UNIVERSITY OF SARAJEVO SURVEY Periodical for

ISSN 0350-0144
UNIVERSITY OF SARAJEVO
SURVEY
Periodical for Social Studies
SPECIAL ENGLISH EDITION
2009
Sarajevo, 2009
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Periodical for Social Studies / Special English Edition
Publisher:
University of Sarajevo
Sarajevo, Obala Kulina bana 7/II
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Editorial Board:
Meho Bašić
Enes Duraković
Mustafa Imamović
Marina Katnić-Bakaršić
Senadin Lavić
Mirko Pejanović
Hidajet Repovac
Safet Smajkić
Nusret Smajlović
Editor-in-Chief:
Mustafa Imamović
Deputy Editor-in-Chief:
Marina Katnić-Bakaršić
Executive Editor:
Senadin Lavić
Editorial Board Secretary:
Fuada Muslić
Translation:
Selma Đuliman
DTP:
Meldijana Arnaut
Printing run:
700 copies
Printed by:
“FOJNICA Print” Ltd, Fojnica
For the Printing House:
Šehzija Buljina
ISSN 0350-0144
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CONTENTS
A Word from the Editorial Board ................................................. 7
Enes Duraković:
History of Bosniak Literature – A Drawing in the Sand? ................ 9
Tatjana Lazić:
Contemporary Populist Political Culture:
From Modernism to Postmodernist Political Trends ....................... 71
Esad Duraković:
The Anatomy of a Paradox:
(On Ivan Lovrenovic’s Essay Andric, A Paradox of Silence) ........... 95
Nijaz Ibrulj:
Bosnia Porphyriana: An Outline of the Development
of Logic in Bosnia and Herzegovina ............................................... 109
Borjana Miković:
Family Violence Legislation
in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ............................... 167
Željko Škuljević:
Pleasure and Mind ......................................................................... 185
Goran Behmen:
The Character of Law and Authority in Medieval Bosnia ............ 197
Senadin Lavić:
Greater Serbian Ideology in the Context of
European Policy Towards Bosnia and Herzegovina ..................... 213
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A Word from the Editorial Board
Following the success of the experimental edition of Survey 2008
in English, the editorial board has decided this year again to present in
English a selection of texts published during 2009. The selection of texts
is not strictly thematic; however, it does provide a glimpse into a part of
the current scientific production in the field of social sciences in Bosnia
and Herzegovina.
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Enes Duraković
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Sarajevo
UDK 82.09
HISTORY OF BOSNIAK LITERATURE
– A DRAWING IN THE SAND?
Summary
This work is an introductory study of the Poetical Cultural Narrative
of Bosniak Literature project, which analyzes the causes and reasons of
revival of the traditional concept of the national literature’s history in the
South Slavic cultural space, as well as the possibility for its redefinition
through liberation from the national-romanticist forms of national spirit’s
apotheosis of the sacrosanct ethno-cultural identity. Obsolete models
of literary historiography in the South Slavic space appear even today,
both due to delays in the theoretical self-reflection conditioned by longstanding ideological repression of soc-realistic practice and because of the
absurd competition concerning the seniority of cultural and civilisational
continuities as proof of national primacy and indigenousness in this
area. The literary and historical paradigm considered in this way will
erase all traces of “foreign spirituality”, thus, the geographical topography
is transformed into the sanctity of spiritual topography, while historical
events become sacral toposes of national existence transcending time.
Such forms of cultural and historical narratives have always “fed”
themselves on fear and resistance against the Other and have been
accompanied by rigid forms of ethnocentric culture based on political
ideology of extermination of the Other. A special dimension of this
experience of denying identity was seen in the case of the multicultural
community of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosniak micro-culture in
particular, in the shape of the denial of the B&H and Bosniak literature
throughout the entire 20th century. The stigmatization of Bosniaks as
traitorous converters, the denial of any cultural and historical particularity
on their part as opposed to that of other South Slavic cultural communities,
orientalistic stereotypes and xenophobic excommunication of all forms
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of Islamic spirituality and culture from the sanctified literary culture of
the Christian Europe; all this resulted in an enormous corpus of texts, in
which the destruction of identity truly carried all features of a preparation
for the final settling of accounts with the “hostile Other”. Today, it is
undoubtedly vital to renew the concept of Bosniak literary history; however,
such a project should not be reduced to mere illustration of particularities
of the ethno-cultural identity, especially not to antagonization towards
the parallel and neighboring cultural and historical presences. History
and poetics of Bosniak literature can only be established with preference
for the particularity of a literary identity’s cultural grammar, the precious
uniqueness of a micro-culture which enriches both the B&H and the
South Slavic literary mosaic with esthetic values characterized not only by
autochthonous features, but also by hybrid and syncretic forms of dynamic
intertwining of the “Eastern” and “Western” literary culture.
Key words: literary history, literary poetics, the culture of memory,
intertextual theory, Bosniak literature, B&H literature, interliterary
communities, ethno-cultural identity, literary periodization, orientalism,
Eurocentrism, postcolonial criticism, cultural imagology, hybrid cultures,
syncretism.
National Library, a Sacral Topos of the Memory Culture
“There is not and there cannot exist a single civilization
of the world in the absolute sense, which is often attributed
to such a notion, for civilization implies coexistence of
maximally diverse cultures, so it could be said that it comprises
of such coexistence.”
(Claude Lévi-Strauss: Structural Anthropology, Vol. Two)
“Is there a way to divide human reality, and if it truly appears
as naturally divided into definitely defined cultures, histories,
traditions, even races, is there a way to survive the consequences
of such divisions?”
(Edward W. Said: Orientalism)
Traditional conception of the history of national literature, determined
by the European experience, endures even today, parallel to all the changes
in theoretical conceptions of literary science and its different forms,
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with the basic task of shaping the special cultural identities which have
formed, transformed and/or disappeared in the stratification processes
of historic and social changes of the past two centuries, and always with
new configuration, relationships and meanings. Resilient to the emergence
of numerous literary theories, some of which have radically brought it into
question, it has always had enough strength to partially or completely
disregard and reject them, adjust them or “tame” them. It has also changed
in the process, in different spatio-temporal articulations, becoming ever more
complex and enriched in each of the new practical realizations in which
it adopted the new instrumentarium and constructive status, rejecting
the surviving patterns; all as a result of the new theoretical discoveries and
insights, but still preserving, until the very day, the basic task of presenting the special characteristics of national cultural identity.
Emerging in the period of the formation of nations in the modern
sense of the word, it is primarily a reflection of the efforts to tell “all that
has happened in literature of a nation or of a civilizational circle from the
beginning (i.e. from the first literary monuments) until the modern
age”1, and that makes it one of the basic metanarratives, characteristic
of Enlightenment and Modernism. Thus defined, the history of national
literature significantly determined the task of literary historians: to research,
systematize and canonize a congruent image of development processes
and priceless values of the national literature, in the wholeness of social and
historical events, and, at the same time, find similarities and differences with
the parallel literary and historical narrations of other peoples, primarily of
the European cultural and civilizational circle. Back in 1969, Aleksandar
Flaker wrote the following, in accordance with the then-dominant way
of understanding of literary historiography:
“Ideal history of a national literature would be the history which
would, by showing the literary history within the national
literature, keep in mind the unity of the process within bigger,
superior, transnational wholes; which would emphasize the
general patterns of literary history together with national
particularities, not only of the entire process, but also of every
single writer and work.”2
1
2
Zdenko Lešić, Književnost i njena istorija, Veselin Masleša, Sarajevo, 1985, p. 184.
Aleksandar Flaker, Književne poredbe, Naprijed, Zagreb, 1969, p. 10.
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When reduced to a segment of the overall socio-political articulations
of a national collectivity’s cultural emancipation, it necessarily demands
a linear-historic conception which should affirm continuity of the tradition
transformed through history in a special way. That is why its ideal is a
national library, in which representative literary works of undisputable
value and resistant to corrosiveness of time are vintaged, periodized and
hierarchically distributed.
