Sarajevski Vidovdan

Abstract

As a nationwide movement for the liberation and unification of South Slavic peoples at beginning of the 20th century, Young Bosnia was the only hope of the peoples in occupied and disenfranchised Bosnia and Herzegovina for achieving emancipation and unification. The title "Young Bosnia" was first used by Petar Kocic in the newspaper Otadzbina ("Fatherland") in 1907, and then by Vladimir Gacinovic in an article published in Almanac of Prosveta ("Education") in 1910. Despite their innate instinct that force should be resisted with force, the Young Bosnians and their supporters had a much deeper understanding of the historical perspective than many of their contemporaries among the South Slavs. Firstly, they understood the inescapability of the destruction of the Habsburg Monarchy through revolution and secondly, they understood the need for the establishment of a Yugoslav federal community consisting of different South Slavic nations with the same ethnic origin but with separate histories. One may have their own opinion regarding the methods of Gavrilo Princip and his co-fighters, but it is certain that for reasons of their patriotism, courage and selflessness the Sarajevo assassins can be included in the group of prominent fighters for the liberation of their disenfranchised and humiliated countrymen. Many historians agree that the Sarajevo assassination was in character an act of self-defense for the purpose of liberation as it was founded on the revolutionary politics of the young people who were, it is possible to say now, the most forward-thinking Bosnian youths of the time. Their fundamental patriotic consciousness and their philosophical thought as a political superstructure, enlivened with the revolutionary spirit and pride of every individual member, greatly contributed to the formation of their views and strengthened their commitment to their struggle.