Summary
Dragiša D. Vasić
History and Ethnic Identity in Sarajevo Fog: Examples of Politicizing and Mythologizing the Bosniak Historical Narrative
Abstract: The paper examines recent drastic examples of politicization and mythologization of Bosniak historiography and the entire Bosniak historical narrative: the controversial renaming of streets and schools in Sarajevo, the ‘Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids’, exaggerating the number of war casualties, and the 2019 History Festival. The background of the examples discussed reveals an ideology and policy that seeks to consolidate the national identity of Bosniaks and aspires to establish a unitary and centralized Bosnia-Herzegovina, arousing hostility toward their neighbors, especially the Serbs.
Keywords: History, Politicization, Mythologization, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The examples discussed reveal the aspiration to use a historical or, in fact, a pseudo-historical narrative to legitimize the policy of consolidating the ethnic identity of the Bosniaks. For this purpose, the most incredible myths, such as 'the Bosnian valley of pyramids', 'Homo bosniacus' and so on, are generated, collaborationists from the World War II are glorified, and hostility toward the Croats, and especially the Serbs, is aroused. The common suffering and the memory of it unites the nation thus protecting war criminals, which is actually the purpose of mythomania and megalomania in representing the suffering of the Muslims/Bosniaks in the past. In his 'History of the Bosniaks', Mustafa Imamović mentions 'ten mass genocides' perpetrated by the neighboring nations, predominantly the Serbs. Even in new education laws, textbooks, and curricula in the Canton of Sarajevo the focal point is the 'genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina' committed during the 1992-1995 conflict, which is even compared with the Holocaust. The ideology and politics served by such a pseudo-historical narrative are thwarted by the great Bosnian Serb writer and political activist Petar Kočić and historians from the Republika Srpska, Serbia, and the wider region, who are unwilling to contribute to the narrative. It seems that Karl Wolfgang Deutsch was right when he said, paraphrasing Ernest Renan, that a nation is a "group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors."