Original subtitles

What does freedom mean for each of us?

Are we convinced that freedom is guaranteed

in every aspect of our lives,

or are we forgetting the sacrifices made

by those who came before us in order for us to have it?

From the times of antiquity until now,

the role that freedom played in people's lives

changed many times.

But in the 18th century, it took on a whole new dimension.

In ancient times, man considered freedom

to be the possibility to know the truth with his own mind.

But with the advent of Christianity,

freedom referred to the free will to act

or not to act according to God's morals.

Throughout this period,

individual freedoms were the privilege of the few,

until the awareness of collective freedom

emerged in the 18th century.

This was after the French Revolution

that awoke national consciousness across Europe.

This powerful movement

permanently changed the borders of feudal Europe

as well as the consciousness of its inhabitants

over the next two centuries.

The Italian city of Turin, the capital of Piedmont,

it's certainly a breathtaking tourist destination,

but many people aren't aware that the Italy we know today

was formed thanks to a movement

that started from right here, the Kingdom of Piedmont.

The king of Piedmont and Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II

launched a series of political initiatives

to unite the small states on the Apennine Peninsula.

He succeeded in 1865 by proclaiming the Kingdom of Italy.

An identical example in the same period

was the unification of Germany,

which was led by the Kingdom of Prussia.

These movements formed the world in which we live,

and they owe their success

not only to the political capabilities of rulers,

but also to the consciousness

that individuals share cultural, linguistic,

and often religious identities with others.

And they know that collective freedom

in a society is best guaranteed

through the institution of a nation state.

Aided by the romantic movement,

The vision of the State as the only guarantor

of preserving the authenticity of a nation

spread through Europe.

It saw collective liberation

as the only means of national existence.

And how is freedom manifested in the 21st century?

According to the 2013 census,

12 Klingons and as many as 76 Jedi

live in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Certain media outlets are increasingly promoting

the flat-Earth theory

or discussing the possibility of an alien invasion

under the pretext that everyone has the right

to freedom of expression.

This creates the danger of freedom

being perceived as limitless or becoming a triviality.

Freedom without limits means

that justice becomes the advantage of the stronger.

Monuments such as this speak of the rebellion

against such an advantage.

And those who rebelled

certainly had a spiritual understanding of freedom.

The Kozara Memorial was erected

in memory of more than 30,000 civilian victims

of this part of Republika Srpska

in the fight against fascist occupiers during World War II.

There are several monuments across Republika Srpska

for those who died in the struggle for freedom.

Nothing's infinite, not even freedom.

But freedom's value doesn't lie in its infinity,

but rather in its ability to preserve unique

and authentic characteristics.

To that extent, the Republika Srpska is an example

that a nation can preserve its identity

only if it's free to organise its life.

To me, Republika Srpska is a territory

where a culture is being defended from being marginalized.

In every way, that culture deserves to survive

as it has its language, script,

literature, and cultural code.

Republika Srpska, an entity

of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Southeast Europe,

was created after the disintegration

of the Socialist Yugoslavia

and is largely inhabited by Serbs.

Following the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

between 1992 and 1995,

the Dayton Peace Agreement shaped the country

as a unique federation.

Republika Srpska

isn't an internationally recognised country,

but it has administrative powers to preserve the tradition,

identity, and culture of its nation.

For Serbs, a turbulent history, rough geographical position,

and strong awareness of belonging

made the creation of a state

not a precondition as it was for Italy and Germany,

but rather a consequence of a firm national identity

in which freedom is its ultimate value.

"O boundless, O endless infinite freedom,

come already and visit my country

because everything is nothing without you,

nothing is everything with you."

These words written by Petar Kocic,

a Serbian poet from the 19th century,

speak of the value of freedom in the consciousness of Serbs.

And the best example of how this nation sees freedom today

is Republika Srpska, which emerged as a consequence

of the belief that freedom really is everything.

In 1984, Sarajevo was the host city

of the Winter Olympic Games.

It sparked the development of winter tourism in the region,

embodied in the now popular ski resort on Jahorina,

just a snowball throw from Sarajevo itself.

The games also provided a unique opportunity

for Socialist Yugoslavia to present itself to the world

as well as its federal republic with an intriguing past,

Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The archaeological sites in the Republika Srpska

are a testimony of the continuity of life here

since the Stone Age

Near the town of Sokolac,

we can find one of the more significant

archaeological sites, that of the Glasinac culture

which can be traced back from the early Bronze Age

to the early Iron Age,

with its peak around the fourth century BC.

In the time of antiquity,

tribes that were in earth called Illyrians

left their mark here, until the arrival of the Roman Empire,

which conquered the Illyrian tribes.

During the Middle Ages, Christianity spread in these parts

and gained full momentum,

as evidenced by the Stecak tombstones as medieval monuments,

which speak of class affiliation

and mostly testify to the Christian rite

originating from Byzantium.

More than a thousand athletes from as many as 49 countries

competed at Sarajevo Olympics,

while more than 4,000 journalists reported on the games.

However, twists and turns of the competing athletes

certainly weren't the only thing spectators could see.

The Church of the Holy Archangel Michael

is popularly known as the Old Orthodox Church in Bascarsija,

and it was built around the 14th century.

The turbulent history has taken its toll on this building,

which is one of the oldest religious buildings

in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It was burned several times throughout history,

until it was finally restored

at the end of the 18th century.

Not far from the old church,

we see one of the most magnificent buildings

in all of Sarajevo, the Orthodox Cathedral Church

of the Nativity of the Theotokos.

The construction, which lasted more than a decade,

was completed in 1874 with the consecration

of the Bishop of Dabro-Bosnia, Paisius.

The church was built exclusively

through donations from the faithful,

and represents the symbolic contribution

of the Serbian people to the architecture of Sarajevo,

which has its foundation in medieval Bosnia

that started developing

around the source of the river Bosna.

After the 10th century, Bosnia, like other Serbian states,

started developing independently,

with the state of Raska, under the Nemanjic Dynasty,

soon becoming dominant among them.

Bosnia was originally ruled by bans,

with the most prominent

and notable historic ruler being Ban Kulin,

who embodied the so-called Bosnian age

of peace and prosperity.

The 13th century ushered in the rule

of the Kotromanic Dynasty.

The most important ruler of this dynasty,

Stefan Tvrtko Kotromanic I

was the king of the Kingdom of Serbs and Bosnia

and tried to unite the two medieval states

of Bosnia and Raska.

The 15th century witnessed the foundation of Herzegovina,

a territory named after the title of Herceg of Saint Sava,

the first Serbian archbishop from the Nemanjic dynasty

which gave the Nemanjic seal

to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

something that remains to this day.

The Kotromanic Dynasty ruled Bosnia

for almost two centuries.

Now, the rise of the state of Bosnia

was slowed down by the death of Tvrtko Kotromanic I,

which led to dynastic power struggles.

At the end of the 15th century,

Bosnia fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire,

which was dominated by Islam and remained in this area

until the Congress of Berlin in the late 19th century.

More than 200,000 tickets were sold for the Olympics,

and around two billion people watched the live broadcast.

It must have been interesting for them

to see scenes of a typically oriental city,

only to then cut to scenes

of typical Central European architecture.

At the beginning of the 19th century,

an uprising against the Ottomans in Serbia

led to the creation of the Principality of Serbia.

This was an incentive for the Serbs in Herzegovina

to rebel against the Ottoman occupier in 1875.

Their success was without reward,

because Bosnia and Herzegovina

was quickly occupied by Austria-Hungary,

which ruled this area until the end of World War I.

It was from here, Schonbrunn Palace,

that the Habsburg Dynasty ruled the Austrian Empire.

Now, the dynasty ruled for more than 600 years,

and the internal stability of the empire

often depended on encouraging hostilities

between the many nations that were part of it.

Bosnia and Herzegovina can certainly be used

as an example of Austria-Hungarian policy

towards the occupied nations.

As Serbs constituted the majority

in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the occupation

and had a strong desire to unite all South Slavs,

they were considered hostile by the Austrians.

The second largest group, Muslims,

didn't have a clear national identity,

but the Austria-Hungarian authorities

encouraged a new national consciousness

in an attempt to exploit them as a counterbalance to Serbs.

Croats, who were Catholic,

were the smallest in number of the three major nations

in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But because of their religious affiliation,

they were favoured by Austria-Hungary

at the expense of the other two nations.

Sounds complicated, doesn't it?

And this game of playing favourites

can be seen in the architecture as well.

During the Austria-Hungarian occupation, the magnificent

Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

was built in Sarajevo,

a Catholic school in Travnik and other cities,

as well as in specific infrastructural, cultural,

and economic projects.

Every war needs a pretext.

The political elites, who start wars

motivated by their own self-interests,

always seek out an event to justify the reason given

for such a disastrous phenomenon.

One such event happened

because of a boyish faith in humane ideals

right at this spot in Sarajevo.

On June 28th, 1914,

a member of the Young Bosnia Organisation, Gavrilo Princip,

shot the heir to the throne of the Austria-Hungarian Empire,

Franz Ferdinand, killing him and his wife.

In Vienna, this act inflamed

the already hostile attitude towards Serbia,

with Austria-Hungary soon declaring a full-blown war.

It is interesting that an almost identical assassination

on an Austria-Hungarian princess,

which was carried out by an Italian in 1898,

wasn't used as a pretext for war.

Austria-Hungary wanted to expand its empire to the East.

And I know this sounds gruesome,

but the assassination in Sarajevo

served as an excellent excuse for that.

However, the result was not

what Austria-Hungary had hoped for.

The conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia

turned into World War I, which ended with the collapse

of the Austria-Hungarian Empire that started it

and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs,

Croats and Slovenes, which later changed its name

to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

that existed up until World War II.

It was here that Mesa Selimovic's words were most evident.

Selimovic, who was born a Bosnian Muslim,

but traced back his Serbian roots,

said, "Man becomes free by choice,

resistance, and disobedience."

In 1941, demonstrators gathered here,

in Serbia's capital Belgrade,

to protest any form of alliance with Nazi Germany,

the largest military force of the 20th century,

significantly more powerful than the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Despite the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

securing a non-aggression pact,

the Serbian people cried out "Better a grave than a slave".

Following the people's uprising,

Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941.

The disastrous bombing of major cities in Serbia

marked the beginning of the occupation.

The first thing Hitler demanded from occupied Yugoslavia

was to bring in the plaque that marked the spot

where Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Ferdinand.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was divided into occupation zones

by fascist and Nazi forces.

The liberation of Belgrade in 1944

marked the victory of the communist-led partisans

and led to a change in the political system of Yugoslavia.

In 1945, the Socialist Yugoslavia was formed,

whose first and lifelong president was Josip Broz Tito.

Tito became known worldwide in 1948

for rejecting the Soviets

in their attempts to control Yugoslavia,

and later initiating the creation

of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The countries that made up this movement

didn't want to take part

in the Cold War era division of the world

and sought a third way in international relations.

Despite being held four years after Tito's death,

the Sarajevo Olympics remained

the only Olympic games held in a country

that was a member of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Yugoslavia was organised on a federal principle

with six republics: Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia,

Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

You're listening to something called a Sevdalinka,

a song authentic to the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, it could always be heard

throughout Serbia and other republics,

which speaks of the influence of culture from this area

throughout Yugoslavia.

The people in Yugoslavia also listen

to another type of music from Sarajevo,

like songs of Bijelo Dugme.

In the 1970s, a rock band from Sarajevo named Bijelo Dugme

held the biggest rock concert in Yugoslavia's history,

right here in the country's capital Belgrade.

The youth of many Yugoslavs

was marked by other rock bands from Sarajevo,

such as Indexi, Zabranjeno pusenje, or Crvena jabuka.

Rock bands aside, many ordinary citizens

who contributed to the state through their hard work

were also popular.

They were placed on bank notes

of Yugoslavia's national currency, the dinar.

And the most famous were Alija Sirotanovic and Arif Heralic,

who were from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The two were known as Udarniks or shock workers.

Udarniks were highly productive workers

known for their superproductive, enthusiastic labour,

and incredible results.

This award promoted economic development

that was evident in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia somewhat opened up

to criticism of social problems.

The Top List of the Surrealists

started airing a radio comedy segment in the early 1980s,

later becoming a sketch comedy and variety television show

which aired on Sarajevo TV and, to an extent,

on Yugoslav radio television.

The show sketches discussed social issues

in a satirical manner, often predicting events to come.

In criticising the extensive bureaucratic apparatus,

the surrealists filmed a sketch

in which government officials

and politicians staged a strike

because industrial workers were demanding their paychecks

and the citizens constantly had their own requests.

They're wasteful and keep asking for paychecks...

No more!

The already seriously deteriorated

financial status of the citizens

was presented satirically in the show "Prize Robbery"

in which citizens participated in a game

in which they were deprived of their property.

As you know, we're taking their TV now.

Let's hope the lucky losers are at home.

I see the TV is a "Hyundai" from South Korea.

A "Hyundai"?!

At the beginning of the 1990s,

as ethnic tensions were rising,

the surrealists staged a fake news programme

declaring that Bosnia and Herzegovina

is threatened by an outbreak of peace.

Humour through satire, as a way of dealing with problems

and shortcomings, remains present to this day

in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But in addition to this phenomenon,

there are hidden dangers for the uninformed visitor.

Here you have to be very careful.

For example, when it comes to food,

especially when it comes to a specialty, burek,

if you accidentally order...

Burek with cheese.

I mean... with potatoes?

Some cream?

Burek is only with meat.

The cuisine of this area

is characterised by the dynamics of mixing cultures

so the dishes are very colourful and delicious,

thanks to the spices that come from the orient.

Every visitor has to try the Bosnian pot,

tufahije, baklava, sogan dolma, cevapi,

and many other dishes.

However, I definitely first recommend you try burek.

The dough, made using old techniques,

with a delicious filling

is something most people here consume every day,

and it's something that holds a special place

in the hearts of all who live in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After Jure Franko won the first ever

Winter Olympics medal for Yugoslavia

at the Games in Sarajevo,

Franko was celebrated with the slogan

"I love Jurek more than burek."

Jure! Jure!

Jure! Jure!

However, the mix of cultures wasn't evident

in just the food, but also in the political system

of the socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina

inhabited by its constituent nations,

Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.

Maybe you're confused

why we're talking about Muslims as a nation

when you know that Muslims are a religious group,

which is different from an ethnic group.

Well, in 1971, the Yugoslav census

allowed members of Bosnia and Herzegovina's

Muslim religious community to declare themselves

as Muslim by ethnicity for the first time.

The moment when someone is declared a nation

as is the case in linguistics,

he becomes a political nation,

which, given the time,

stops caring about the past.

Their historical genesis can be traced back

to the Balkan conquest of the Ottoman Empire,

which was predominantly Muslim.

In 1971, many identified their ethnicity as Muslim.

While as of 1993, they identify as Bosniak.

Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats

all participated in the creation

of Bosnia and Herzegovina's cultural uniqueness.

And in the Socialist Yugoslavia,

the system was devised in such a way

that no matter which group was greater in number,

they all had an equal opportunity

to participate in policymaking.

Mostar is a Herzegovinian city

named after the guardians of the bridges

and bridge builders on the river Neretva

where it's located.

And the Old Bridge

is the most recognisable part of the city.

The bridge was built during the Ottoman occupation

in the 16th century,

but it was demolished by Croatian forces

during the war in 1993.

The spirit of the people who live here

is reflected in the black humour joke that,

"After the demolition, they'll build an even older bridge."

After a war that's destroyed much of the historic city,

the task of rebuilding is finally underway.

The rebuild bridge is called the New Old Bridge,

and a specific tradition is connected to it,

which speaks of the courage of Herzegovinian young men.

And that tradition looks like this.

Herzegovinian young men, known for their courage,

certainly took the lead in such jumps.

But the period after the 1984 Olympics

brought new types of confirmation of this characteristic.

If you were a young guy during the Sarajevo Olympics,

you knew that a Volkswagen Golf

worked wonders for your reputation in the city.

Not many had a Volkswagen Golf back then,

it just started getting made in Vogosca,

but whoever had it could easily get a girl.

I didn't have a Golf

but I had other skills that helped with the ladies.

I don't want to brag,

but you can imagine what that was like at age 20.

What was life in Sarajevo like for a 20-year-old

during the Winter Olympics?

It was more than good.

An incredible euphoria swept the region.

A great atmosphere, awesome vibes,

the Olympic spirit that flared up and spread then

still lives in the generation of that time.

It was truly unique.

We all gave it our best to be good hosts,

to tidy up our balconies,

yards, buildings, facades, etc.

We were all like one

and succeeded in being good hosts.

The expansion of cooperation

with the German auto-making giant Volkswagen

was supposed to be the pinnacle

of Bosnia and Herzegovina's economic development.

But in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

And the very next year,

the 14th Congress of the Communist Party in Belgrade

saw the delegations of the republics

of Slovenia and Croatia leave the party.

With Slovenia and Croatia's declarations of independence,

the stable rule of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia

turned into a civil war in 1991.

Thus, at the end of the 20th century,

we saw that history didn't leave scars here,

but rather open wounds.

The dissolution of the Christian church in 1054

into a western Catholic church with its centre in Rome

and an Eastern Orthodox church

with its centre in Constantinople

brought a millennium of bloody religious wars

to the area of Southeast Europe.

The understanding of religion as being a reason to go to war

appeared as a relic at the end of the 20th century

right here around the river Bosna,

which was, and remains,

one of the borders of this division.

As the central government

of the Communist Party was weakening,

the major ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina

all founded their national political parties.

Although the so-called Croatian Democratic Union or HDZ

was founded by Franjo Tudman in early 1990 in Croatia.

The HDZ operated in Bosnia and Herzegovina itself

representing the interests of Croats there.

In May of 1990,

the Islamist Party of Democratic Action or SDA

was founded by Alija Izetbegovic in Bosnia and Herzegovina

representing the interests of Muslims.

The Serbs in that republic

were the last to form their national party.

The Serbian Democratic Party or SDS

led by Sarajevo psychiatrist, Radovan Karadzic,

representing the political will of Serbs

in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After the first multi-party elections in the republic,

the Muslim SDA took 86 seats, the Serb SDS 72 seats,

and the Croat HDZ 45 seats.

According to the constitution,

major decisions could not have been made

without a consensus reached by all three nations,

but the political leaders of the Muslims and Croats

decided to ignore this golden rule.

It's considered that the creation of modern nations

took place at the end of the 18th and 19th century

with the French, German, and Italian nations

serving as the best examples.

But the Serbian people

don't owe their awareness of belonging

to the constitution of the state itself,

but to their ancient identity.

In one of the most important historical writings

from the 10th century, De Administrando Imperio,

written by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII,

he mentions the small land of Bosnia

and these towns there, he says, are inhabited by Serbs.

The bans or rulers in Bosnia in the early Middle Ages

were more or less in a vassal position

in relation to the powerful Hungary,

but the ethnic composition of their land

posed no dilemma for them.

In his charter from 1249,

Ban Matej Ninoslav signed himself as Matej Stefan,

reflective of his connection

with the Serbian Nemanjic dynasty

as all its members also took the name Stefan.

The ban sees his subjects as Serbs,

while Pope Urban III, in the Dubrovnik charter,

even sees Bosnia itself ruled by Kulin Ban

as a part of Serbia.

Seven centuries ago,

right here at the Mileseva Monastery in present day Serbia,

the most important Bosnian ruler,

Tvrtko Kotromanic I was crowned.

And with this act, he put a stamp on the identity

of the people of Bosnia.

Tvrtko Kotromanic I was crowned in front of the relics

of the most important Nemanjic, Saint Sava.

Tvrtko took the name Stefan,

put lilies on his coat of arms

and in his signature called himself the King of the Serbs.

These gestures are all typical of the Nemanjic Dynasty,

which show how the most significant ruler of medieval Bosnia

saw himself and his people.

This is the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina

that the Bosniaks designed during the war years,

and it was official up until 1998.

They used the same emblem on the uniform

of the Bosniak-dominated army of Bosnia and Herzegovina

during the war.

This is the flag of Serbia.

Look closer. Remarkable resemblance.

However, Bosniaks didn't see the lilies

as the Nemanjic heritage of Bosnia,

which they factually represent but as its exact antithesis,

a negation of Bosnia's own history.

The Nemanjic legacy was also denied in the name Herzegovina

despite it originating from the medieval area of Hum,

which the founder of the Nemanjic Dynasty, Stefan Nemanja,

called his homeland

and was ruled by the most prominent members

of the Serbian court.

To understand this historical ignorance,

we have to discuss the Stecak tombstones.

Now, we mentioned

that they were erected here in the Middle Ages

and that Herzegovina has the largest number of them.

Just in one town, here in Nevesinje,

there are more of these tombstones

than in all of Central Bosnia.

And this site is considered to be the place

where the medieval state originated.

These medieval tombstones are on UNESCO's list

of intangible heritage.

In the form of an epitaph,

they expressed a certain social status

or some peculiarity for the one who was buried there.

At the time that the Stecak tombstones

were already being built in Bosnia, Bogomilism appeared,

an autochthonous response to the people

who weren't close to either Orthodox or Catholic Christians.

Both churches considered them heretics.

Now, some historians claim that the Stecak tombstones

were linked to the Bogomils

through inscriptions and paintings found on them,

and this claim is used by many Bosniaks today

to try to present themselves as descendants of the Bogomils

and to argue that their genesis

can in no way be traced to Serbs or Croats.

However, the inscription on a Stecak tombstone

doesn't deal with religious affiliation,

but rather tries to emphasise social status,

while the Bogomils were against anything that is material,

including the construction of tombstones.

The Cajnice Gospel, a liturgical book

written in the 15th century,

is one of the most important Cyrillic writings

from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The strong presence of Byzantine rituals and emergence

of some of the most important Cyrillic writings

demonstrates a formed identity of Serbs in this area

in the first centuries of the second millennium.

A nation can be defined

as a community tied by a common language.

This is the strength of a nation

and not, as some philosophers consider it,

a "tribal construct".

It is the last line of defense

of a kind of culture that is threatened.

The worldview of a person living in the Middle Ages

was largely defined by religion.

Depending on which religion you belong to,

you'd be a part of a certain cultural pattern.

