Husnija Kamberović
The Sarajevo fog and the Teslić-Banja Luka “brightness”: Non-scientific attitudes in Dragiša D. Vasić’s text on the “Bosniak historical narrative”
Abstract: This paper denies Dragiša D. Vasić’s claims related to the condition of historiography in Sarajevo and shows the politicking nature and a lack of scientific quality of Vasić’s article. On the example of renaming the streets of Sarajevo, “the Bosnian Valley of Pyramids”, as well as the politics of history teaching in Sarajevo and the History Fest, the author shows that Vasić does not bring forth anything new; instead, he repeats the old and well-known theses that are not aimed at opening scientific discussions but rather at spreading hatred. The author claims that Vasić does not deal with the role of historiography, but presents the attitudes of political elites, which is why his approach to historiography is selective, nationalistic, containing political labelling, thus, according to all this, also completely non-scientific.
Key words: historiography in Bosnia and Herzegovina, politicking of history, nationalism
Summary
In an article about the “Bosniak historical narrative”, Dragiša D. Vasić claims that the contemporary Bosniak historiography has been politicised, providing four examples as arguments for his claim: changing the names of streets in Sarajevo, the relationship towards the “Bosnian Valley of Pyramids”, certain examples of victimisation in the history textbooks used in the Sarajevo Canton, and the History Fest manifestation. Vasić’s starting position is wrong, since the Bosniak historiography, as a methodological and a thematic concept, does not exist, while a significant number of scientists in Sarajevo, independent of their ethnic affiliation, did not support the use of historiography for political purposes, and they have criticised the relationship of the political elite towards the names of certain streets and schools in Sarajevo, especially the primary school in Dobroševići, named after Mustafa Busuladžić. Furthermore, a considerable number of members of the academic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Sarajevo did not support the idea on the “Bosnian Valley of Pyramids”, hence Vasić’s claims of that being the “Bosniak historical narrative” are unfounded.
History textbooks are not of the best quality, not only in Sarajevo, but Vasić’s approach to the analysis is selective, superficial, ethnocentric and non-scientific. His positions that Sarajevo was not under “siege” during the 1992–1995 war, rather “divided”, and that a “mass atrocity” not a crime of genocide took place in Srebrenica, show that his approach to historiography is politicised. Although the textbooks used in the Sarajevo Canton contain elements of mythologization, the claims that Sarajevo was under siege from 1992 to 1995, and that a crime of genocide took place in Srebrenica are facts confirmed by the International Tribunal at the Hague.
The 2019 History Fest that Vasić writes about, describing it as a “political provocation”, is an event bringing together historians from all over the world; it is not politically motivated and is held in different cities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina for the purpose of facilitating scientific dialogue whilst preserving high scientific criteria. Participants do not represent any “national sides”, hence, the Banja Luka historians’ refusal to participate in the 2019 History Fest was unreasonable, especially since they had been active at the 2017 and 2018 History Fest. After that, accusations followed by some historians from Banja Luka against the History Fest and now they are repeated by Dragiša D. Vasić. Those accusations are the result of their politicisation of history, not politicisation by the organisers of the History Fest.