Talk:Bosniaks

King Tvrtko was a Bosnian (Christ) not a Bosniak (Muslim)

In the time of King Tvrtko and the Kotromanic dynasty, there were no Bosniaks. Anything similar to that ethnos, Slavic Muslims of Ottoman culture, were extremly rare on the Balkans of that time and for Tvrtko being a christian king those people were enemies of the Bosnian Kingdom, against which he fought. The Ottomans eradicated the Bosnian medieval nation.

The contemporary terminus Bosniaks is an austrian-designed terminus in the 19th century for ottoman muslims that speak serbo-croatian, which have nothing in common with the tradition of medieval Bosnian state, on the contrary they are the sole opposite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.23.94.188 (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That might even be true. At the same time Bosniaks are the group in Bosnia which identifies with the Bosnian state the most. Again, I agree with you with respect to the religion, but "Slavic Muslim" is not equal "Bosniak". It is the old Bosniak = Bosnian Muslim vs. Bosniak = Bosnian argument, which I will not repeat here,... but it seems to me that the Serbian and Croatian nationalists would rather tolerate Bosnian Muslims than Bosnian statehood/nation,... think about it.

However, can we resolve the map dispute? I have proposed a modified map, can we please pick one of the two? Or can somebody upload a different map that everybody agrees on?

"Bošnjak" is a modern derivative of the medieval word "Bošnjanin". You don't have to be Muslim to be Bosniak (same for Catholics and Croats, orthodoxy and Serbs). Tvrtko I was a self identified "Bošnjanin" (Modern-day Bošnjak). His nationality was Bosnian. He wasn't a Serb, nor Croat. So, since most Bosniaks are descendants of the Bošnjanin, he is regarded as a "Bošnjak" in modern times. Like how the French, before the notion of French people, were called Franks, and are now called French. the word "French" is derived from the word "Frank"(Peoples). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gradanin (talk • contribs) 09:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that his point was rather that Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats have every right to Tvrtko as well, and that Tvrtko in connection with for instance Ceric (who happens to love Turkey and the Ottoman empire so much), is nothing short of a contradiction for the Bosniaks, because the medieval Bosnian kingdom was destroyed by the Ottomans. And I concede him that point, simply because he is right. Also, let me point out that their pictures are both in the article, side by side.

There is no contradiction, no nation remains unchanging throughout 1000 years, appreciating different eras of ones heritage is the modus operandi for pretty much every nation. Just because Bosniaks today are mostly Muslim doesn't mean that they don't share their heritage with the Bosniak Christians of yore. That would be like saying that Norwegians have to disown their heritage because they no longer believe in Loki or Thor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.36.237.135 (talk) 01:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Exactly, every nation as old as the Bosniaks has gone through numerous changes, saying that change (including Religious change) automatically severs ones connection with his ancestors would mean that the almost every nation is an historical orphan.
  • The term that we should use is Bosnian. The Bosniak nationality was formed by and for Bosnian Muslims, and was only recently renamed from "Muslim by nationality". It is true that certain Bosniak intellectuals have been attempting to represent only Bosnian Muslims, i.e. Bosniaks, as the only historic Bosnians. This is very biased, however. In Tvrtko's time all Bosnians were Christian South Slavs. While those of these Christian Slav Bosnians that would adopt Islam in future centuries were certainly there among them in great number, it would be impossible to distinguish them in any way from those that will not. In other words, distinctions between Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are completely inapplicable to this historical context, and to apply any of the three to Tvrtko is an error, and one that will be offensive to the other two. Tvrtko was a Bosnian king. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:10, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Let us simply keep Tvrtko's picture saying that he was a ruler of Bosnia. Basically, to be very precise:

 IMAGE  

Tvrtko I Kotromanic,
A ruler of medieval Bosnia.

---

This should, quite frankly, also be acceptable to Serbs and Croats, as it stands next to the section on the (common) history.

