Stephen Tvrtko, the nephew and successor of Kotromanić, was a minor, and for thirteen years his mother, Helena, acted as regent. Confronted by civil war, and deprived of Hlum by the Hungarians, she was compelled to acknowledge Establishment of the Bosnian kingdom. the suzerainty of Stephen Dushan, and afterwards of Louis. But in 1366 Tvrtko overcame all opposition at home, and forthwith embarked on a career of conquest, recapturing Hlum and annexing part of Dalmatia. The death of Stephen Dushan, in 1356, had left his empire defenceless against the Hungarians, Turks and other enemies; and to win help from Bosnia the Servian tsar Lazar ceded to Tvrtko a large tract of territory, including the principality of Tribunia. In 1376 Tvrtko was crowned as “Stephen I., king of Bosnia, Servia, and all the Sea-coast,” although Lazar retained his own title and a diminished authority. The death of Louis in 1392, the regency of his widow Elizabeth, and a fresh outbreak in Croatia, enabled Tvrtko to fulfil his predecessor’s designs by establishing a maritime state. With Venetian aid he wrested from Hungary the entire Adriatic littoral between Fiume and Cattaro, except the city of Zara; thus adding Dalmatia to his kingdom at the moment when Servia was lost through the Ottoman victory of Kossovo (1389). At his coronation he had proclaimed his purpose to revive the ancient Servian empire; in 1378 he had married the daughter of the last Bulgarian tsar; and it is probable that he dreamed of founding an empire which should extend from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. The disaster of Kossovo, though fatal to his ambition, did not immediately react on Bosnia itself; and when Tvrtko died in 1391, his kingdom was still at the summit of its prosperity.
Kotromanić and Tvrtko had known how to crush or conciliate their turbulent magnates, whose power reasserted itself under Dabisa (Stephen II., 1391-1398), a brother of Tvrtko. Sigismond of Hungary profited by the disorder that Decline of the Bosnian kingdom. ensued to regain Croatia and Dalmatia; and in 1398 the Turks, aided by renegade Slavs,[5] overran Bosnia. Ostoja (Stephen III., 1398-1418), an illegitimate son of Tvrtko, proved a puppet in the hands of Hrvoje Vukčić, duke of Spalato, Sandalj Hranić,[6] and other leaders of the aristocracy, who fought indifferently against the Turks, the Hungarians, the king or one another. Some upheld a rival claimant to the throne in Tvrtković, a legitimate son of Tvrtko, and all took sides in the incessant feud between Bogomils and Roman Catholics. During the reigns of Ostojić (Stephen IV., 1418-1421) and Tvrtković (Stephen V., 1421-1444) Bosnia was thus left an easy prey to the Turks, who exacted a yearly tribute, after again ravaging the country, and carrying off many thousands of slaves, with a vast store of plunder.
The losses inflicted on the Turks by Hunyadi János, and the attempt to organize a defensive league among the neighbouring Christian lands, temporarily averted the ruin of Bosnia under Thomas Ostojić (Stephen VI., 1444-1461). Turkish conquest. Hoping to gain active support from the Vatican, Ostojic renounced Bogomilism, and persecuted his former co-religionists, until the menace of an insurrection forced him to grant an amnesty. His position was endangered by the growing power of his father-in-law, Stephen Vukcic, an ardent Bogomil, who had united Tribunia and Hlum into a single principality. Vukčić—or Cosaccia, as he is frequently called by the contemporary chroniclers, from his birthplace, Cosac—was the first and last holder of the title “Duke of St Sava,” conferred on him by the emperor Frederick III. in 1448; and from this title is derived the name Herzegovina, or “the Duchy.” Hardly had the king become reconciled with this formidable antagonist, when, in 1453, the death of Hunyadi, and the fall of Constantinople, left Bosnia defenceless against the Turks. In 1460 it was again invaded. Venice and the Papacy were unable, and Hungary unwilling, to render assistance; while the Croats proved actively hostile. Ostojic died in 1461, and his successor Tomašević (Stephen VII., 1461-1463) surrendered to the Turks and was beheaded. Herzegovina, where Vukčić offered a desperate resistance, held out until 1483; but apart from the heroic defence of Jajce, the efforts of the Bosnians were feeble and inglorious, many of the Bogomils joining the enemy. From 1463 the greater part of the country submitted to the Turks; but the districts of Jajce and Srebrenica were occupied by Hungarian garrisons, and organized as a separate “banate” or “kingdom of Bosnia,” until 1526, when the Hungarian power was broken at Mohács. In 1528 Jajce surrendered, after repelling every attack by the Turkish armies for 65 years.