Even in the processes, characteristic and crucial for postmodernism,
which stratify strict normativeness found in canonically codified national
culture, once the dominant, institutionally favored cultural metanarration
is “undermined” by the multiplicity of alternative canons, regardless of
the diverse changes of explicative models of literary-historical methodology,
the metaphor of a national library is even today considered to be an
ideological symbol of ownership over a carefully systematized culture,
from which all that could darken the purity, eminence and luminosity of
the “national spirit” placed in the “holy chest” of tradition is extracted and
eliminated. Understood in such a way, the history of national literature
appears as a holy place of cultural memory, a sacral topos of always-living
tradition from which the past powerfully, yet latently, manages and
determines our future; and as a place of the reverse process of reconstructive
reading and sacrificing the past in the flow of now theoretical achievements
or (concealed) ideological reinterpretations of literary and historical
heritage. Both the cases refer to the issue of traditional understanding
of historical science which – as explained by Jurij M. Lotman – “by the
historian’s pen is given almost a mystical character”, for, “he understands
culture as an ordered space”, hence, in the act of retrospective transformation
of chaotic past events “that which has happened is shown as the only
possibility, as something basic, historical, predetermined”, albeit the
essence of everything is “a coincidence covered by a layer of arbitrary
assumptions and quasi-persuasive cause and effect relations.”3
However, the attitude of complex, two-way intertextual relations
between tradition and modernity prevails in the contemporary theory of
intertextuality. Following Barthes’ definition that every text is an intertext
containing, among other and in different ways and at different levels,
Jurij. M. Lotman, Kultura i eksplozija, translated by Sanja Veršić, Alfa, Zagreb,
1998, p. 24–25.
3
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texts from a previous culture and that every text is a new tissue formed
of past citations, Milena Stojanović emphasizes that two-way nature
of intertextuaity:
“Intertextuality is frequently a two-way process: old texts
influence the reading of a new text via intertext but, at the same
time, the new text affects the new reading of the prototext. Frequently, this reading is a new reading. That is how tradition,
which normally forms new texts to a certain extent, becomes
innovated in the contemporary texts.”4
Tradition and periodization are key terms around which the sash of
history of literature has been sewn for two centuries already; those are, in
fact, also the terms which largely determine the understanding of culture
characteristic of Enlightenment and Rationalism in the West-European
cultural and civilizational circle, with an everlasting effort of balancing the
universal values of the European spirituality and its particular ethnocultural
articulations. That effort of balancing the opposites of the national and
universal dates back to the 18th century, to the time of moving away from
the Classicist poetics in the program texts of Johan G. Herder and Wilhelm
T. Schlegel, and remains, to this day, a binary opposition.
“Not a single man, not a single nation, not a single national
history, not a single state resembles another. Accordingly, all
that is true, beautiful and good in them is not the same. If that is
not studied, if some other nation is blindly taken as a pattern, all
suffocates,” wrote Herder5.
Opposite Herder, Schlegel warned that one cannot become “a true
scholar without the universality of spirit, that is, without the elasticity
of spirit which enables us to neglect personal affinities and blind habits
and to identify with characteristics of other peoples and eras.”6
Milena Stojanović, Intertekstualnost i citatnost kao književni postupci, Književne
teorije XX veka, Collection of Works, Institute for Literature and Arts, Belgrade, 2004,
p. 224.
5
Cited from: Fric Martini, Istorija nemačke književnosti, Nolit, Belgrade, 1971,
p. 276.
6
Cited from: Zdenko Lešić, Teorija drame kroz stoljeća, II, Svjetlost, Sarajevo,
1979, p. 133.
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This binary national-universal opposition was interpreted, even in
diversity of ethnonational literary-historical articulations and in the dynamic
transformations of academically institutionalized literary-theoretical
thought of the 20th century, until the disintegration of theoretical universalism in postmodern era, primarily in the light of the West-European
cultural and civilizational circle and through unwillingful acceptance and
canonization of the poetic experience of non-European cultures, but only
once they had been softened, “tamed” and adjusted to the already-established European patterns, forms and values. Both history and poetics of
the European national literatures are based on the founding principles
of sacral Judeo-Christian culture and, introduced by the Arab people and
language, Hellenistic culture and tradition, later canonized in the Latin
medieval period, from the residual repository of which branch, constitute
and continue certain literary-historical sequences that, besides all the
peculiarities of syntax, also keep and renew, but also undermine and disturb
the canonical grammar of classical European culture.
Continuation of the long-lived artifacts shaped by tradition should, in
that sense, prove the existence of Europeanly codified canons, while, on
the other hand, also patterns and examples of the specific national poetics,
which makes it a sacrosanct value and ever-recognizable element of
transcendentally dedicated “national spirit”. Hence, tradition is seen as
a “holy history”, a mythopoetic sanctity which serves to establish a firm
and obliging system which, along with the general forms canonized through
the European experience, also preserves and gives prominence to
peculiarities and exceptionalities of one’s own identity by which it is
differed and separated from others; sanctifying and projectivly suggesting
or imposing that difference to a contemporary or to some future production
as an obligation and heritage. That concerns both the formal-structural
poetic forms and ideational-semantic content of ethno-cultural heritage
and memory; it, of course concerns the latter even more, every time the
history of literature is understood as an expression of national spirit stored
in the collective experience of history.
History of literature, and history of culture in general, is a form of
commemoration and revocation of a lost sense of the past world, an
attempt made by our transient and contingent being to (re)construct an
image of the collective identity out of the scattered fragments and pale
traces, and, in that way, by continuing the common values and content of
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tradition, again establish a myth-ritual participation of history through
the experience of “community of those who hearken” (Walter Benjamin).
All literary-historical narratives are unstable drawings in the sand of
human transience which are inevitably erased, especially in our liminal
areas of cultural meetings, worldviews and ideologies, by harshness of
historical events, only to later be re-imagined and reconstructed from the
scattered and pale traces and fragments by every community that again
establishes a commemorative cultural memory. Walter Benjamin
emphasized the instability, as well as necessity of every historical description
and has warned of fragility and instantaneousness of our perceptions of
the past which we, in fear from both personal and existential transience,
feverishly turn into a historical narrative, convinced that “there is a secret
agreement between the past and our generations” and that “we have
inherited, just like any other past generation, a messiah-like strength upon
which the past has a claim”7.
“The true image of the past quickly vanishes. Past can only be
maintained as an image which irretrievably and for a short time
bolts in the moment of cognition. For, it is an irrevocable image
of the past, an image threatening to disappear with each present
age which has failed to comprehend itself the way intended in
that image. The joyful epistle, announced by a historian from
the past in feverish pulse, comes from the mouth which, perhaps,
speaks into the air the moment it opens.”8
Traditional forms of the history of national literature appear as the
basic and inseparable part of cultural self-reflections, collective memory
culture and search for permanent values of the tradition for which there
exists an obligatory respect that helps surpass the feeling of transience of
individual fates and of the irrevocable image of the past Walter Benjamin
writes about. The history of national literature is, as a rule, written and read
as a romanticized narrative of individual existence in search of essential
values of the collective identity within a community, which recognizes
and preserves its culture from oblivion and disappearance, without unWalter Benjamin, Istorijsko-filozofske teze, Eseji, translated by Milan Tabaković,
Nolit, Belgrade, 1974, p. 80.
8
Ibid., p. 81.
