The most important records of the Austro-Hungarian administrative history of Bosnia and Herzegovina are kept in the fonds of the Provincial Government in Sarajevo and of the Joint Ministry of Finance, Department for Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Vienna, both forming part of the collection of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo and together amounting to approximately 2000 shelf metres. The author looks here through the lens of “colonial archives” to assess the missed potential of the two fonds for writing the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, pointing out that historians have hitherto used them primarily to study political history and a few segments of socio-economic history, neglecting recent approaches to re-establishing archives’ value for research. Yet, as the author shows, the so-called “archival turn” would prove to be an asset in deepening the understanding not only of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Austro-Hungarian imperial history, but its history more generally.
Početkom 20. stoljeća brojne krize potresale su Balkan; a one poput Aneksione (1908–1909) i Balkanskih ratova (1912–1913) snažno su utjecale na gibanja u bosanskohercegovačkom društvu. Suočena s vrlo kompleksnom političkom situacijom na Balkanu; Austro-Ugarska je morala izgraditi strategiju jačanja svog utjecaja na ovom području. U tom smislu; Sarajevo je trebalo odigrati vrlo važnu ulogu. U ovom radu se želi pokazati kako je austrougarska vlast u Bosni i Hercegovini; plasirajući ideju da bi se u Sarajevu mogao osnovati univerzitet; lavirala između davno zacrtane kulturne misije u datom području i političkih mahinacija kojima se trebao anulirati rastući utjecaj Srbije. Reakcija javnosti; kako one u Bosni i Hercegovini; tako i one u Monarhiji; na ideju o osnivanju sarajevskog univerziteta; primorala je njene glavne zagovornike na propitivanje vlastitih političkih rezona.------------------------------------------- The idea of establishing the University of Sarajevo at the beginning of 20th century: Austro-Hungarian authority in Bosnia and Herzegovina between cultural mission and political realityAt the beginning of the 20th century; the Balkans was the epicentre of numerous crises and some of them (the Annexation Crisis 1908–1909 and the Balkan Wars 1912–1913) had a major effect on social activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore; faced with a very complex political situation in the Balkans; Austro-Hungary was about to develop a strategy of increasing its own influence in the mentioned area. Consequently; Sarajevo was bound to play an important role in these plans. This paper argues that; by promoting the idea of establishing a university in Sarajevo; the Austro-Hungarian authorities were actually oscillating between their previous plan of conducting a cultural mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and political machinations aimed at the annihilation of Serbian influence. The public reactions in Bosnia; as well as in the remainder of the Monarchy; forced the solicitors of this idea to re-examine their own political considerations.
The reform of the legal system that the Ottoman Empire conducted in the 1850s was systematically implemented in the period that followed, with an attempt to introduce new legal provisions concerning prisons in all parts of the Empire, including Bosnia. Displeasure of the western powers who had insisted on changes to the prison practices in the Ottoman Empire, the pace of which had been slow, was used by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy following the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Having established that the existing conditions in BiH prisons were “miserable”, the new government promised radical changes. However, the question is if the changes really were ferocious in the decisive years in which the Ottoman administration was replaced by Austro-Hungarian? If so, to what extent was the prison paradigm changed? A more serious investigation of the prison system of a certain administration demands an analysis of a specific group within the prison population. One such group are women that needed a different treatment compared to other prisoners: a separate accommodation, female, not male, supervision, as well as special measures during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding. By using the documents from ZVS and ZMF funds, the paper aims to investigate if the Austro-Hungarian administration managed to achieve significant results in the treatment of female inmates in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first years of the monarchy’s rule. Although the prison system and the treatment of prisoners are an important indicator of the civilizational advancement of a society, the local historiography has not paid significant attention to these issues. This paper is trying to fill that void.
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