Catholics used the Latin language and script

while Orthodox Christians

used the Greek language and alphabet.

As Serbs accepted Christianity from Byzantium

in the ninth century

but didn't originate from a Greek-speaking area,

an authentic script for understanding liturgical books

was developed, Cyrillic.

The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet remains a feature

of Serbian culture to this day,

but it was also very present in medieval Bosnia.

For example, in the Charter of Kulin Ban

and in Miroslav's Gospel, which is still preserved

as one of the most important monuments

of Serbian cultural heritage.

Criticising democracy,

English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that,

"In absolutism power can be abused by one man,

while in democracy it can be abused by many more."

Alija Izetbegovic, the ideologue, founder,

and leader of the Party of Democratic Action in the 1990s,

was sentenced to 14 years of prison in 1983

in the then Socialist Yugoslavia,

along with nine other accomplices,

for Muslim nationalism and hostile propaganda.

Seven years later, the same year

when Izetbegovic founded his political party,

the first edition of his book

called "The Islamic Declaration" was published.

In it he explicitly said that the Islamic movement

must take power when it becomes strong enough in numbers.

And when it takes over, it should create a new government

which corresponds exclusively to the Islamic worldview.

Following what he himself wrote,

"there is no peace or coexistence

between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic social

and political institutions",

Izetbegovic wanted an independent Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And the Croats,

following the example of neighbouring Croatia

which had already declared independence,

also wanted to secede.

Taught by their own history,

the Serbs saw their survival in a union with Serbia,

that is in Yugoslavia.

And they were ready to resolve

any disagreements by consensus.

We've all decided there would be no outvoting.

No decision of this Assembly

is worth any potential divisions

in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But they were duped.

After several unsuccessful attempts

for a unilateral decision by Muslim and Croat MPs,

on October 14th, 1991,

as the session of Bosnia and Herzegovina's

parliament was ending...

I'm ending the session,

thank you for your presence.

Muslim and Croat MPs waited for the Serb MPs to leave

and then, well after midnight,

without the presence of Serbs,

they adopted the memorandum of sovereignty

of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Making crucial decisions

that affect the destinies of millions of people in secret

in the wee hours of the night

is reminiscent of a Sevdalinka song.

Mujo is horse shoeing in the moonlight.

Mujo's horse shoeing, his mother is cursing him.

My son,

listen to your mother,

horse shoeing isn't done in the moonlight,

but at daytime in the sunlight.

He talks about a young man criticised by his wise mother,

who says that important work isn't done at night.

He justifies it by being in love.

However, what excuse did the much older MPs have?

The October 15th decision was a consequence

of a clear desire expressed by Alija Izetbegovic

in his own words during a parliamentary session

of the same year.

"I would sacrifice peace

for a sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For peace, I would not sacrifice sovereignty."

The message was clear.

Decisions would no longer be made by consensus,

but rather by outvoting the Serbs, even at the cost of war.

War is not our goal,

but fighting would be the means to achieve our goal

if no other way is possible.

The Serbs are a nation whose collective memory

dates back more than a millennium.

And in that memory, the era of the Ottoman occupation

is certainly engraved,

a time when their rights were extremely endangered.

In Ottoman-ruled Bosnia and Herzegovina,

in its spahiluks,

as they called the territories governed by local vassals,

there were 35 kanuns - Ottoman laws,

And in those 35 kanuns, they wrote down in detail

that if you wanted to restore a destroyed church

or, better yet, build a new one -

you couldn't.

The complex system of corruption that existed in the laws

and which actually had their Kafkaesque order,

made it impossible to exercise one's religious rights.

The desecration and destruction of churches,

ruthless retributions,

and harsh living conditions of Christians

also caused the migration of this group

into neighbouring empires such as Austria-Hungary,

which, by the end of the 19th century,

significantly changed the ethnic composition of this area.

One of the most acclaimed writers

from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mesa Selimovic

was very aware of this change.

He was born into a Bosnian Muslim family in Tuzla in 1910,

but discovered that his ancestors, who were Serb,

converted to Islam to protect their Christian brethren.

According to a census at the end of the 15th century,

over 99% of Christian families and less than 1% of Muslims

lived in the administrative unit of the Bosnian Sanjak.

While in the 19th century, the Muslim population represented

38% of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Selimovic said, "To be a Serb is glorious,

but also expensive."

And the cost of this violent change of identity

was a collective trauma

best described by Serbian Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric

in his literary work "The Bridge on the Drina".

Despite being written centuries

after the events it portrays,

it vividly and, in great detail,

describes the Ottoman custom called the blood tax,

the forceful abduction of male children from their families

for conversion to Islam.

The children were taken across this very bridge

in the town of Visegrad to Istanbul.

In his work, Andric writes,

"It was already the sixth year

since the last collection of this tribute of blood,

and so this time the choice had been easy and rich.

The necessary number of healthy, bright,

and good-looking lads between 10 and 15 years old

had been found without difficulty,

even though many parents had hidden their children

in the forests, taught them how to appear half-witted,

clothed them in rags and let them get filthy

to avoid the aga's choice.

Some went so far as to maim their own children,

cutting off one of their fingers with an axe.

The chosen children were laden onto little Bosnian horses

in a long convoy."

Those convoys passed through here.

I can't even begin to imagine

how frightened those young kidnapped boys were

and how the children's mothers must have felt.

"A little way behind the last horses in that strange convoy,

straggled, dishevelled and exhausted,

many parents and relatives of those children

who were being carried away forever to a foreign world

where they would be circumcised, become Turkish,

and forgetting their faith, their country,

and their origin would pass their lives

in the ranks of the janissaries

or in some other, higher, service of the empire.

They were, for the most part, women, mothers, grandmothers

and sisters of the stolen children.

When they came too close,

the aga's horseman would drive them away with whips,

urging their horses at them with loud cries to Allah."

After being outvoted by Muslim and Croat MPs

on October 15th, 1991, Serb MPs gathered nine days later

and constituted the assembly of the Serbian people

in Bosnia and Herzegovina with its seat in Sarajevo.

At its first session,

a plebiscite was called for November 10,

which had the aim of defining the will

of the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina

and asking them if they were in favour of remaining

in the Yugoslav community or not.

More than 1,350,000 Serbs took part in it,

and 96% voted to stay in Yugoslavia.

This was indeed a desperate attempt

by the Serb political elite to maintain political visibility

and try to prevent a new demographic decline

due to a potential loss of political rights.

The Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

which operated without Serb representatives

after October 15th, 1991,

scheduled its own referendum for February 29th, 1992,

in which its citizens would be asked if they were in favour

of an independent Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Serbs boycotted the referendum,

aware that their participation would give legitimacy

to a system of outvoting rather than reaching a consensus.

The referendum was held on February 29th

and March 1st, 1992.

Sure enough, over 99% of those who voted,

voted to leave Yugoslavia.

Serbs meanwhile organised themselves politically

in municipalities where they had a significant majority,

wanting to articulate their political interests

expressed in the 1991 plebiscite.

The Muslims and Croats thus had a political platform,

but the Serbs posed an "obstacle" of sorts.

The Serbs possessed significant properties, influence,

and positions throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina,

and they were interwoven

with the Muslim and Croat communities

to the extent that no de facto unitary government

could be established.

That obstacle could only be removed through war,

and the pretext came faster than anyone expected.

One shot articulated all the political violence

that the Muslim and Croatian side

had been committing for a year.

On March 1st, 1992,

as the voting on the referendum was still ongoing,

but Ramiz Delalic Celo,

who was previously convicted for violence,

fired shots at a Serb wedding in Sarajevo.