The fall of Jajce was the consummation of the Turkish conquest. It was followed by the flight of large bodies of Christian refugees. Many of the Roman Catholics withdrew into Croatia-Slavonia and south Hungary, where they ultimately fell again under Ottoman dominion. Others found shelter in Rome or Venice, and a large number settled in Ragusa, where they doubtless contributed to the remarkable literary development of the 16th and 17th centuries in which the use of the Bosnian dialect was a characteristic feature. Some of the most daring spirits waged war on their conquerors from Clissa in Dalmatia, and afterwards from Zengg in maritime Croatia, where they formed the notorious pirate community of the Uskoks (q.v.). There was less inducement for the Orthodox inhabitants to emigrate, because almost all the neighbouring lands were governed by Moslems or Roman Catholics; and at home the peasants were permitted to retain their creed and communal organization. Judged by its influence on Bosnian politics, the Orthodox community was relatively unimportant at the Turkish conquest; and its subsequent growth is perhaps due to the official recognition of the Greek Church, as the representative of Christianity in Turkey. The Christian aristocracy lost its privileges, but its ancient titles of duke (vojvod) and count (knez) did not disappear. The first was retained by the leaders who still carried on the struggle for liberty in Montenegro; the second was transferred to the headmen of the communes. Many of the Franciscans refused to abandon their work, and in 1463 they received a charter from the sultan Mahomet II., which is still preserved in the monastery of Fojnica, near Travnik. This toleration of religious orders, though it did not prevent occasional outrages, remained to the last characteristic of Turkish policy in Bosnia; and even in 1868 a colony of Trappist monks was permitted to settle in Banjaluka.
The Turkish triumph was the opportunity of the Bogomils, who thenceforth, assuming a new character, controlled the destinies of their country for more than three centuries. Bosnia was regarded by successive sultans as the Bosnia under Turkish rule. gateway into Hungary; hatred of the Hungarians and their religion was hereditary among the Bogomils. Thus the desire for vengeance and the prospect of a brilliant military career impelled the Bogomil magnates to adopt the creed of Islam, which, in its austerity, presented some points of resemblance to their own doctrines. The nominal governor of the country was the Turkish vali, who resided at Banjaluka or Travnik, and rarely interfered in local affairs, if the taxes were duly paid. Below him ranked the newly converted Moslem aristocracy, who adopted the dress, titles and etiquette of the Turkish court, without relinquishing their language or many of their old customs. They dwelt in fortified towns or castles, where the vali was only admitted on sufferance for a few days; and, at the outset, they formed a separate military caste, headed by 48 kapetans—landholders exercising unfettered authority over their retainers and Christian serfs, but bound, in return, to provide a company of mounted troops for the service of their sovereign. Their favourite pursuits were fighting, either against a common enemy or among themselves, hunting, hawking and listening to the minstrels who celebrated their exploits. Their yearly visits to Serajevo assumed in time the character of an informal parliament, for the discussion of national questions; and their rights tended always to increase, and to become hereditary, in fact, though not in law. In every important campaign of the Turkish armies, these descendants of the Bogomils were represented; they amassed considerable wealth from the spoils of war, and frequently rose to high military and administrative positions. Thus, in 1570, Ali Pasha, a native of Herzegovina, became grand vizier; and he was succeeded by the distinguished soldier and statesman, Mahomet Beg Sokolović, a Bosnian. Below the feudal nobility and their Moslem soldiers came the Christian serfs, tillers of the soil and taxpayers, whose lives and property were at the mercy of their lords. The hardships of their lot, and, above all, the system by which the strongest of their sons were carried off as recruits for the corps of janissaries (q.v.), frequently drove them to brigandage, and occasionally to open revolt.