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derestimating the force of subconscious desire of an individual for collective
self-identification. Anthony D. Smith thus describes it:
“The feeling of national identity is a powerful means for
determining and locating the individual Is in the world, through
a prism of collective persona and its characteristic culture. That
shared, unique culture enables us to find out ‘who we are’ in the
contemporary world. By re-discovering that culture, we ‘reveal’
ourselves, the ‘authentic personal I’, or, at least, that is what had
appeared to many split and disoriented individuals who had
to bear with all the changes and independencies of the modern
world.”9
This basic urge for belonging, for the sense of security and fateful
connection with the homeland and ethnos was suggestively expressed
by Mesa Selimovic in his novel The Death and the Dervish, when Hasan,
after a violent outburst, in an autoreflexive vivisection of the collective
Bosniak ethnopsychological mentality in the end suggests, through a
mystical metaphor (a drop and the sea), the inseparable tie between an
individual and nation, opposite the trans-historical loss of identity in Ahmed
Nurudin’s religious universalism:
“And on top of everything, they’re mine and I’m theirs, like a
river and a drop of water, and everything I’ve said about them
I might as well say about myself.”10
says Hasan, unlike Ahmed Nurudin, who represents an understanding
of religious identity which is timeless and without homeland:
“I’ve never suffered that historical and homeland disease, since
I am bound to the eternal truth and wide spaces of the world by
faith.”11
Conceived as a preterite story, narrative of the national literature,
especially in the first stage of self-definition and differentiation towards the
Anthony D. Smith, Nacionalni identitet, translated by Slobodan Đorđević, Biblioteka XX vek, Belgrade, 1998, p. 34.
10
Meša Selimović, Derviš i smrt, Muslimanska književnost XX vijeka, Svjetlost,
Sarajevo, 1991, p. 393.
11
Ibid, p. 463.
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hitherto hegemonic culture, it conceptualizes particularities of its poetics,
cultural and ethnic identity in the discovery and revelation of ancestral
heritage reconstructed in an image in which “differences towards the
outside are highlighted, while those towards the inside are neglected.”12
Establishment of canonically-codified particularities of the national
literature occurs as part of the overall socio-historical attempts of a
community to separate and differentiate itself towards the hitherto
homogenous forms of a wider cultural-historical identity. “Social identity
rests on the difference”, Pierre Bourdieu says, “which is confirmed in that
which is the closest; which represents the biggest threat.” This statement
may serve as an example of processes that have occurred lately in SouthSlavic interliterary communities as well.
By emphasizing longevity and antiquity of continual development and
permanence of poetic toposes tried in the diversity of formal-structural
experience, which should bare witness to and attest the inner treasure and
peculiarities of one’s own tradition, history and poetics, such a history
of literature is, inevitably antagonized against the different, primarily the
most closely related literary communities, because it homogenizes its
content into “cultural grammars” of its own. In the process of constitution
and construction of a cultural and political identity, societies antagonize
themselves against one another and homogenize internally, thus in the
processes of canonization of one’s own historical poetics, to use the words
of Bahtin, the centrifugal force of the language (culture) is suppressed,
while the centripetal is favored. The centripetal force is the one which
inclines towards “equalization, closing of the system, towards monologue,
demanding to rule alone over the only truth. It is the power which saturates
the entire language system, which forces it to unify, which purges the
language of literature by distancing from it all traces of dialect and sublanguage elements.”13 This disciplining of internal differences by strict
shapes of “prescribed” obligativeness primarily appears in processes of
constituting a literary community “by calming the traditional tide” into
Jan Assmann, Kulturno pamćenje: Pismo, sjećanje i politički identitet u ranim
visokim kulturama, translated by Vahidin Preljević, Vrijeme, Zenica, 2005, p. 47.
13
Renate Lachmann, Phantasia / Memoria / Rhetorica: Bahtinova karnevalska
utopija, selected and translated by Davor Beganović, Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 2004,
p. 375.
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17
sacrosanctitiy of the cannon which is fortified in the form “in which
the highest level of content compulsoriness and the most expressive
formal determination has been achieved.”14 Established as a legislative
model of the Eurocentrically-verified forms with variants of regional
systematizations towards the kindred languages and ethnogenetical
roots, it then appears as a reductive narrative, frequently contaminated
with xenophobia, in which the superiority of one’s own cultural tradition
is emphasized.
That is the form of cultural-historical narratives which are “inspired
by a strong idea that community implies a wish for presence, a wish
which implicitly includes nostalgia for the time in which (as is claimed)
a community should be tied, homogenous and harmonious”15 and that
myth about homogenous identities lies in the very essence of “cultural
fundamentalism” (Verena Stockle16) canonized by the European tradition
upon which the modern ethnonational narratives rest as well.
“Unlike racism, this fundamentalism” David Campbell concludes
“does not organize the peoples hierarchally, but it separates them
spatially in a way that all have a right to be different, a right that
is firmly marked and defended.”17
By warning against the mythologem about the “kernel-culture” as the
essence of a nation which afresh overflows the contemporary socio-political
discourse on national identity, Campbell, in fact, emphasizes that behind
the seeming multiculturalism of spatially separated cultures “which enjoy
the right of being different”, a quiescent essentialist thesis on racially
dominant cultures frequently emerges “because the racial has always been
entangled in the cultural.”18
“Every people which is perceived as such in opposition to other
peoples somehow imagines to have been chosen” Jan Assmann emphasizes
Jan Assmann, o. c., p. 123.
David Campbell, Nacionalna dekonstrukcija. Nasilje, identitet i pravda u Bosni,
translated by Dražen Pehar, Forum Bosnae, Sarajevo, 21/2003, p. 191.
16
See: Verena Stolcke, Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion
in Europe, Current Anthropology 36 (February 1995). Cited according to David
Campbell, o. c., p. 320.
17
David Campbell, o. c., str. 191-192.
18
Ibid., p.192.
14
15
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in his paraphrase of Max Weber, warning against the extremes of cultural
self-identifications in the process of forming a “connective structure of
common knowledge and image of self, which relies, on the one hand, on
a bond of common rules and values, while on the other it relies on the
memory of commonly domiciled past.”19 Such a metaphysical network of
identity perceived in the essentialist manner, which consecrates tradition by
heavenly arshin of chosenness, in the final outcome inevitably stigmatizes
or denies values of the Other, in the implacability of heavenly and earthly
manichaeism, which Skender Kulenovic brilliantly ironized in the sonnet
Putnik (The Traveler), dedicated to Zuko Dzumhur:
“He’s set off to see if hell of others is like ours
And if our heaven is like that of others.”
History (and history of literature, of course) has always been “a
problematic and incomplete reconstruction of something that exists no
longer (…); an encroachment of that which we know does not belong to
us anymore”20, a repetitive act of harboring in the lost past, in the pilgrim
search for the feeling of safety and experience of collective memory,
duration and continuation in the mythical unity of language, world and
identity. Every national culture, every form of collective self-definition,
even the history of national literature, is a result of imagining the
peculiarities, a product of subsequent reconstruction, selection and
representation of the cultural heritage and memory in the historically
changeable patterns of explicative models, which often help assemble
frequently heterogeneous, disseminated and as often as not invented
fragments of the past21 into a single historical narrative. And that is exactly
that “want of a system” (Z. Lesic) which infuses every effort of a literary
O. c., p. 19.
Pierre Nora, Između Pamćenja i Historije. Problematika mjestâ. In the book:
Kultura pamćenja i historija, edited by Maja Brkljačić and Sandra Prlenda, Golden
marketing and Tehnička knjiga, Zagreb, 2006, p. 24 i 25.
21
According to Eric Hobsbawm, “invented tradition” is used in subsequent
reconstruction to imagine the everlasting continuities, and it is made up of “a set of
practices of virtual or symbolic nature which serve to principally adopt rules, either
publicly or tacitly accepted, that are aimed to establish certain values by repetition.”
See: Eric Hobsbawm, Izmišljanje tradicije. In the book: Kultura pamćenja i historija,
Zagreb, 2006, p. 139.