Also, it is not given, by any means, that some figures who have Islamic names would have opted for the Bosniak nationality today, or that they descendants did not convert back to Christianity. The article on Omar Pasha Latas proudly lists him as a Serb, and there are historical sources which confirm that he indeed felt that way. This might be a little provocative to ask, but I think it is also legitimate: Who did he support and who did he oppress? Again, I do not want to offend anybody. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.15.200.209 (talk) 20:44, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

This talk is a litle old, but still I hope you will list Tvrtko I as a Bosniak, because he was. If you didn't know, he converted to Catholicism in 1347 but what was he before that? He was a kristjan a.k.a. "bogumil". The kristjans where, even thought christians, neither Orthodox nor Catholich, but Heretic. After the fall of the Bosnian kingdom these converted to Islam, therefore they must have been Bosniaks, and not Serbs or Crotas, including Tvrtko I. I hope you will hear me and change this 'cause I don't really know how to edit anything except correcting grammar mistakes.80.80.40.208 (talk) 15:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Who is a Bosnian ?

Let's say hypothetically that Bosnian Christians, namely Catholics and Orthodox, deny the fact that they are Croats and Serbs, but embrace the term Bosnian. They take the famous King Tvrtko as a medieval ruler of their state Bosnia, aswell as other nobilities of that time, and take some battles where they fought against the others, most notably the ones against the Ottomans that rulled the kingdom and oppressed their christianity for "500" years (eventough I calculated, it was more like 350 - 300 years), as their national myths.

The Question is:

Wouldn't the, predominantly sunni muslim, Bosniak people of ottoman tradition, be seen as some sort of (I dare ask) intruders in Bosnia? Because they are neither christian, like medieval or they fellow Bosnians, nor have they cherished any of such culture or tradition, namely they are the historical foes of Bosnians that ruled over Bosnia in the name of a foreign Ottoman ruler (as aghas, beys, pashas, viziers), oppressing Bosnians, converting them to islam, and denying any connection to their ethnic Bosnian ancestors.

Should those muslim Bosniaks, have to deny their ottoman tradition, culture and religion, and embrace the medieval christian one, namely the Bosnian one, to be accepted as "real" Bosnians? Change their muslim names and surnames, like Vahid, Safvet, Husein, Džemal, Mustafa (quoting some names from the list in the article) to Bosnian names of slavic origin? Deny everything ottoman, foreign and "bad" (bad because the Ottomans eradicated the Bosnian Kingdom, their slavic culture and christian tradition, installing their own foreign turkish one, hence the Bosnian Kingdom fought against the Ottomans) and embrace everything slavic.

I am well aware that the stances stated are somewhat radical, but I believe legitimate to ask.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.191.58.189 (talk) 11:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I do think it is a legitimate question, and I do think that one's own country should always be more important no matter what. Showing the Turkish flag in public as one's own, for instance, makes no sense.

Europe is Christian, but Christianity it is not the determining factor for being “European”. It makes no sense to “embrace the medieval Christian” faith as some sort of solution. We really do not need more "conversions", people tend to be blind about the shortcomings of their own religion, as they care for their own and blame the other. The religions prey on the mind of children, the psychologists call it the socialization process; the grown men repeat later these statements without consideration,… This is true of all three Abrahamic faiths. Exclusivity in religious terms is dangerous, since the Abrahamic religions, even sects belonging to the same religion, do not mix well. We have embraced the Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) and Islam in the early 90s, and look at how it affected the people. We have SEGREGATION in the society now. This is the same in the 20th and 21st century as it was for example in the 10th or 16th century. We should be wary of these dynamics; the Middle East is a cautioning example of what we should never allow in our backyard. We in Bosnia need the separation of church and state more than any other country in Europe. Under Tito this was the case, and I think it was one of the important factors for the stability. For Bosniaks in particular, I think, the most honest thing would be to acknowledge that we have been influenced by the Ottomans through conquest AND faith and not try to insist on these “cultural” bridges, which honestly nowadays do not make that much sense... That the Ottomans have been gone for 150 years is also true in this context.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.15.106.15 (talk) 02:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There is something you don't understand. Most of the people who were part of the Bosnian church converted to muslims. They are not intruders, they just changed their religion. And in the last 50 years they finally made it to be dominated group in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One research shows that most people from BiH doesn't have any connections to Turkey. The blood type is different. About 65% of Bosnia and more then 75% of Herzegovina has haplogroup which originated some 2500 years ago, which means way before Otomans came here and which means that people from BiH mixed very little with other people. That is the biggest percentage of an Haplogroup in a region in Europe. The other people with this same haplogroup in big percentage is the southern part of Dalmatia, especially on some islands, which were on the other hand, before otomans, many times in the kingdom of Bosnia. And the only reason why we like Turkey is because we have some kind of respect to them. I'm someone who dislikes the public showing of their flag from the side of our people, but when I need which other nation do I support the most, it would be for sure Turkey. AnelZukic (talk) 03:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