He killed the father of the groom, Nikola Gardovic

as the wedding guests were departing

to the old Orthodox Church for the wedding ceremony.

The reason was, as the executor said himself...

They took out their Serbian flags and started waving them.

The same Serbian flag that was banned

by the Austro-Hungarian government less than a century ago.

Nikola Gardovic was killed only

because he was open about being a Serb.

As no one was convicted or even arrested for the crime,

the killing of Serbs was essentially legalised.

This crime is considered the beginning of the war

in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Muslim side denies this.

But the fact remains that the executor, Ramiz Delalic,

as a member of the Muslim's military forces,

was decorated by Alija Izetbegovic in person

in the war that engulfed the country.

The killing was a long-awaited excuse

to implement the ideology of "The Islamic Declaration"

as demonstrated in the days, months,

and years after the murder.

The division into small and big nations

cannot be merely determined

by counting how many people are a part of a nation,

but rather according to the contribution

a nation makes to civilization.

And when it comes to the Serbian nation,

they often gave the most valuable thing they could, life.

At the end of the 19th century,

the Serbs of this area initiated uprisings

and wars against the Ottoman occupiers in the Balkans.

From this spot, not far from the town of Nevesinje,

the Serbs rebelled in their desire

to rid themselves of the now renegade Ottoman authorities

and they freed themselves from the occupier.

But this occupier was instantly replaced by another one.

At the moment, when the Austro-Hungarian occupier

was taking control over Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Serbs made up 43% of the population there

and with a single largest ethnic group.

This didn't suit the new Austro-Hungarian occupier,

so the ethnic composition was to be adjusted

in a two-step process:

one, changing the national structure;

and two, controlling inter-ethnic relations.

Already in the first years of Austro-Hungarian rule,

migrants were brought in, mostly from Bavaria,

but from other parts of the empire as well.

The first migrant colony near Banja Luka was Windhorst.

They were nicknamed Kuferasi,

loosely translated to foreigners

who only brought a suitcase with them.

The exact number of the Kuferasi

was never precisely determined,

but estimates go as high as 200,000 migrating

in two decades.

Their main role was to take over jobs

in the developing industry.

Up to 60% of civil service jobs were reserved

for the Kuferasi.

In addition to migrating peoples to colonies

such as Franzjosefsfeld,

not far from the city of Bijeljina, where I'm standing,

the Austro-Hungarians manipulated

the existing ethnic relations in an attempt to control them.

Beni Kallay was an Austro-Hungarian statesman,

who, as administrator of the condominium

of Bosnia and Herzegovina, believed he could strengthen

Austria-Hungary's authority there

by weakening national movements.

He first tried to create a unified Bosnian nation

using the word Bosnjak or Bosniak

to describe all the inhabitants of Bosnia.

Significant funds were invested in this project,

even a newspaper called Bosnjak was printed,

but this idea was rejected by Muslims

as well as Serbs and Croats.

As this project failed, another one was launched

to turn Bosnian Muslims into a separate nation.

The works of literature that were devised

as a part of that project

talked about Serbian Cyrillic writings

as a special alphabet called Bosancica.

The Bogomils suddenly became a part

of the so-called Bosnian Church,

while the medievals that took tombstones

were classified as supposed remnants of that church.

Travnik is the birthplace of Ivo Andric.

In his novel "Chronicle of Travnik" or "Bosnian Chronicle",

he describes the impact on national relations

when the government, when it comes to existential issues,

favours one national group in relation to the others.

Andric presents the French and Austrian consuls

who were sent Travnik as the embodiment

of the great European powers influence on this area.

According to the origin of the consul,

a certain nation rejoices,

convinced that it's political, ideological,

or religious resemblance to the consul

will give it an existential advantage over other nations.

Andric's message that consuls

and everything they represent come and go,

but neighbours stay was never clear enough

to the people from this area.

The hatred that the Austro-Hungarian government created,

using the same social mechanisms

that Andric skillfully recognised in his novel,

left a disastrous legacy.

The modern European coloniser emphasised in every way

the sublime culture brings to a dark post-Ottoman realm.

However, the incitement of hatred came equally

from the Ottoman canopies

as it did from the European courts.

The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina

couldn't fully grasp how the Austro-Hungarian conquerors

saw them in 1878, but the press testifies to that.

They were seen as savages, animals, linking them to pigs.

A Muslim, Serb, and Croat squashed like bugs.

Absurdity is best answered with absurdity,

and that answer was best articulated

by somebody who was educated

in the capital of Austria, Petar Kocic.

Petar Kocic was a Serbian poet, writer,

and politician at the turn of the 20th century.

After returning home from his studies in Vienna,

he began his political struggle in Sarajevo

to improve the conditions of serfs, as the lowest class,

and the general living condition of Serbs.

For this, he was sentenced to prison and persecuted.

And in his most successful short story

"The Badger on Trial",

he described the Austro-Hungarian judiciary,

which, according to him, has a law for everyone,

even a badger.

"The Badger on Trial" talks about the attitude

of the Austro-Hungarian government towards Serbs.

Based on a true story,

the main character is the unassuming David,

a Serb farmer who wants to sue a badger

for damaging his crops.

Standing before the judges,

David talks about his hardships

under the occupation through satire.

He says that now that he's deprived of everything,

he's finally free and happy, although hungry.

The judges accept everything,

satisfied that David isn't blaming the state for his demise.

The literary work

subjects the Austrian authorities to ridicule,

but defiantly attacks them as well.

For many, the assassination in Sarajevo

served to finally turn

their anti-Serbian thoughts into action.

Immediately following the assassination,

demonstrators demolished the Hotel Evropa

simply because it was owned by a Serb.

Numerous Serb houses were obliterated.

The offices of the "Serbian Word" newspaper

and many other Serbian-owned businesses were attacked.

The crowd chanted "Down with the Serbs"

and the abolition of Serbian schools was demanded.

The true face of the Austro-Hungarian occupier

was not only reflected in the destruction of property,

but also in the prohibition of everything Serbian,

their flag, Cyrillic script,

and the celebration of their patron saint.

The first Allied victory of World War I

was won by the Kingdom of Serbia's Army.

Sadly, however, this initial success

in no way foreshadowed the immense sacrifice

the war would demand of the Serbs.

Austria-Hungary eventually managed to occupy Serbia,

and Serbia's entire army and government

retreated to the Mediterranean.

With this, the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina

lost the support they had in Serbia,

and the occupier had no more obstacles

in dealing with them in a cruel way.

What the oriental conqueror

didn't even think about doing to Serbs for four centuries

was done by the "enlightened conqueror" from the west.

Concentration camps for Serbs, like the one in Doboj,

were a hint of what awaited all of Europe

only a few decades later.

It has not been fully determined

how many Serbs died in the Doboj concentration camp.

But it's estimated that in 1916 alone,

over 600 children under the age of 10 died in that camp.

And in 1917, 1,000 children died.

In addition to the camp,

an auxiliary volunteer militia group was established

known as the Schutzkorps, composed of Croats and Muslims

who hunted down Serbs, mostly civilians,

and committed robberies and crimes against them.

The Turkish sultan, as a religious authority,

also encouraged hatred by calling Serbs

"enemies of Islam" in a fatwa.

The cemetery of Serbian soldiers

near Thessaloniki in Greece is called Zeitenlik,

after the olive trees that once grew here.

Cemeteries such as this all over the Mediterranean

testify to the profound sacrifice made by a small kingdom

in a fight against a 10 times larger empire.