These conditions lasted until the 19th century, and meanwhile the country was involved in the series of wars waged by the Turks against Austria, Hungary and Venice. In the Krajina and all along the Montenegrin frontier, External history 1528-1821. Moslems and Christians carried on a ceaseless feud, irrespective of any treaties concluded by their rulers; while the Turkish campaigns in Hungary provided constant occupation for the nobles during a large part of the 16th and 17th centuries. But after the Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683, the situation changed. Instead of extending the foreign conquests of their sultan, the Bosnians were hard pressed to defend their own borders. Zvornik fell before the Austro-Hungarian army in 1688, and the Turkish vali, who was still officially styled the “vali of Hungary,” removed his headquarters from Banjaluka to Travnik, a more southerly, and therefore a safer capital. Two years later, the imperial troops reached Dolnja Tuzla, and retired with 3000 Roman Catholic emigrants. Serajevo was burned in 1697 by Eugene of Savoy, who similarly deported 40,000 Christians. The treaties of Carlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718) deprived the Turks of all the Primorje, or littoral of Herzegovina, except the narrow enclaves of Klek and Suttorina, left to sunder the Ragusan dominions from those of Venice. At the same time a strip of territory in northern Bosnia was ceded to Austria, which was thus able to control both banks of the Save. This territory was restored to Turkey in 1739, at the peace of Belgrade;[7] but in 1790 it was reoccupied by Austrian troops. Finally, in 1791, the treaty of Sistova again fixed the line of the Save and Una as the Bosnian frontier.
The reform of the Ottoman government contemplated by the sultan Mahmud II. (1808-1839) was bitterly resented in Bosnia, where Turkish prestige had already been weakened by the establishment of Servian autonomy under Moslem rebellions. Karageorge. Many of the janissaries had married and settled on the land, forming a strongly conservative and fanatical caste, friendly to the Moslem nobles, who now dreaded the curtailment of their own privileges. Their opportunity came in 1820, when the Porte was striving to repress the insurrections in Moldavia, Albania and Greece. A first Bosnian revolt was crushed in 1821; a second, due principally to the massacre of the janissaries, was quelled with much bloodshed in 1827. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, a further attempt at reform was initiated by the sultan and his grand vizier, Reshid Pasha. Two years later came a most formidable outbreak; the sultan was denounced as false to Islam, and the Bosnian nobles gathered at Banjaluka, determined to march on Constantinople, and reconquer the Ottoman empire for the true faith. A holy war was preached by their leader, Hussein Aga Berberli, a brilliant soldier and orator, who called himself Zmaj Bosanski, the “Dragon of Bosnia,” and was regarded by his followers as a saint. The Moslems of Herzegovina, under Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic, remained loyal to the Porte, but in Bosnia Hussein Aga encountered little resistance. At Kossovo he was reinforced by 20,000 Albanians, led by the rebel Mustapha Pasha; and within a few weeks the united armies occupied the whole of Bulgaria, and a large part of Macedonia. Their career was checked by Reshid Pasha, who persuaded the two victorious commanders to intrigue against one another, secured the division of their forces, and then fell upon each in turn. The rout of the Albanians at Prilipe and the capture of Mustapha at Scutari were followed by an invasion of Bosnia. After a desperate defence, Hussein Aga fled to Esseg in Croatia-Slavonia; his appeal for pardon was rejected, and in 1832 he was banished for life to Tribizond. The power of the Bosnian nobles, though shaken by their defeat, remained unbroken; and they resisted vigorously when their kapetanates were abolished in 1837; and again when a measure of equality before the law was conceded to the Christians in 1839. In Herzegovina, Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović reaped the reward of his fidelity. He was left free to tyrannize over his Christian subjects, a king in all but name. In 1840 he descended from his mountain stronghold of Stolac to wage war upon the vladika Peter II. of Montenegro, and simultaneously to suppress a Christian rising. Peace was arranged at Ragusa in 1842, and it was rumoured that Ali had concluded a secret alliance with Montenegro, hoping to shake off the suzerainty of the sultan, and to found an entirely independent kingdom. It is impossible to verify this charge, but during the troubled years that ensued, Ali pursued an elaborate policy of intrigue. He sent large bribes to influential persons at Constantinople; he aided the Turkish vali to repress the Christians, who had again revolted; and he supported the Bosnian nobles against reforms imposed by the vali. At last, in 1850, a Turkish army was despatched to restore quiet. Ali Pasha openly professed himself a loyal subject, but secretly sent reinforcements to the rebel aristocracy. The Turks proved everywhere successful. After a cordial reception by their commander Omer or Omar Pasha, Ali was imprisoned; he was shortly afterwards assassinated, lest his lavish bribery of Turkish officials should restore him to favour, and bring disgrace on his captor (March 1851).