AnelZukic, this looks like a topic for some forum, not for an encyclopedia. Ignore it until there is some substantiated discussion about improving the article, after all that is why talk pages exist - not about discussing every editors opinion on this topic. I am not sure about this, but I think this is called "don`t feed the trolls" :). Greetings. Adrian (talk) 06:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record, the term haplogroup refers to the "cluster" to which a set of genetic mutations is included. What you are referring to is the I Y-haplogroup (based on mutations on the Y chromosome which is passed from father to son). It has nothing to do with a "blood type". Also, little is known about the Bosnian Church, claims that they were "Bogumils" are dubious, because AFAIK these were in Bulgaria. What the true nature of their "heresy" was is not known. The claim that most of them converted to Islam cannot be substantiated. However, that the Bosniaks descend from them is something that can be concluded based, among other things, on the genetic evidence. 75% of the I2a marker makes Croats in Herzegovina an extreme outlier in Europe, and an additional study should be done IMHO. The same study in which this claim has been made (Marjanovic ) indicates that the highest occurrence of J is in the Bosniak sample, and the highest occurrence of E is in the Serbian sample (... that way you can insult each other better...). Overall, about 2/3rds of people in Bosnia have distinctly European Y haplogropus. Specifically for Bosniaks the breakdown is as follows: I 48.2, R1a1 15.3, R1b 3.5, F (other branches) 8.2, J 11.9, E3b 12.9. This number is higher in Croatia and lower in Serbia....And, finally, I personally do not care about Turkey that much...

Answer to the question and opinion whether Tvrtko belongs in the article picture

To answer the original question we first need to consider: "What is an ethnic group?"

Wikipedias answer is:
"An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy."

Now lets see if the Bosniaks of say 1400 were an ethnic group:
Identified with each other? Yes.
Common heritage? Yes.
Common language? Yes.
(Optional) Shared religion? Yes.
Ideology that stresses common ancestry? Yes.
The answer is obvious. An empathic yes.

What about the Bosniaks of 2010?
Common herigate? Yes.
Common language? Yes.
Shared religion? Yes.
Ideology that stresses common ancestry? Yes.
Again, they are.

Now the core of your question is whether the latter group has the right to identify with the former without undoing all the change that has happened to them in the intervening 600 years.

Quite simply: Yes. Wikipedia again on ethnogenesis: "Ethnic definitions are subject to change over time, both within and outside groups."

The question makes about as much sense as asking whether Germans have the right to consider themselves Germanic unless they start donning war paint and pelts and go fight the Italians(Romans) or reclaim their belief in Wotan or leave behind such Semitic names as Christian and Thomas.