In 1917 and 1918, the Kingdom of Serbia

made an enormous contribution

to Allied victory in World War I.

However, in this conflict,

3 out of every 10 citizens of Serbia lost their lives.

As the victorious power that militarily controlled

all of what we know today as Yugoslavia,

Serbia had the chance to create a Greater Serbia,

but its government decided not to do so,

opting instead to unite with its neighbouring nations.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes

was being created, which soon became

the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,

without any national characteristics,

both in terms of organisation and politics.

World War I brought four years of death

and destruction to Europe.

However, according to "The Good Soldier Svejk",

all that could easily have been avoided

if only Franz Ferdinand was fat

because then he would've died earlier of a heart attack.

Svejk, the good humoured, simple-minded soldier

who pretends to be enthusiastic

to serve Austria-Hungary in World War I,

is a character from a satirical dark comedy novel

by a Czech writer who, as a contemporary of World War I,

conveyed a message of peace.

This message was recognised

by the famous Serbian director, writer,

and intellectual born in Sarajevo, Emir Kusturica

during the construction of the Andricgrad project

in the city of Visegrad.

The purpose of the complex itself is to gather the memory

of all the Serbian cultural greats in one place,

and it is named after

the only Serbian Nobel laureate, Ivo Andric.

On January 9th, 1992, at the Sarajevo Holiday Inn,

the Republic of the Serb people

of Bosnia and Herzegovina was proclaimed.

The Serbs had this historical memory

that whenever they lost their political significance

and connection to Serbia, they were exposed to persecution.

Radovan Karadzic became the first president,

and Momcilo Krajisnik, the president of the assembly.

Apart from the constitution and political organisation,

Republika Srpska did not have an army

as the politicians were convinced

that the Yugoslav People's Army or JNA would preserve peace

and that a solution to the crisis

would be found politically.

However, events in May of 1992,

such as the attack on a column of retreating JNA soldiers

in Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo

and in Tuzla just two weeks later

clearly showed why the Muslim side

organised their armed forces as early as May 1991,

to wage war with the Serbs.

As the JNA withdrew from Bosnia and Herzegovina,

the Serbs were left without protection

and that is why they formed the Army of Republika Srpska

in the spring of 1992.

The Serbs were fearful of a repeat of their experiences

of bearing the brunt of fascism and Nazism,

the prevailing political ideologies

of Germany and Italy in the 1930s.

Now these ideologies

supposedly promoted peace to the outside world,

but carried out terror at home.

With the rise of Adolf Hitler

and his Nazi party to power in Germany,

the ideology that Germans were a higher race of people

and their claim to the territories of other nations

opened the door to a new war in Europe.

The revolt of the Serbian people

against these morally distorted ideas

was perhaps best described by the words of Branko Copic,

a contemporary of World War II.

"I watched our singing youths fight and die

for the freedom of their homeland,

to save humanity from fascist darkness and slavery."

Branko Copic, born in what is today Republika Srpska,

was a writer, satirist, but also a participant

in the anti-fascist struggle of the partisans.

His participation in the war

significantly marked his literary work,

but his cheerful spirit will be remembered

through the works he wrote for children.

The deadly darkness of World War II

soon engulfed the Balkans,

bringing with it a chapter of his history

that's not so difficult to understand

as it is difficult to comprehend

how it could possibly have been written by human beings.

"Never again."

This was the cry heard from Serbs

in Bosnia and Herzegovina in early 1992.

Those two words spoke of an entire century

of tragic experiences.

Donja Gradina was part

of the Jasenovac concentration camp complex,

which testifies to the genocide committed

against civilians during World War II

in the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

With the invasion of Nazi Germany in April 1941,

Yugoslavia was conquered and divided into occupation zones.

The so-called Independent State of Croatia,

a Nazi puppet state was formed on the territories

roughly corresponding to today's Croatia,

combined with Bosnia and Herzegovina,

and parts of Serbia and Slovenia.

Its leader and political creator was Ante Pavelic,

whose ideology was in line with Nazi Germany's

regarding Jews, Roma, and Communists,

but was, in addition, extremely hostile towards Serbs.

The real face of the "enlightened colonisers"

who came to this area has never been easily visible,

but it has always been subtly implemented

in the most important aspects of life.

Austria-Hungary, in their construction of schools,

in what they saw as a backwards Bosnia and Herzegovina,

can boast of the product of their education system.

Ante Pavelic, the leader of the later formed

fascist Croatian Ustase movement

and the Independent State of Croatia.

Historians have a well-founded suspicion

that it was at the Travnik gymnasium

that Pavelic accepted the anti-Serbian teachings

of the Croatian nationalist ideologue Ante Starcevic.

The goal of physically reducing the number of Serbs,

thus extinguishing their political significance,

remained the same during World War II

as it was during the Austro-Hungarian occupation.

So the Ustase applied the same recipe that was used in Doboj

27 years earlier, forming concentration camps.

In addition to banning the national symbols of Serbs

identical to measures

during the Austro-Hungarian occupation,

the Jasenovac concentration camp complex was formed

in which the Ustase rounded up Serbs, Jews,

Roma, communists, and others.

Known for their cruelty, these camps even inturned children.

Although hundreds of thousands were killed,

the final number of victims has never been fully determined.

The question is, why did all the conquerors of the past

see Serbs as the enemy?

Well, because whenever Serbs were threatened

by an incomparably greater force, they mostly resisted.

The struggle for freedom is key.

It is essentially a cultural nature.

Ignorant loudmouths don't have a substitute for this.

They just say: "They are nationalists,

they are trying to defend something that is indefensible."

And what is their counterweight?

They want to take away everything we have,

not only our culture,

but also our women and cars and houses and apartments

so that they're the owners and we're the users.

Well, no way.

No way.

The first in Europe who said this

to the largest military power of the 20th century,

Nazi Germany, were the Serbs right here in Nevesinje.

When the Serbs saw the genocidal system

of concentration camps and the indiscriminate killings

that were taking place there,

they decided to rise up and take action.

An insurgency was quickly organised in this area

that had a history of rebellion.

As early as June 23rd and 24th, 1941,

the entire municipality of Nevesinje,

except for two major military strongholds, was liberated.

The first military victories of the Soviet Union,

the United States, and Great Britain over Germany

happened several years later.

For the Nazis and the Ustase, however,

one man was their biggest headache.

They described him as the most dangerous rebel leader

because he's the most intelligent,

leads the largest and strongest group of insurgents,

is very careful and carries out his attacks

with systematic precision.

He was Mladen Stojanovic, the legendary Dr. Mladen,

leader of the partisan insurgents in Kozara.

The life story of the son of a priest,

a member of the Young Bosnia movement,

a poet, tennis player, doctor, and national hero

is one of the most exciting in the turbulent

and tragic history here.

In his youth, he met with Gavrilo Princip

and other freedom fighters in this area.

He conspired against the occupiers,

was arrested by the Austro-Hungarian authorities,

treated hundreds of Krajina peasants for free,

and gave money for medicine and travel expenses to the poor.

At times, his life was reminiscent

of that of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

But people around the world don't wear t-shirts

with the image of Dr. Mladen.

Although they really should.

After the German attack on Yugoslavia,

Dr. Mladen was arrested,

but he managed to escape from prison and flee to Kozara,

where he became the commander

of the Kozara Partisan Detachment.

Dr. Mladen's group engaged in heroic combat

against the occupiers and the Ustase.

Several offensives were launched against him,

none were successful.

The legendary Dr. Mladen managed to stay on Kozara

and continued carrying out military operations.

Because of his wise and uncompromising fight for freedom,

he became the most popular figure

amongst people living in this region.