19
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historian to recognize, in seemingly chaotic spatial-temporal dispersion
of literary texts, the regularities and values of a literary community, in both
synchronically selected canonized forms and in causality of diachronic
processes:
“Indeed, every, and by any means serious literary historian sees
the ultimate goal of his work in a systematic ‘history of literature’,
in which the individual literary phenomena will be presented
as ‘links of a chain’, as essential constituents of a whole which
is always developing. After all, we usually attribute that sense to
the term history of literature, and it is exactly that sense which
allows us to talk about the history of literature of a period, of a
people or of a culture.”22
Theoretical thought about literary history, naturally, changes all the
time, becoming more modernized and methodologically supplemented
in foundations and forms, thus, alongside all the epistemological changes
we have witnessed in the past thirty years, its achievements and insights
cannot be rejected as complete delusions, while deconstruction of that kind
of narrative discourse is unnecessary. Even at a time of general disbelief
in metanarratives, and history of literature is, as we have stated already,
undoubtedly one of them, as a consequence of the disintegration of
universalist understandings of central and peripheral cultures, when, in
an overwhelmingly interactive process, the self-awakening layers of voices,
subdued by historical violence, as well as marginalized cultures and
alternative canons, using the instrumentarium of postcolonial criticism,
oppose and/or join pretentious legislators and patrocentricicies, the
conception of literary history has its full and irreplaceable meaning and
sense, but on a radically redefined basis, free of delusions and extremes
characteristic of enlightenment-romantic ecstasy and apotheosis of the
“national spirit”.
The philological-positivist attempt to narrate everything that occurred
from the beginning to the modern age in a people’s history is being
replaced today – alongside theoretical and interpretative models and
strategies which are, admittedly, numerous – with a form of representation
Zdenko Lešić, Književnost i njena istorija, Veselin Masleša, Sarajevo, 1985,
p. 172.
22
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which “excludes the fresco, wide panoramic paintings; instead, we are
casting the light on particular images and selectively intervene into the past
and take representative samples.”23 Abandonment of the strict conventions
of evolutionist theory, finding the extraordinary possibilities of intertextual
literary-historic transformations and synchronies outside the traditional
spatial-temporal stratifications of the literary facts in the spirit of an old
Curtis’ account that for literature “all past is presence or at least it may
become such”24, has undoubtedly determined a different understanding
of literary-historical narratives. A static conception of traditional history of
literature, which was based on the description of diachronic concatenation
and stylistic-formative succession of literary periods and epochs, is now
being replaced by a synchronic mosaic of intertextual reticulation of the
text of a culture, in which each text is a new thread and mosaic of resystematized, renewed and re-figured traces and elements of the past texts,
an intertext in a continual dialogue and semiotic process of illuminative
and illustrative quotability of the entire text of a culture. Thus, in what
could be seen as a certain reaffirmation, amendment and modernization of
Curtis’ understanding of palimpsest-renewable and always lively-present
literary past, the theory of intertextuality appears as an incessant
“relationship of approval or denial, but a relationship in which continuity
of tradition is recognized, in which the entire culture is again made actual,
thus saved from self-oblivion or implosion in space and time.”25 Muhsin
Rizvic predicted that deep structural-cohesive foundation of affirmation and
reintroduced actualization of the text of a culture, intertextual illuminative
quotability, reticulation and renewability of poetic toposes in which the
traditional literary-historical description of diachronic concatenation of
continuity of the writer and the work becomes more dynamic and complex,
and defined it in his text Poetics of Bosniak Literature as “inner genesis and
close continuation, reflexion and renewal within itself, structural circulation
of spirit and beauty”26 with always living intertextual permeations of
poetics of the East and West and synchronic juxtapositions, similarities
Pierre Nora, o. c., p. 24.
E. R. Curtius, Evropska književnost i latinsko srednjovjekovlje, translated by
Stjepan Markuš, Zagreb, 1998, p. 23.
25
Esad Duraković, Orijentologija, univerzum sakralnoga teksta, Tugra, Sarajevo,
2007, p. 45.
26
Muhsin Rizvić, Poetika bošnjačke književnosti. In the book: Panorama bošnjačke
književnosti, Ljiljan, Sarajevo, 1994, p. 7.
23
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21
and symbiosis with Serb and Croat literatures. Understood this way, the
dynamic concatenation of intertextuality, although it prefers the poetics
of affirmation, metonymic consistency and intertextual harmony and
neglects the poetics of denial and deconstruction of the established values
of the tradition, should overcome the limitations of the positivist history
of literature to which Rizvic himself had reasonably and praiseworthily
contributed. Sadly, the philological-positivist concept of literary history
anachronically survives on the monumental conception of illuminativevintage representation of the national culture, therefore to the renewed
literary-historical practice, especially in the South Slavic space, the claim
that “periodization could be slightly anachronous topic in the time which
turns its past into a postmodern museum”27 is difficult to maintain. Even
positivist filing of materials and the renewal of principles related to culturalhistorical continuities again become constituent elements of contemporary
literary-historical narratives, with a concurrent paradigm which places the
poetics of intertextual permeations before the evolutionist successiveness.
Alongside the undisputedly emphasized reflexes of contemporary
opposition to mondaine globalizations and opposing processes of particular
cultural articulations, this renewal of traditional practice of literary criticism
is a consequence of redefinition of ethno-cultural literary-historical layers,
conditioned by the turbulent processes of “Balkanization”, on an unreliable
map of South Slavic literary identities. “Today, the entire society has
accepted the religion of conservation and archive” Pierre Nora says, thus
the pestilence of non-selective filing, which appears in the form of positivist
piling of material, should be overcome by the transformation of the archivelike into cultural memory, which would canonize the essential toposes of
a national culture, at the same time establishing them on the principles of
dynamic openness and possibility of continual deconstructive rereading
and reevaluations.
Following all the great turbulences and an epistemological breakdown
that appears in the postmodern age, in the shape of an overwhelming
disinheritance of the traditional canons shaped in the long-lasting philosophy of metaphysics of presence, in the necrological atmosphere of all
kinds of “endisms” and “postisms”, disempowerments and decentralizations
of various critically acclaimed paradigms, finally, with the crucially
Vladimir Biti, Periodizacija kao identifikacija. U knjizi: Strano tijelo pri/povijesti,
Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, Zagreb, 2000, p. 82.
27
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important promotion of the reader into an active participant of the
“production of meaning”, history of national literature can no more be
understood as the most significant form of systematization and interpretation
of literature sacrificed by tradition. In a word: disintegration of universalist
theories of essentialist thought radicalizes the demands for respect of the
different readings of the world; understanding, production and reception
of the text of a culture in monophony of the sea of stories, of the polyphonic
discursive practices none of which can rely on transcendental consecration
anymore. The deceptive “language confusion” of postmodern age “marked
by hermeneutic doubt in the enlightenment heritage of positivism, progress,
humanism and rationalism”28 consequently leads to this loss of the
privileged literary-historical methodology based on the unique idea of
“literature”, which in traditional understanding of “Babylonic blunder”
causes the experience of a blasphemic desacralization of Art:
“The subject-matter of literary studies is truly more scattered
than ever, with its minorities and majorities, with its sects and
different ideologists – they are after something: their body, image
of the other and of self, their femininity or masculinity, national
identity, ideological constructions…”29,
Vladimir Gvozden describes the literary image of postmodern era,
emphasizing that “maps of the world called ‘literature’ change, but that
world is not the only one”30 and that, it is exactly in such diversity and
manifold, polycentrism and polymorphism of the literary worlds and
theoretical-interpretative procedures that one should look for the sense of
the contemporary text of cultures. Thus, the history of national literature
may appear even today, but without the authoritarianism of the central,
unifying text out of which the backwaters of “minor” forms of understanding
of literature are conflowed. What is more, it only now needs to take into
consideration the subversive activities of other and different practices of
literary criticism. Goals and methods of the history of national literature,
which is undoubtedly necessary, need to be redefined at the core and in
Vladimir Gvozden, Izazovi savremenih teorija: Nove mogućnosti ili opasan
nihilizam?, in: Književne teorije XX veka, Institute for Literature and Art, Belgrade,
2004, p. 99.
29
Ibid., p. 104.
30
Ibid.
