turks. The traditional ballads give us vivid pictures of the heyduks, or brigands. Highway robbery up till, and well into, the nineteenth century was both a lucrative business and a sport which well suited the lazy but adventurous spirit of the people. It perpetuated in fact the everlasting raids of one noble against another in pre-Turk days. To this day a Montenegrin "junak" delights in pillaging a village. But continuous work is abhorrent to him.
Armed Turkish patrols guarded the main trade routes between Ragusa, Constantinople and Vienna. They cleared the route from time to time, and then woe to the captured heyduk, whether Moslem or Christian. Heavy the ransom to buy his freedom. But brigandage was rampant before the Turk came, and, as we have seen, the history of the Peninsula was one of incessant bloodshed and disorder. The Turk, in fact, showed more toleration for his Balkan subjects than they did for each other. Each aimed at the extermination of the other. Probably, had not the Turk overwhelmed them all, one or other would have ultimately predominated, and absorbed or exterminated the rest. Under the Turk all survived. He slapped them each impartially and allowed no one to exterminate the other. Nor was their hatred of the Turk ever great enough to cause them to combine against him till 1912, and then they were at each other's throats again so soon as he was removed.
Though, as we have seen, Montenegro was recruited by refugees from Bosnia, the converse also holds good. Many a Serb and Montenegrin flying from blood-vengeance, many a Slav criminal flying from Austrian justice, refuged in Turkish territory and turned Moslem. Nor when, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Serbs struck for independence did Bosnia join them. The Slav Vezir and the Pashas of Bosnia led great armies against them. By then the whole situation had changed, however. The ebb-tide of the Turk had begun. Austria and Russia in the eighteenth century had already decided upon the partition of his lands. Russia thought and cared only for Constantinople and the way there. Bosnia was recognized as Austria's sphere. The long wars and the liberation of the Serbs had effects in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Revolts, largely agrarian, of the Christians began to take place. The big landowners, though Slavs, were Moslems. Their peasants were largely Christian. In 1849 a great rising was followed by the flight of thousands of Christian peasants into Austria, who in time of stress has often been the South Slav's only friend. The Herzegovinians, encouraged and incited by the Montenegrins on their borders, rose frequently, and it was their great rising of 1875 which started the Russo-Turkish War of 1877.
Before declaring war, however, Russia came to an agreement with Austria about Bosnia. It was understood that Austria should receive Bosnia on condition that she took no part in the war. Russia did not include this in the Treaty of San Stefano, but the scheme received the strongest support at the Congress of Berlin. The aim of both England and Germany was to hold back the ever forward-pressing Slav forces. Great Britain pledged herself to Austria previous to the Congress. "Le Gouvernement de Sa Majeste Britannique s'engage a soutenir tout proposition concernant la Bosnie que le Gouvernement Austro-Hongroise (sic) jugera a propos de faire au Congres."
Austria was offered Bosnia without reservation, and could then and there have annexed it. It was only doubt on Austria's part which led her to choose "administration" in place of annexation. The decision of the Congress at once caused trouble. The mass of the Bosnian Moslems violently opposed separation from Turkey, and the Herzegovinians, who had risen with a view to union with Montenegro, were equally opposed to Austria. The Austrian Army in 1878 met with great resistance, and only after heavy losses and four months' fighting finally subdued the land. The Herzegovinians declared to me that they only laid down their arms at the request of the Prince of Montenegro, under the understanding that Austrian administration was to be but temporary, but under the terms of the Treaty no time-limit was mentioned.
That the arrangement was intended by the Powers to be permanent appears from the text now (1919) published from the Vienna archives under date June 18, 1881, whereby the Courts of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary agree that "Austria shall annex these two provinces at the moment she judges opportune." This agreement was renewed in 1884. That the Powers considered the provinces as definitely annexed is shown by the fact that when in 1881 Austria introduced military conscription and recruited regiments for her own army no objection was made, nor did any Power intervene when Austria put down by force the resultant insurrection. On the contrary they most sternly ordered the Prince of Montenegro to prevent his men from rushing to the aid of the insurgents. Nor did Europe make any protest when the capitulations were abolished by Austria, though the land was nominally still a Turkish province. And Austrian coinage soon entirely replaced Turkish money.
Up till this time it is important to note that Russia, was taking no steps with regard to claiming Bosnia for her Pan-Slav schemes. Her immediate aim was Constantinople, and she had planned to obtain it by means of a large Bulgaria, which should be a vassal state. But Bulgaria soon struck for complete independence and showed that she would never be Russia's puppet, and elected Prince Ferdinand in defiance of the Tsar with the express intention of breaking away from Russian influence.
Russia therefore finally turned towards the Great Serbian Idea, which otherwise she would probably not have taken up till the annexation of Constantinople had been accomplished.
Till now, Russia had recognized the Montenegrin dynasty as the leader of Great Serbism. She now turned towards Serbia. It was in a far better geographical position and could supply a much larger army, and Montenegro could still be used as a tool.
The result of this was that when in 1897 the Emperor Franz Josef and Goluchowski went to Petersburg and asked for a confirmation of the agreement of 1881, "that the territorial advantages recognized to Austria-Hungary by the Berlin Treaty are and remain acquired by Austria-Hungary and therefore the possession of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Sanjak of Novibazar cannot form matters of discussion; the Austro-Hungarian Government reserving to itself the right of substituting for the actual title of occupation and garrisoning, that of annexation."
Russia had now other plans and replied "the annexation of the two provinces would give rise to more extensive questions which would necessitate a special examination in time and place."
And in the summer of that very year the Tsar received Petar Karageorgevitch, the exiled claimant to the Serbian throne, and started upon her Great Serbian intrigue.