While trying to unite as many people as possible

for the struggle, he was ambushed and shot in the forehead.

Incredibly, he survived the severe injury

and began to recover successfully.

But there was another betrayal from within his ranks,

and Dr. Mladen was killed.

It was a tremendous blow to the Serbs

who made up 90% of the partisan forces in this area.

Only a few months later,

Nazi Germany and the Ustase launched an offensive

against the partisan movement.

The Battle of Kozara took over 30,000 civilian lives,

largely Serbs, most of whom were killed

at the Jasenovac concentration camp.

The Kozara Memorial Park is one of many

throughout Republika Srpska

that attests to the heroic struggle for freedom

of the largest resistance movement in Europe

during World War II.

In the 1990s, the interference of Western powers

in the Yugoslav conflict was supposed to be a guarantee,

that the horrors of World War II would not be repeated

and the disagreements would be resolved peacefully.

Instead, Western powers

clearly began taking sides in the conflict.

Germany heavily lobbied

the Council of Ministers of the European community

to recognise the independence of Croatia in 1991

despite the disenfranchisement of Serbs living there,

and the same lobbying continued for the recognition

of the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

The appeals of the politically disenfranchised Serbs there

did not yield significant results.

Warnings of the return of Nazism in these areas,

as seen in Vox Magazine, didn't change the West's perception

of the tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Austro-Hungarian occupation provided a template

for turning ethnic groups against each other,

and this is how it was done.

Muslims, Serbs, and Croats

lived together in peace for centuries,

their culture, language, history,

and personal lives often intertwined.

So, certain individuals from those groups

were chosen by the occupier

to sow hatred and exploit religious feelings.

In World War I, this was done by creating the Schutzkorps,

composed of members of two nations

who persecuted and killed members of the third nation.

In World War II, a Nazi SS unit

called the Handschar Division was formed,

made up of Muslims whose religious sentiments

were exploited by Nazi Germany

which in turn supported the Ustase movement

led by Ante Pavelic in its genocide of Serbs.

Thus, in the 1990s,

certain Western powers supported Alija Izetbegovic

despite him being convicted of religious fanaticism.

A speech by the Serb representative, Radovan Karadzic,

in Bosnia and Herzegovina's parliament in October 1991,

was relentlessly replayed on television channels

around the world.

The road you are choosing for Bosnia and Hercegovina

is the same highway of hell and suffering

Slovenia and Croatia have already taken.

Don't think that you won't take

Bosnia and Hercegovina to hell

and the Muslim people perhaps into extinction,

because if there is a war,

Muslims will not be able to defend themselves.

This was presented as a threat and out of context,

sure, it sounds like one, but was it a warning?

If the Serb politician's aim

was really to erase all Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina,

then it certainly made little sense

for him to invite Izetbegovic

to the founding of their political party in 1990

and even let him speak as an honoured guest.

We're not against our Muslims.

We're against them dominating us Serbs.

Why would Serbs push for violent change

when the status quo of Yugoslavia suited them best

as all Serbs lived in one unified state?

Nevertheless, Karadzic's statements

were used by many politicians

and media outlets around the world

as evidence that Serbs wanted war.

They ignored the fact that just months after

Karadzic signed the Carrington-Cutileiro Peace Plan,

known as the Lisbon Agreement,

the last peace deal before the war erupted.

The agreement was also signed by the leader of Croats

in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mate Boban,

and the Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic.

But then the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann

convinced Izetbegovic to withdraw his signature

from the peace plan.

By withdrawing his signature,

Alija Izetbegovic, not through a speech,

but through his concrete actions,

opened the gates of conflict

with the blessing of the strongest global superpower.

The involvement of the United States

and Germany in the events that followed was undisputed.

In fact, the three national groups

agreed on a petition.

And the United States, under the previous administration,

opposed it because they were worried about the precedent

that might set for the then Soviet Union.

An international community fanning the flames of war

under the banner of peace

embodied in soldiers in white uniforms

was satirised by the Surrealists on Yugoslav television.

Why don't you organize yourselves?

To secede and all that stuff?

Yeah, we will.

The Western countries openly taking sides

was accompanied by a narrative

that labelled Serbs as the aggressors.

Shortly after the United States

and Western Europe recognised

the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Serb forces had invaded Bosnia.

All this, despite the fact

that Serbs have inhabited this area

since the early Middle Ages

and that they have been an inalienable factor

to all elements of life here ever since,

this narrative fit into the propaganda

that accompanied the start of all the wars in the Balkans.

Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina

always had a reputation across Yugoslavia as good hosts,

people who loved a good joke,

which they call sega.

To push them into a war mentality,

their religious feelings were exploited.

In the early 1990s before the war,

a man in the town of Visoko asked me:

"Professor, what are you? Are you one of us?"

I said: "Well, yes, I belong to everyone",

but he says: "And your wife, what is she?"

I responded: "She's Yugoslav, a mix, Serbo-Croatian.

Father Serb, mother Croat, came by train."

He then says: "Brother,

it matters not which religion we are,

so long as we're Muslim."

From the moment the conflict started

until the war ended in 1995,

images of Sarajevo as a city under siege by well-armed Serbs

circulated the world.

The circumstances were completely different.

During the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Serbs wanted to defend the places

where they constituted a majority.

180,000 Serbs lived in Sarajevo,

so they formed military and police authorities

in the Sarajevo municipalities

where Serbs made up the majority.

The rest of the city's territory

was under the control of Muslim forces,

the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In none of the media reports from war-torn Sarajevo

could you read or hear these facts:

The number of Serbian troops

participating in the fighting around Sarajevo

never exceeded 13,000.

While the number of Muslim soldiers

was several times greater.

Throughout the entire war,

there was no concrete attempt by Serbs

to conquer the city itself.

Most of the higher positions around the city

were controlled by the Muslim army.

Grenades were thrown from Muslim-controlled territories

as well as Serb-controlled territories.

Both sides conducted military operations,

so it wasn't true that only civilians

resided in Sarajevo during the war.

But what made the civil war

in Bosnia and Herzegovina unjustifiably horrific

were the numerous war crimes committed by all sides.

Kravica is one of the many places where mostly Serbs lived.

The population in the general area west of Drina River

was a mix of Serbs and Muslims.

At the beginning of the war,

by invading the Serb majority towns of Kravica and Bratunac,

Muslim forces committed horrific crimes

in the poorly defended villages of this area.

ISLAM WILL WIN BECAUSE BOSNIA IS AN ISLAMIC STATE

Determined to stop this threat,

the Army of Republika Srpska

launched a military operation in 1993,

after which the area of Srebrenica

was placed under the protection of UN forces

as a safe area and demilitarised zone.

But it wasn't demilitarised

and the Muslim forces continued carrying out

their military operations,

leading the Army of Republika Srpska

to decide to take over control of the Srebrenica safe area.

The Army of Republika Srpska's entry

into Srebrenica in 1995 ignited chaos.

Though many civilians were evacuated from the city,

many others, including children, were killed by Serb forces.

Some Muslim soldiers,

who were attempting to break through to Tuzla,

were captured and executed.

There's no justification for such heinous crimes,

considered the largest single act of mass killing

in the Yugoslav wars and the worst in Europe

since World War II.

The International Criminal Tribunal

for the Former Yugoslavia

was established in 1993 in The Hague.

Now, The Hague Tribunal was supposed to bring

justice to the victims and reconciliation among the nations

following the end of the civil wars.

However, it would be eerily reminiscent

of earlier European courts.

