Abstract

Abolition of the Ottoman model in Bosnia after the 1995 and the crisis of the stateIn this paper is analyzed the dis/continuity of the Ottoman tradition in Bosnia, treated not in the ethnographical or superficial perspective, but in its deeper, cultural and social aspect. The so-called Ottoman model, continued in Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav period, was characterized by multiplicity of social actors and the lack of the obsession of national territory. The boundaries of an autonomous territory (i.e. Bosnia under Ottoman, or Habsburg and Yugoslav rule) delimitated the sphere of shared practices, and its condition depended on relations between different ethnical agents. After the 1995 predominates the tendency toward territorial and national homogenization which leads to division, and liquidation of the Bosnian state. Nonetheless, the Ottoman model is described here as ambiguous, for its inability to shape the public sphere as a space of civic subjects, not only communities. A lack of the positive idea of the state, and the lack of any legitimization of the power other than nationalism, are seen as the major sources of political and social instability in Bosnia.

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