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23
that sense, Jürgen Fohrman claims, “there is no reason for abandonment
of the literary history project; we can only take up a different position
towards its constructive status.”31 That would mean reexamining some
of its canonized forms and a continual dialogue with the recent, yet different
paradigms of literary criticism. That primarily relates to abandonment of
the long-lasting and destructive understanding and reduction of culture to
one of the many attributes of the nation and, in that sense, also reduction
of literature to a homogenous, entire narrative of national exclusiveness
and analogue confrontation with other, contemporaneous cultures. Of
course, that is not a denial of the social and historical function of national
literature and its significance in the natural, self-awakening analysis of
complex self-identifications. Today, however, and especially so in our area,
the history of national literature can easily appear in those anachronous
forms of profane, and by the force of ideological and political dictate
completely impoverished pattern of mere illustration of a national identity,
in which the national spirit is seen both as a narrator and as the main
character of the holy narrative. And in such cases, every attempt to reformulate the literary-historical methodology is rejected, thus “theoretical
intervention may even progress to the point of sacrilege when history
becomes the guardian, either of the national past or of the so-called universal
human values.”32
History of national literature understood in such a way is even today
written and perceived as a story in which a literary historian, similarly
to the antic rhapsode, narrates an exciting holy history of genealogical
continuity, preservation and passage of a national culture’s sacral values
which, in the dynamics of historical changes and temptations, appear
as a purified, crystallized historical experience of the collective spirit
to which every creative gesture or act is subordinated. Similarly, the
outlived and obsolete models of literary historiography – a guardian of
the national past in the South Slavic area – remain viable to this day, not
only because of the frequently-mentioned impediment of theoretical
self-reflection, conditioned by ages’ long ideological repression of socCited according to: Vladimir Biti, Pojmovnik suvremene književne teorije, Matica
hrvatska, Zagreb, 1997, p. 298.
32
Vladimir Biti, Povijest književnosti nakon poststrukturalizma. In the book:
Pripitomljavanje drugog: Mehanizam domaće teorije, Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo,
Zagreb, 1989, p. 157.
31
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realist practice, but also because of the absurd competition related to the
duration of cultural and civilizational continuities as proofs of the national
priority and autochthony on this soil. That is the form of anachronous, in
our case still present, sacrificed history which, in fact, by the cult of the
dead, holy land and luminous graves sanctifies the “territorially established
ethnicity as a constructed complex of spatial and ethnocultural factors
of identity”33, thus establishing profanity of the current ethnonationalism
on “primordial myths of ethnic, that is, national, ‘purity’, ‘authenticity’,
etc.”34 In such cases, in the complex processes of socio-historical selfdeterminations, in imagining an authentic and autochthonous ethnonational
cultural tradition, all traces of “someone else’s spirituality” are erased, while
“geographical topography” is transformed into sanctity of “spiritual
topography” and historical events become toposes of national extra temporal
existence.
Obsessive understanding of the entire culture as an unequivocal
illustration of continual spatial-temporal foundedness of ethno-political
identity, especially at times when historical narratives are reconfigured
because of the deep historical turbulences, causes also that feverish ambition
to fill in the cultural raptures, discontinuities and floating gaps of the
collective cultural memory with epic folklore tradition, revived fantasies
of national mythology, pliable to ideological instrumentalizations of
ethnoconfessional self-reflexions. This imagining and illumination of the
monumental and glorious past in South Slavic literary-historical texts
frequently occurs with the renewal of the national-romantic consciousness,
which imposes upon historical sciences an obligatory construction of
cultural-historic images, in which the purity of national identity will be
recognized and narrated, imagined and reconstructed in the unambiguous
authenticity and autochthony of seniority and indigenousness, enrooted
in the distant past out of which the historical mission of preserving the
relict values of the holy tradition continues.35
Kristijan Đordano, Ogledi o interkulturnoj komunikaciji, translated from English
and German by Vladislava Gordić and Tomislav Bekić, XX vek, Belgrade, 2001, p. 239.
34
O. c., p. 132.
35
Olivera Milosavljevic wrote about the instrumentalization of historical science
subordinated to the glorification of the national past in the book entitled In the
Tradition of Nationalism, in which she provided examples from Serb historiography of
33
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25
Paul Garde emphasized in his book The Life and Death of Yugoslavia
that the renewal of anachronous mythologems as holy figures of ethnic
identity in modern pseudoscientific Balkan (hi)stories is retrograde
“appealing to the distant past, sometimes real but also idealized,
sometimes overtly mythical, and typical of South Slavic peoples.
The rule of Dusan for Serbs, of Tomislav for Croats, both real
but very much limited in time, a millennium-long dream of
Slovenians who only became aware of their nation in the 19th
century, the old Illyrians for Albanians and disputes related to
the ancient arrival of certain people to a certain territory – all this
plays an enormous role in the argumentation they use today.”36
In that sense, we have also faced, in the past thirty years, a renewal of
traditional forms of literary-historical science subordinated to ideological
endeavors of confessional narratives reduced to a mere illustration of
a political identity and such processes are undoubtedly present in the
newer Bosniak literary and historical science and literature in general.
Such a conception of history, and of the history of national literature as well,
which has been brought down to ultimately negative consequences, feeds
on fear and resistance to the Other and always carries a danger that those
seemingly benign contents and stereotypes about the different cultural
identities and narratives will “go wild” and form a specific imagological
lexicon about the opposite and hostile Other. And then even the complete
the 20th century (and those conclusions may as well be applied to any Balkan historiography). In the book, she ironically emphasized the danger of reducing history to
exclusiveness of ethno-national narrative: “A nation needs to have a history; history
of ‘one’s own’ nation is of the favourite kind; history serves to establish a nation as
deep as possible into the past; history needs to confirm the continuity of a nation’s
exclusiveness; history needs to prove a nation’s ‘character’; history needs to prove
‘the character’ of ‘others’; history ensures the ‘rights’ of a nation; history needs to show
that a nation is right…, or – a nation creates its own history; a nation forms history by
its own ‘characteristics’; a nation has the most beautiful and most exclusive history; a
nation is the founder of a deep history…” (Olivera Milosavljevic, U tradiciji nacionalizma: ili stereotipi srpskih intelektualaca XX veka o „nama“ i „drugima“, Helsinki
Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Biblioteka Ogledi, Belgrade, 2002, p. 18-19.)
36
Paul Garde, Život i smrt Jugoslavije, translated from French by Živan Filipi, Ceres
– Ziral, Zagreb – Mostar, 1996, p. 184.
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200-year-long tradition of enlightenment-rationalist myth about a
humanistic base of development and progress of a culture falls apart, for
it has been instrumentalized too many a time or ruthlessly initiated by
the historical reality (especially in the 20th century), giving way to that
extremely negative realization of search for identity, described compactly
by Abdulah Sarcevic:
“A subject establishes its identity, in principle, whenever it cannot
hear the death rattle of its victims, whenever it removes and
banishes all else.”37
And this is exactly how one should today understand that fierce
demystification of “lewd humanism”, which Claude Lévi-Strauss
described, facing barbarism of the modern history, tragically marked with
mass crimes of holocaust and genocide:
“All the tragedies we experienced first with colonialism, then
with fascism and finally with the concentration camps, are neither
in opposition, nor in contradiction with the ostensible humanism,
in the form in which it has existed with us for several centuries,
but are, I would say, its natural continuation.”38
Sadly, not even the realization that firm identities do not exist, as
promoted by essentialist (primordial) theory39, but are, instead, shaped,
produced and consolidated through process and by certain power centers,
themselves exposed to the regularities or even vagariousness of historical
Abdulah Šarčević, Kritika filozofije i teorija moderne. In the book: Evropska
kultura i duhovne znanosti, Svjetlostkomerc, Sarajevo, 2007, p. 151.
38
Cited according to: Cvetan Todorov: Mi i Drugi (Posledice nacionalizma),
translated from French by M. Zdravković, XX vek, Belgrade, 1994, p. 79.
39
It is that kind of essentialist understanding of ethnic, national and cultural
groups, which insists on the a priori samenesses and differences, about which V.P.