It denies the fact that ethnicity is a social construct that is subject to change, adaptation and reconstitution. An ethnic group begins when people start seeing themselves as separate in identity from others and ends when there are no more people left who share that sense of identity. As long as there are people who share ancestry and a sense of identity with the Bosniaks of a thousand years ago the Bosniak identity survives. Also the question when exactly and how the Bosniak identity started prior to the first written record from 29. august of 1189 is interesting- but irrelevant to the fact that it exist from at least since then until today. Quite honestly, your original hypothesis is atavistic as it denies the fluidity of history, culture and identity and decries any change as a betrayal of the past.

I think that also explains why Tvrtko and other people who "merely" called themselves Bosniaks belong in an ethnic sense to the Bosniaks of today (following Wikipedia guidelines on what constitutes an ethnic identity.)

Now let's look at the objection that putting them on this article is "unfair" because they also belong to Bosnian Croats and Serbs:
It is clear that Tvrtko was a Bosnian, so he belongs on that page. It is clear that Bosnian Croats and Serbs are Bosnian, at least in a geographic sense. Their connection with Tvrtko is therefore explained and documented in that page. This doesn't change the fact that Tvrtko also belongs on this page since he is one of the fundaments and a significant part of the Bosniak identity.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.36.169.52 (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Bosnians are people living in Bosnia, that term is defined geographically and includes Bosniaks (previously "Bosnian Muslims"), Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats. Bosniaks are Bosnians, but are no more or less Bosnians than Bosnian Serbs or Croats.

As I said above, in Tvrtko's time all Bosnians were Christian South Slavs. The Bosniak nationality was formed in the past century by and for Bosnian Muslims, and was only recently renamed from "Muslim by nationality". It is culturally distinguished by its Muslim legacy. While those of the Christian Slav Bosnians that would adopt Islam in future centuries were certainly there in great number, it would be impossible to distinguish them in any way from those that will not. Distinctions between Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are completely inapplicable to the historical context of King Tvrtko, and to apply any of the three to Tvrtko is an error, and one that will be offensive to the other two.

King Tvrtko is Bosnian. Bosniaks are Bosnian. But King Tvrtko is not a Bosniak (or a Croat or a Serb). Geographically we can call him a "Bosnian", but such terms as "Bosniak" or "Croat" or "Serb" are inapplicable in his context. That is often the case with attempts to project 19th (or in this case 20th) century national concepts on the Middle Ages. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 09:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Bogumili-tvrtka1.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Need for ethnic map from1991

This article should have at least one ethnic map from pre-war period 1990-'91. Census of '91 or maps made after first democratic elections should do. This article have only one ethnic map, that from post-war period, which leave reader with incomplete ethnic picture. Caption below the map, with some sort of explanation isn't enough !

There are lot of maps of this sort on other articles on Bosnia, please include one, or one could even draw a new one - simple shading of areas where Bosniaks constituted majority before they were (ethically) cleansed could do the job.--Santasa99 (talk) 01:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Added. -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 05:58, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Conversion to islam under Ottoman rule

The article states. "Throughout the entire Balkans, people converted in small numbers to Islam in order to escape the burden of taxation and resulting social discrimination. However, in Bosnia, large-scale conversions to Islam were prevalent. " Well yes, that's obvious, but why did people convert in such large numbers here, and not in most other Balkan areas? Steinbach (talk) 12:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh well. It would be nice if I got a reply. Steinbach (talk) 20:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you didn't get a reply 'till now. Before the Ottoman conquest, Bosniaks were "Krstjans" - christians who adhered the Bosnian church. Since it was considered heretical by the pope, Bosnia was the only country where it was present as a religious community. After the fall of the Bosnian kingdom, there were two strong, organized religious communities in Bosnia: The Catholic church, headed by the Pope, and the Islamic community, headed by the so-called sheihul-islam (the Bosnian church and the Orthodox church had been decisevly weakened by the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans). The Bosniaks were dissapointed by the pope because he didn't protect Bosnia, and started hating him and the catholic church. Because of that they quickly converted to Islam, the only remaining religion with a strong influence. Sorry for grammar mistakes.80.80.40.208 (talk) 21:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)