Instead of reconciliation,

The Hague Tribunal

brought even deeper divisions to this area,

by choosing to disproportionately punish

one side in the conflict.

If all the verdicts were added together,

Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians

were sentenced to a total of about 300 years in prison.

While Serbs alone

were sentenced to over 1,000 years in prison

for crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

The verdict of this court,

that what happened in Srebrenica constituted genocide,

remains an open topic in some circles to this day.

By politicising the victims of war,

it makes it that much harder for one nation

to truly understand the suffering and tragedy of another,

understanding not a Bosniak's, nor a Croat's,

nor a Serb's pain, but rather a human being's pain

would help to bring closure to these dark pages

of human history.

But most importantly, help prevent something like this

from ever happening again here in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

and also in Croatia.

Knin is a city in Croatia where,

before the civil war in 1991,

Serbs made up 80% of the population.

With the conquest of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century,

many Serbs started migrating north to neighbouring Austria.

Some of the displaced Serbs settled in the border area,

which came to be known as the Vojna Krajina

or Military Frontier, which acted as the cordon sanitaire

against incursions from the Ottoman Empire.

After the Ottomans left and Austria-Hungary crumbled,

the number of Serbs living in the Krajina region

remained significant.

After they fell victim to genocide during World War II,

the Serbs became a constitutional part

of the Socialist Republic of Croatia within Yugoslavia.

This meant that important decisions about Croatia

were to be made by a consensus

between both Croats and Serbs.

But in 1991, Serbs were outvoted in a referendum

and Croatia declared Serbs a national minority,

thus marginalising their political significance.

In the years leading up to the referendum,

Serbs and their properties

were the target of numerous attacks.

GREETINGS FROM THE USTASHE!

In an attempt to preserve their rights

and protect themselves,

Serbs proclaimed the Republika Srpska Krajina,

which had all the elements of statehood.

A bloody war was fought until 1995

when the Croatian Army launched Operation Storm,

a military operation that effectively extinguished

the Republika Srpska Krajina

and expelled more than 200,000 Serbs from the area.

Those fleeing the army had little to no time

to take with them what they could,

while many who remained in their homes were killed.

The Serbian Krajina was a thorn in the eye

of all Croatian political doctrines in the last 200 years,

because the Serbs that guarded the Austro-Hungarian borders

didn't report to the local authorities in Croatia,

but rather directly to the Austrian throne.

And that hatred towards Serbs escalated,

not only in theory, but also through mass killings.

Today, there are eight times fewer Serbs in Knin

than before the war.

Almost no Serbs left

in practically all areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina

that didn't become a part of Republika Srpska.

Even in Mostar, the birthplace

of one of the greatest Serbian poets, Aleksa Santic.

There were more than 19,000 Serbian residents here,

and now that number's diminished down to about 3,000.

After the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995,

which ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

about 150,000 Serbs left the parts of Sarajevo,

where they lived, in the middle of winter.

I left everything I had.

During this exodus,

they even dug out their dead loved ones

in fear of their graves being desecrated.

The Serbs in Republika Srpska knew

that if they wanted to remain on their historical land,

west of the Drina River, they had to defend themselves,

just like their ancestors did.

On this spot, Serbs in Nevesinje

met with representatives of Western powers,

urging them to reconsider rebelling against the Ottomans

as Germany and Austria

didn't want instability in their border areas.

Despite not having support from the West

or even Serbia, Montenegro, or Russia,

the Serbs of Nevesinje

raised an armed uprising by themselves.

When asked, "How will you fight without food or ammunition,"

one of the rebels took a handful of his land and said,

"This is my food and ammunition.

So as long as we have this,

we have the means to fight

and something to die for."

The Army of Republika Srpska was almost twice as small

as the combined Muslim and Croat armies.

Despite not exceeding 80,000 fighters,

the Serbs controlled a front line

that at one point spanned 3,000 kilometres.

They sometimes had the support of Serbia,

though even Serbia at one point

imposed sanctions against Republika Srpska.

The international community and Western politicians

as well as mainstream media outlets

were firmly against the Serbs.

With NATO even bombing Serb positions

in Republika Srpska in 1995.

Yet, despite all of this,

the Army of Republika Srpska resisted

and defended their homes just like their ancestors did.

The strong resistance of the Serb soldiers

was all a part of the same heroism

that Jovan Ducic recognised.

Jovan Ducic was a Serb writer and diplomat

at the turn of the 20th century,

born in Trebinje in Herzegovina.

In writing about heroism,

he says that Serbs are the only people

whose hero ordeal is similar to the ancient one;

as someone who sacrifices himself for the good of others.

The heroes of the Battle of Kosovo

against the Ottomans in the 14th century,

Milos Obilic and Prince Lazar

as well as the entire Serbian army

knowingly gave their lives for freedom

and what that freedom represents.

Under the Ottoman occupation,

the heroes were called Hajduks,

outlaws who took from rich Ottomans and gave to the poor,

risking their own lives for freedom.

The heroes of the first Serbian uprising

against the Ottomans

at the beginning of the 19th century weren't noblemen.

They were simply those who fought to liberate their people

through courage and sacrifice.

Despite terrible conditions,

faced with attacks from all sides,

the fighters of the Army of Republika Srpska

managed to preserve the territory

where Serbs live in Bosnia and Herzegovina

during three years of war.

In order to show continuity

with their compatriots and ancestors,

who gave their lives for the same struggle in World War I

and were buried in Zeitenlik in Greece,

this place of eternal rest

for the soldiers of the Army of Republic Srpska

in Sokolac, near Sarajevo, was named Mali Zejtnilik

or Small Zeitenlik.

For the first time in centuries,

Serbs west of the Drina River

have all the mechanisms to shape

and organise their own lives.

Republika Srpska covers around half

of Bosnia and Herzegovina

and has all the elements of statehood.

It has its own government, assembly, president, police,

but also the ability to influence

the political course of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Therefore, Republika Srpska isn't just a political entity,

it's the necessary minimum

for Serbs to survive in a land where they've always lived.

The Principality of Serbia was the first country,

aside from France, to abolish feudalism

and the only one that didn't have nobility in Europe.

Everyone was equal.

In the two world wars, the Serbs made enormous sacrifices

with the most per capita deaths in the Great War.

This willingness to sacrifice everything for freedom

is due to the Serbs' unique attitude towards freedom,

which means to be one's own

and brings with it the cultural paradigm

that everyone must be free, and thus equal.

That is why Serbs have always been a thorn

in the eye of many colonisers and occupiers,

and they still are today.

As long as a Serb exists,

he or she has a spiritual duty to fight slavery

and inequality in every way.

Republika Srpska wasn't planned.

It's a consequence of the Serbs struggle for freedom,

and the pledge that will always exist

is at the heart of what it means to be a Serb.

To be a Serb means to be free,

which bothers many.

And to be free means being strong enough to be free

and live in a cathartic history

in which you never allowed yourself to be defeated.

Serbs are a nation

that was never fully defeated in its history.

It wasn't defeated during Turkish times,

when the Serbian and Russian churches

had very active cooperation in the 16th century,

and afterwards, when it liberated itself

and created the conditions

for other nations to thrive in the region.

This was the First Serbian Uprising

or the First Serbian Revolution

in which Karadjordje essentially helped all other nations

to go down the path to where they are today.

Being undefeated is a precondition for being free.

For me, that is the Serbian nation.

As Serb poet Aleksa Santic wrote,

"We know our fate and all we're in for;

O yet our hearts in fright will not shiver.

Oxen bow down but men do not quiver,

for God unto men freedom did bestow."