Gagnon Jr. wrote the following: “Such emphasizing of essentialist or existentialist
form of belonging to a group means that identification with the group is the basic
value of all its members and that boundaries between groups or between a group and
the outside world are at the same time the basic and essential boundaries among the
irreconcilable differences” (V.P. Gagnon Jr., Jedan drugačiji pogled na narav grupa
i granica, translated from English by Ivo Zanic, Erazmus, Zagreb, October 1996, No.
18, p. 420.
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27
events; not even the cognition on manifoldness, polymorphism and
unreliableness of belonging to an identity and self-definitions, is able to
relativize that rigid form of ethnocentric culture based on political ideology
of extermination of the Other, present even today, especially in the Balkan
areas. Could it not be, in that sense, that even the two-centuries long denial
of the existence of Bosniak literature and ethnicity, which through an
unrelenting production of various texts complemented the enormous
cultural archive and corpus of Serb and Croat narratives, and which intended
to subvert “the authentic Bosniak identity of the Bosnian autochthonous
population”40, is also an expression of precisely such collective mystifications which, by denying the other the right to cultural, religious and
national identity, the right to a proper self-reflective narrative, ultimately
deny them by force of law the right to existence41.
The tragic experience of identity dispossession in South Slavic cultural
narratives had a special dimension in the case of the multicultural
community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the case of Bosniak
micro culture, and that is why the realization of tragic confrontations of
modern history in the Balkans, with diluvial political projects of inquisition
of the Other in all aspects of his existence, also legitimizes the right
of Bosniaks to a narrative of their own. However, that narrative should also
be stripped of all forms of xenophobia and, particularly, of the essentialist
concept of identity which sees the other as a historical incarnation of transcendental principle of Evil. In that sense, one should always evoke the
thought of H.G. Gadamer that to live means “to experience the Other and
the Others as the Other of ourself” or Said’s understanding of otherness
which, it appears, dominantly determines the understanding of cultural
identities’ constitution in the postmodern age:
“Construction of identity – whether of Orient or Occident, French
or British, as an apparent repository of different collective
experiences, is finally a construction – involves establishing
Esad Zgodić, Bošnjačko iskustvo politike. Osmansko doba, Euromedia, Sarajevo,
1998, p. 420.
41
See more in: Norman Cigar, Uloga srpskih orijentalista u opravdavanju genocida
nad muslimanima Balkana, Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity, Sarajevo, 2000.
40
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opposites and others whose actualities are always subject to the
continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of their differences
from us. Each age and society recreates its ‘Others’”.42
That is why in the long-lasting and often fierce resistances to the
Bosnian and especially Bonsiak national and cultural self-identifications,
it is also possible to discover with little effort those concealed and overt
reasons of political-ideological denial of identity in the profane equation
that an empty cultural identity equals an empty national identity; which in
turn amnesties evil and crimes over the unidentified, culturally unshaped
mass of individuals. Herbert C. Kelman reflected upon the inevitability
of existence and acceptance of different cultural narratives, reasons of their
denial and radical deconstruction in the name of pretended globalism, as
well as upon dangers that stem from the violent deprivation of collective
memories and identities of other and different communities and groups,
by writing the following:
“Sanctioned massacres become possible when we reach the point
of depriving a group of human beings close to us their identity and
community. Specifically, when a group of people defined as such
and completely in relation to a category it belongs to is excluded
from human community and family, then moral obstacles not to
kill that group are overcome more easily.”43
After the tragic ordeals experienced in modern history of the 20th
century, and because of the “depravation of identity and community” and
pronounced islamophobia inside certain political circles and power centers
of the contemporary Europe, Kelman’s text appears as a belated echo of
the long-ago written, but even now current warning of Suljaga Salihagić
from 1940, that as long as the other two Bosnian communities of our
“people of three religions […] hide their religious features under a national
name, we will remain with our mass under the religious flag, and therefore
will be continually shown and attacked as a religious and ‘ethnically
42
Edward W. Said, Orijentalizam, Afterword to the 1995 edition, translated from
English by Rešid Hafizović, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1999, p. 412.
43
Herbert C. Kelman, Violence without Moral Restraint: Reflections on the Dehumanization. Quoted in: Norman Cigar, o. c., p. 37.
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uncommitted’group.”44 And this deprivation of national and cultural identity
became a common site of the ramified corpus of literary, socio-political and
publicistic texts that overflooded, with overt xenophobia of orientalism, the
Serb intellectual elite’s homogenized public discourse and stigmatized every
form of the Bosniak culture and tradition. In the novels of Vuk Drašković,
Milorad Pavić and Vojislav Lubarda; in the poems of Rajko Petrov Nogo,
Matija Bećković or Gojko Đogo; in the flood of popular quasi-historic
belletristic and xenophobic orientalist texts of Dobrica Ćosić and Ljubomir
Tadić, Milorad Ekmečić or Aleksandar Popović, Darko Tanasković or
Miroljub Jevtić, the unhidden hatred nested ever more and war rhetoric
reverberated which, in the light of Milošević’s Kosovo speech, called for
revenge and defense of the sacral values of the Kosovo myth “in the battles
and before the impending battles”. Those texts exemplarily confirmed the
strategy of orientalistic stereotypes which have the effect of “a priori
amnestying all and all kinds of efforts to establish a relationship of culturological and civilizational hegemonism, that is, those efforts are put into
function of preparation of justification of all kinds of fight against something
that is authoritatively declared inferior and decadent, civilizationally
unnecessary, etc.”45 That can be seen in the renewal of the tribal-epic views
of historical guilt and hereditary ethno-genetical sin of the Bosnian Muslims
that the Serb nationalist intellectual and political elite, in the conjunction
of homogenized social nationalism and state racism, continually repeated
with unhidden calls for revenge and “investigation of the Turkicized”:
“Those who converted to Islam – Miroljub Jevtić wrote –
betrayed the idea of Bosnia and accepted the conquerors as de
facto their brothers, and their crimes as their own. That means
their hands are stained with the blood of their forefathers.”46
Stigmatization of Bosniaks as treacherous convertites, denial of any
form of their cultural and historical peculiarity and historically attested
Suljaga Salihagić, Mi bosanskohercegovački Muslimani u krilu jugoslovenske
zajednice, Banja Luka, 1924, quoted in: Muhamed Hadžijahić, Od tradicije do identiteta
(geneza nacionalnog pitanja bosanskih Muslimana), Muslimanska naklada Putokaz,
Zagreb, 1990, p. 39.
45
Esad Duraković, Prolegomena za historiju književnosti orijentalno-islamskoga
kruga, Connectum, Sarajevo, 2005, p. 202.
46
Miroljub Jevtić, Rezervisti Alahove vojske, Duga, 9 – 22 December 1989, p. 26.
44
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autochthony in relation to other South Slavic communities, orientalistic
stereotypes and xenophobic excommunication of any form of Islamic
spirituality and culture from the sacralized area of Europe, all this resulted
in an enormous corpus of texts in which that destruction of identity truly
carried all signs of preparation for the final confrontation with the hostile
Other. In that sense, Dobrica Ćosić sees Muslims from Montenegro
(together with Macedonians and Montenegrins) as “products of the
most reactionary and shameless of all lies about oneself, that is, about
one’s own identity, non-existant in history”; they are “ideological freaks”
and “spiritual rubbish by which the self-governing ideology envenomed
the Yugoslav soil for centuries.”47 Today, on re-reading these lines filled
with overt racism, it becomes absolutely clear that Ćosić, as early as 1985,
through the voice of his hero-reasoner in the novel Grešnik (The Sinner),
heralded and sanctified the crime and genocide in the name of grand
national ideals:
“Petty crimes are committed for gain and habit; great crimes
are acts of religion and convictions. Only great idealists commit
great crimes without regrets: ideals absolve them from guilty
consciousness.”48
Ćosić’s amnesty of crimes in the name of “higher ideals”, which he,
by a shameless inversion typical of an undoubtful inspirator and accomplice
in crime, cynically denies even today through the denial of genocide in
Srebrenica49, is, in fact, a radical version of the same hegemonistic discourse
of colonial consciousness described by the protagonist of Joseph Conrad’s
novel The Heart of Darkness:
“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it
away from those who have a different complexion or slightly
flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look
See: Dobrica Ćosić, Promene, Novi Sad, 1992, cited in: Olivera Milosavljević,
o. c., p. 194.
