About Bosnia Herzegovina
Bosnia-Herzegovina
The author of this study takes Bosnian affairs seriously, taking the decade immediately prior to the war into account, and in so doing makes it much easier to grasp why the war occurred.
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Bosnia and Herzegovina (locally: Bosna i Hercegovina/Босна и Херцеговина, most commonly abbreviated as BiH/БиХ) is a country in south-east Europe with an estimated population of four million people. The country is a homeland of three ethnic constituent peoples: Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks (formerly known as Bosnian Muslims). Other communities that live there are not given the status of being "constituent"oscebih.org (external). A citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is usually identified in English as a Bosnian.
The country borders with Croatia in the north, west and south, and with Serbia and Montenegro in the east. It is virtually landlocked save for a small strip of land (about 12 mi or 20 km) on the Adriatic sea, centered around the city of Neum. The interior of the country is heavily mountainous and divided by various crystal-clear rivers, most of which are nonnavigable. The nation's capital is Sarajevo, which is also its largest city.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was formerly one of the six federal units constituting Yugoslavia. The republic gained its independence in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and, due to the Dayton Accords, is currently administered in a supervisory role by a High Representative selected by the UN Security Council. It is also decentralized and administratively divided into two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska.
Bosnia itself is the chief geographic region of the modern state, and forms its historical backbone. Herzegovina is the most notable among several other territories traditionally under the Bosnian political unit, and has been officially included in the country's name since the mid-nineteenth century.
Etymology
The first preserved mention of the name "Bosnia" lies in the De Administrando Imperio, a politico-geographical handbook written by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in 958. The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja from 1172-1196 also names Bosnia, and references an earlier source from the year 753. The exact meaning and origin of the word is unclear. The most popular theory holds that Bosnia comes from the name of the Bosna river around which it has been historically based. Philologist Anton Mayer proposed a connection with the Indo-European root *bos or *bogh, meaning "running water". Certain Roman sources similarly mention Bathinus flumen, or the Illyrian word Bosona, both of which would mean "running water" as well. Other theories involve the rare Latin term Bosina, meaning boundary, and possible Slavic origins.
The origins of the word "Herzegovina" can be identified with more precision and certainty. During the Early Middle Ages the region was known as Hum or Zahumlje, named after the Zachlumoi tribe of Slavs which inhabited it. In the 1440s, the region was ruled by powerful nobleman Stjepan Vukčić Kosača. In a document sent to Friedrich III on January 20, 1448, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača called himself Herzog of Saint Sava, lord of Hum and Primorje, great duke of the Bosnian kingdom (Herzog means duke in German) and so the lands he controlled would later become known as ''Herzog's lands or Herzegovina''.