The downfall of the Moslem aristocracy resulted in an important administrative change: Serajevo, which had long been the commercial centre of the country, and the jealously guarded stronghold of the nobles, superseded Travnik Condition of the serfs. as the official capital, and the residence of the vali. A variety of other reforms, including the reorganization of Moslem education, were introduced by Omer Pasha, who governed the country until 1860. But as the administration grew stronger, the position of the peasantry became worse. They had now to satisfy the imperial tax-farmers and excisemen, as well as their feudal lords. The begs and agas continued to exact their forced labour and one-third of their produce; the central government imposed a tithe which had become an eighth by 1875. Three kinds of cattle-tax, the tax for exemption from military service, levied on every newborn male, forced labour on the roads, forced loan of horses, a heavy excise on grapes and tobacco, and a variety of lesser taxes combined to burden the Christian serfs; but even more galling than the amount was the manner in which these dues were exacted—the extortionate assessments of tax-farmers and excisemen, the brutal licence of the soldiery who were quartered on recalcitrant villagers. A crisis was precipitated by the example of Servian independence, the hope of Austrian intervention, and the public bankruptcy of Turkey.
Sporadic insurrections had already broken out among the Bosnian Christians, and on the 1st of July 1875 the villagers of Nevesinje, which gives its name to a mountain range east of Mostar, rose against the Turks. Within Christian rising of 1875. a few weeks the whole country was involved. The Herzegovinians, under their leaders Peko Pavlović, Socica, Ljubibratić, and others, held out for a year against all the forces that Turkey could despatch against them.[8] In July 1876 Servia and Montenegro joined the struggle, and in April 1877 Russia declared war on the sultan.
The Austro-Hungarian occupation, authorized on the 13th of July 1878 by the treaty of Berlin (arts. 23 and 26), was not easily effected; and, owing to the difficulty of military operations among the mountains, it was necessary to Austro-Hungarian occupation, 1878-1908. employ a force of 200,000 men. Haji Loja, the native leader, was supported by a body of Albanians and mutinous Turkish troops, while the whole Moslem population bitterly resented the proposed change. The losses on both sides were very heavy, and, besides those who fell in battle, many of the insurgents were executed under martial law. But after a series of stubbornly contested engagements, the Austrian general, Philippovic, entered Serajevo on the 19th of August, and ended the campaign on the 20th of September, by the capture of Bihac in the north-west, and of Klobuk in Herzegovina. The government of the country was then handed over to the imperial ministry of finance; but the bureaucratic methods of the finance ministers, Baron von Hoffmann and Joseph de Szlávy, resulted only in the insurrection of 1881-82. Order was restored in June 1882, when the administration was entrusted to Benjamin von Kállay (q.v.), as imperial minister of finance. Kállay retained this position until his death on the 13th of July 1903, when he was succeeded by Baron Stephan Burian de Rajecz. During this period life and property were rendered secure, and great progress was achieved, on the lines already indicated, in creating an efficient civil service, harmonizing Moslem law with new enactments, promoting commerce, carrying out important public works, and reorganizing the fiscal and educational systems. All classes and creeds were treated impartially; and, although the administration has been reproached alike for undue harshness and undue leniency, neither accusation can be sustained. Critics have also urged that Kállay fostered the desire for material welfare at the cost of every other national ideal; that, despite his own popularity, he never secured the goodwill of the people for Austria-Hungary; that he left the agrarian difficulty unsolved, and the hostile religious factions unreconciled. These charges are not wholly unfounded; but the chief social and political evils in Bosnia and Herzegovina may be traced to historical causes operative long before the Austro-Hungarian occupation, and above all to the political ambition of the rival churches. Justly to estimate the work done by Kállay, it is only necessary to point to the contrast between Bosnia in 1882 and Bosnia in 1903; for in 21 years the anarchy and ruin entailed by four centuries of misrule were transformed into a condition of prosperity unsurpassed in south-eastern Europe.