48
Dobrica Ćosić, Grešnik, BIGZ, Belgrade, 1985, p. 21.
49
“We contemporaries face an epochal inversion of a historic event: the lie about the
Srebrenica genocide has become a sacral and global truth.” Dobrica Ćosić, Demokratske
laži o Bosansko ratu, Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 18. 2. 2009, p. 35; text taken from the
Politika magazine (Belgrade), from 6. 2. 2009.
47
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31
into it too much. What redeems is the idea only. An idea at the
back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish
belief in the idea – something you can set up, and bow down
before, and offer a sacrifice to.”
The baffling cynism of Ćosić’s xenophobic belief and Milošević’s antiMuslim propaganda campaign, projected, impassioned and strengthened
by the SANU (Serb Academy of Arts and Sciences) Memorandum,
which amnestied future crimes by reviving tribal hatred and the epic
vow “the one who does not revenge will not be sanctified”50, will soon be
satanically verified by the genocidal Srebrenica inferno, as well as by the
systematic destruction of sacral toposes of the Bosniak cultural tradition
and memory through which we are reliably, quietly and subtly recognized,
while facing the merciless processes of historical inevitabilities of
dissolution, collapse, disappearance. In the flames of the burnt National and
University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the Oriental Institute in
Sarajevo, on the ruins of the Aladža Mosque in Foča and Ferhadija Mosque
in Banja Luka, Hadži Alija’s Mosque in Počitelj and the Emperor’s Mosque
in Stolac; as well as on the ruins of the Plehan Monastery and Petričevac
in Banja Luka or on the ruins of the Žitomislići Monastery and Orthodox
Cathedral in Mostar; on the ruins of the leveled and burnt archives and
libraries, domed markets and hamams, manuscript genealogies and necrologies; an entire world and the last traces of written and unwritten memory
culture disappears. Describing the causes and reasons for the barbaric
culturocide, planned and systematic campaign of incineration of libraries,
museums and archives; destruction of mosques and graveyards of the
Bosnian Muslims by the Serb Army and later by Croat Defense Council
(HVO), Michael A. Sells stressed that “their goal was eradication of a
people and all proofs of culture and existence of that people.”51 In that way,
in the late 20th century, with the renewal of the irrational-mythic, tribalRatko Mladić announced that epic-tribal formula of “holy revenge” having
committed the slaughter in Srebrenica with the chetnik hordes: “Here we are on 11
July 1995 in Serb Srebrenica. On the eve of another great Serb holiday I present this
town to the Serb people. The moment has finally come after the uprising against the
Dahi (the Turks) to take revenge against the Turks in this place.”
51
Micheal A. Sells, Iznevjereni most. Religija i genocid u Bosni, translated by
Zoran Mutić, Sedam, Sarajevo, 2002, p. 19.
50
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diluvial pledge of “revenge against the Turks”, as an inseparable part of
the genocidal project, the destruction of the last traces of Oriental-Islamic
culture in the Balkans, which started in Serbia in the early 19th century
during the liberation wars and continued until modern times in the
consecrated epic-heroic semantization of Serb romantic literature and
xenophobic national historiography, has been completed. In the book
Istorija srpske literature (History of the Serb Literature), Miodrag Popovic
commented the deadly consequences of the “anti-Turk” hysteria in Serb
romantic literature which, by means of “irrational-mythic inspiration”,
contaminated Serb literature with “certain revengeful, otherwise untypical
tendencies”52 and wrote the following conclusions tragically current even
today:
“The negative consequence of this irrational-mythic, that is,
unhistorical consideration of the Serb people under Turkish rule
will be intolerance of Islam in general. It will result in anathema
of the congeneric Mohammedan population from the Serb nation,
as well as in a spiritual and political gap between the Orthodox
and Mohammedans. Intolerance of Islam, that is, of everything
that reminds of the Turkish feudal government in our areas,
will result in barbaric destruction of precious monuments of
the Islamic culture in Serbia.”53
That is why, especially today, after the horrible experiences of devastations inflicted by war and destruction of the entire Bosniak cultural
tradition and denial of any form of their cultural identity, Alija Isaković’s
words, written long ago, sound evermore cautionary and obliging:
“Even today, forty years after the Liberation, Muslims [Bosniaks]
do not have an anthologized political history, history of literature,
history of journalism, history of social thought, history of art,
history of painting; language, mythology, folklore, architecture
have not yet been researched.”54
Miodrag Popović, Istorija srpske književnosti: Romantizam, Book 2, Thrid Edition,
Belgrade, 1985, p. 28
53
Ibid., p. 28.
54
Alija Isaković, O „nacionaliziranju“ muslimana, Globus, Zagreb, 1990, p. 12.
52
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33
Like national libraries and encyclopedias, museums or archives,
history of national literature is a place of memory storing the symbolic
capital of national culture, which, for the small peoples who are burdened
with the feeling of insecurity and possibility of extinction, even today
carries special significance and privileged cultural sense just like the
commemorative toposes and cult places of pilgrimage and memory
Pierre Nora writes about:
“When certain minorities create protected enclaves as preserves
of memory to be jealously safeguarded, they reveal what is true
of all lieux de memoire: that without commemorative vigilance,
history would soon sweep them away. We buttress our identities
upon such bastions but if what they defended were not threatened,
there would be no need to build them. If history did not besiege
memory, deforming and transforming it, penetrating and
petrifying it, there would be no lieux de memoire.”55
And there rests the sense of renewal of traditionally-based literaryhistorical narratives, which, in the past few decades, have become a
dominant form of ethno-national self-reflexions in the South Slavic area.
In a complete disintegration of what used to be an institutionally coherent
network and ostensible harmony of integrative and particular components
of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s complex cultural identity, the feeling of
immediate endangerment or some earlier denial of a possibility to affirm
one’s own cultural identity is constantly emphasized, be it justifiably or not.
In that way, Ivan Markešić explained the meaning, reasons and sense
of renewal of such cultural-historic narratives among small nations, when
he promoted the Hrvatska enciklopedija Bosne i Hercegovine (Croat
Encyclopedia of Bosnia and Herzegovina). That same explanation could
be applied to the Bosniak cultural and ethnic community:
“Great nations have no need of publishing national encyclopedias.
Their history cannot and, if you want, must not be suppressed.
However, small, I dare say, ‘pocket’ nations, such is the Croat
nation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, have been forced to do that;
55
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Pierre Nora, o.c. p. 28-29.
they have been forced to publish national encyclopedias, for
their history has been suppressed and forged continually.”56
While strongly judging the aggressive obsession of self-realizations
of identity as a tragic experience of denial of the different and the complete
deprivation of culture from the multitude of individual and collective
realizations by reducing it to the poverty of a monochrome ethnocentric
image through the monomania of one’s own world and tradition, it should
be noted that “not every quest for identity, not every renewal of tradition,
is evil per se.”57 And then it becomes that form of understanding of memory
culture which appears in a community, with full respect of both internal
and external differences, competitive discourse practices, in the form of
a “symbolic world of sense and creates a common space of experience,
expectations and actions, which, by its linking and obligatory force, provides
trust and orientation.”58 Finally, even in postmodern critical thought, alongside all the diversity of theoretical orientations disposed toward any form
of essentialist metanarratives, occurred a renewal of interest for the history
of literature (annunciated by the “radically traditionalist reversal” of Terry
Eagleton), both in the cultural studies or the new historicism and in – first
and foremost – maximally dissected postcolonial criticism in which the
experiences of both Lacan’s psychoanalysis and Althusser’s political
philosophy, imagological and cultural-anthropological studies ranging
from Claude Levy – Strauss to Clifford Geertz are collected, with the
decisive demand to finally listen to and recognize, on the ruins of long-lived
patrocentric ideology of West-European culture, the peculiarities of
silenced voices of – until recently – marginalized cultures. Every culture
is a peculiar and precious kind of interpretation of the world and life, based
on normative patterns formed on the collective experience and memories,
each of which bares authentic and autochthonous values in the endless
simultaneousness of diverse ethno-cultural narratives, but – also – “cultures
influence one another, in social sense they intertwine, and each of us
necessarily belongs to a number of lower-ranking wholes – depending
Dr. Ivan Markešić, Zašto je enciklopedija i hrvatska i bosanska, Oslobođenje,
KUN 30. July 2009 p. 34.
