Montenegro & Bosnia and Herzegovina
Of all the things I could remember from second grade, for some reason, I distinctly remember my teacher mentioning one morning that we should pray for the people of Kosovo. My eight-year-old self did not understand much of what was talked about on the nightly news, but do I recall hearing the name Slobodan Milosevic and talk of conflicts associated with him. Fast forward twenty-some years and there I was, in the Balkans, learning more about what happened during the 1990s from people who experienced it firsthand. Some background information in historical geopolitics and religion has helped to clear the fog, though I am still no expert.
The Balkan Peninsula is the heart of where the eastern Byzantine and western Roman empires were divided, meaning Orthodox Christianity was established in the east and Roman Catholicism in the west. Later came influence from the Ottoman empire, bringing along with it Islam. The east-west divide goes straight down the middle of the former Yugoslavia, a country which unified six republics during most of the 20th century: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. Somewhere along the line, religion and ethnicity became one-in-the-same, resulting in categories such as Roman Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks, and Orthodox Serbs. The ideologies of each group contributed to the fall of a unified Yugoslavia and gave rise to nationalist-based conflicts.
I still don't quite understand it all, and perhaps I never will. The reasoning for terms like ethnic cleansing will likely remain incomprehensible in my mind forever. Not understanding something is more motivation to continue seeking answers, so during our time in Dubrovnik, we added a few stamps to our passports as we ventured south to Montenegro and east to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Before traveling there, Montenegro sounded like one of those small countries that was made up for another princess movie. I'm happy to report back that it is, in fact, a real country that has a real government, infrastructure, trade agreements, and so on. We learned about its similarities to Serbia in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language. Road signs here are written both in Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, and one will find endless domed-roof Orthodox churches scattered throughout. When we weren't befriending Montenegrin cats, we spent our time climbing up to St. John's Fortress which overlooks the Old Town and gives a spectacular view of Europe's southernmost fjord.
Later on we took a trip over to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a city that is gaining popularity in tourism but still recovering from ethnic tension. Mostar has a higher Muslim population, though it's a place where the Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim populations coexist. One sign of an ongoing conflict is the regional divide within the city itself, noted by distinct Christian and Muslim sectors. One of the main landmarks in the city is the old bridge, which is actually not that old considering it was reconstructed after being blasted during the war in the 90s. This bridge is also the site of Red Bull's annual diving competition. One interesting fact about Bosnia and Herzegovina is that it has three elected leaders (one Bosniak, one Serb, and one Croat) that rotate leadership during a four-year term. Here we learned that despite the three ethnic/religious groups not always getting along, they do agree on one thing: they have an ugly flag that was forced upon them by the influences of the European Union.
The Balkan Peninsula is the heart of where the eastern Byzantine and western Roman empires were divided, meaning Orthodox Christianity was established in the east and Roman Catholicism in the west. Later came influence from the Ottoman empire, bringing along with it Islam. The east-west divide goes straight down the middle of the former Yugoslavia, a country which unified six republics during most of the 20th century: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. Somewhere along the line, religion and ethnicity became one-in-the-same, resulting in categories such as Roman Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks, and Orthodox Serbs. The ideologies of each group contributed to the fall of a unified Yugoslavia and gave rise to nationalist-based conflicts.
I still don't quite understand it all, and perhaps I never will. The reasoning for terms like ethnic cleansing will likely remain incomprehensible in my mind forever. Not understanding something is more motivation to continue seeking answers, so during our time in Dubrovnik, we added a few stamps to our passports as we ventured south to Montenegro and east to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Before traveling there, Montenegro sounded like one of those small countries that was made up for another princess movie. I'm happy to report back that it is, in fact, a real country that has a real government, infrastructure, trade agreements, and so on. We learned about its similarities to Serbia in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language. Road signs here are written both in Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, and one will find endless domed-roof Orthodox churches scattered throughout. When we weren't befriending Montenegrin cats, we spent our time climbing up to St. John's Fortress which overlooks the Old Town and gives a spectacular view of Europe's southernmost fjord.
See more photos from out trip to Montenegro here.
Later on we took a trip over to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a city that is gaining popularity in tourism but still recovering from ethnic tension. Mostar has a higher Muslim population, though it's a place where the Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim populations coexist. One sign of an ongoing conflict is the regional divide within the city itself, noted by distinct Christian and Muslim sectors. One of the main landmarks in the city is the old bridge, which is actually not that old considering it was reconstructed after being blasted during the war in the 90s. This bridge is also the site of Red Bull's annual diving competition. One interesting fact about Bosnia and Herzegovina is that it has three elected leaders (one Bosniak, one Serb, and one Croat) that rotate leadership during a four-year term. Here we learned that despite the three ethnic/religious groups not always getting along, they do agree on one thing: they have an ugly flag that was forced upon them by the influences of the European Union.
See more photos from our trip to Bosnia & Herzegovina here.
If this post has left you with more questions than answers, I recommend checking out the BBC documentary "The Death of Yugoslavia." It's at least a good starting point for attempting to better understand all of the complexities involved in the hard realities of this region.
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