57
Vladimir Biti, Upletanje nerečenog, Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1994, p. 36.
58
Jan Assmann, o. c., p. 18.
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35
on the origin, profession and age – popularity of cultures should neither
surprise us nor degrade us.”59 Hence, even today, every literary-historical
narrative, even the history of Bosniak literature, needs to recognize that
multitude of cultural interspersions that enrich the peculiarities of its literaryhistorical articulations which we carefully reveal fully aware that “earthly
power, just like divine, is primarily power over words, control over the
meaning of the basic writings that regulate society and relationships in
it (…).”60
Traditionally based reviews of national literature are, even in the very
act of canonization of peculiarities of a “cultural grammar”, inevitably
compared and, as we have seen, antagonized against other literary-historical
narratives, and in that process of differentiation, the act of self-reflexion of
a literary-historical narrative as the “earthly power over speech” frequently
appears as the power of denial of a different cultural interpretation of the
world and life. Contemporary Bosniak literary historiography has to be freed
of such kind of self-definition exactly because of the negative experience
of the two-century long tradition of South Slavic literary-historical research,
systematizations and divisions, during which our literary heritage was
scrutinized.
And, exactly in that sense, all those discontinued and by violence
of historical events frequently crushed attempts of finally narrating
Bosniak literature should be understood and re-read, but with complete
awareness that it cannot be self-sufficient and that it has appeared simultaneously with the other, frequently different and opposing, but also
harmonized and similar narratives, so it needs to be freed from pathos
and of the “messiah-like strength upon which the past claims rights.”
First pages of Bosniak literary history were written by Ljubušak and
Bašagić, followed by brief and shy voices (Mehmed Handžić or Rizo
Ramić, Mehmed Mujezinović or Hazim Šabanović, Salko Nazečić or
Abdurahman Nametak) and then after a long and enforced silence and
serf-like self-sacrifice, it was meticulously upgraded and systematized
by Midhat Begić and Muhsin Rizvić, Alija Isaković and Kasim Prohić,
Sulejman Grozdanić and Džemal Čehajić, Lamija Hadžiosmanović and
Cvetan Todorov, o. c., p. 245.
Dževad Karahasan, Sjene Vrta, Knjiga vrtova – O jeziku i strahu, Izdanja
Antibarbarus, Zagreb, 2002, p. 15.
59
60
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Hanifa Kapidžić – Osmanagić, Đenana Buturović and Hatidža Dizdarević, Muhamed Huković and Munib Maglajlić, Husein Bašić and
Gordana Muzaferija, Fehim Nametak and Esad Duraković, as well as
a number of younger literary historians and critics.
It is also necessary to stress the unsustainability of the opinion on the
dark vilayet clash of irreconcilable national conceptions. Unsustainability
of his opinion is clearly discernable from the fact that within the major,
anthological selection of the most suggestive pages of critical understanding
of our tradition and literary contemporariness are also texts about Bosniak
writers and Bosniak literature in general, which reflect pure joy of meeting
with beauty, written in the past fifty years by Radomir Konstantinović
and Ivo Frangeš, Nikola Kovač and Ljubica Tomić – Kovač, Radovan
Vučković and Radoslav Rotković, Zdenko and Josip Lešić, Dejan Đuričković and Dragomir Gajević or Risto Trifković, Ivan Lovrenović and
Zvonko Kovač, Slobodan Blagojević, Marko Vešović and Stevan Tontić, Vojislav Vujanović and Gradimir Gojer, Marina Katnić – Bakaršić
or Mile Stojić.
However, one cannot disregard that enormous number of texts in
which the peculiarity of Bosniak literature and culture was denied, a position
that continued to play a role in various forms of Serb and Croat literary
critical thought through the entire 20th century and which rears up its ugly
head even today, always for reasons unrelated to aestheticism and with
unhidden animosities, denials or wrongful claims.
Cultural Archive of Denial and “Taming”
“They won’t even accept our prayer
as a prayer or curse as a curse”
(Mak Dizdar)
A negative relationship towards the Bosniak literary tradition and
culture in general, in both Serb and Croat literary historiography, is observed
in two ways: on the one hand, repugnance and, essentially, an irrational
denial of its legitimacy for, in part, it was formed in time of the Ottoman
imperial reign, as part of the oriental-Islamic cultural-civilizational circle;
and, on the other hand, whenever that opus was accepted as a cultural
phenomenon of “our environment”, it was considered a marginal flow
or a tiny backwater of Croat or Serb literary history.
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Irrational resistance to and lack of understanding for the phenomenon
of Bosniak culture, whether in the form of xenophobia of orientalism and
ideological discourse of hegemonic cultures, or in the form of patrocentric
espousal, cultural custody and “taming” of the Other, which has, since the
19th century, taken hold and grown like cancer in various texts of Serb
and Croat literary historiography, excludes the entire heritage which, in
the Bosniak tradition, wound a spool of the Islamic spirituality, culture and
civilization on the Bosnian base, although the “Ottoman cultural heritage”
was also assimilated in both Serb and Croat literature and culture, in
different forms. We should recall Jovan Skerlić who wrote about this issue
with a lot of understanding, and who warned against the inexplicable
turkophobia of Serb poets, whose poems, in a strange mixture of attraction
and repulsion, radiate a strong symbiosis of the “Slavic and oriental poetry”.
“Our poets, turkophobs as can only be imagined, have paradoxically become the ecstatic devotees of Muslim poetry. Several
hundred years of slavery to an oriental race, immediate neighborhood of Mohammedan Turks, has made Serbs closer to the
true poetry than Germans. The Bosnian sevdalinkas (orientalstyle love songs), characterized by Arabic melody and music,
were a product of that hybrid Slavic and oriental poetry.”61
About a hundred years later, Mile Stojić, like Jovan Skerlić,
emphasized the importance of these symbiosis and esthetic permeations
of the “eastern and western diwan” in the poetry of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
emphasizing that the “space of oriental influence has had a significant
influence, from Šop’s thematic occupations, through Andrić’s quieted
gnomes, all the way to Veselko Koroman’s language esoterism.”62
A significant corpus of texts spread between Skerlić’s and Stojić’s
understanding of cultural symbiosis and recognition of values of orientalIslamic tradition, and these texts, both in Serb and Croat literary criticism,
treat that phenomenon with respect. However, throughout much of the
20th century fictional and non-fictional texts prevailed, saturated with
a strong resentment towards that world and its culture. Thus spread
Jovan Skerlić, Omladina i njena književnost (1848–1871), Sabrana dela, Book.
10, Prosveta, Belgrade, 1966, p. 377.
62
Mile Stojić, Predgovor antologiji Iza spuštenijeh trepavica: Hrvatsko pjesništvo
XX stoljeća, Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1991, p. 21.
61
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“a negative and aggressive attitude and relationship towards the
entire cultural contribution and development, which was formed
under the influence and as a consequence of penetration and
long prevalence of the Islamic and Ottoman culture in our areas.
That attitude was at times extreme to the extent that it negated
both in particularities and in the whole the significance of
contribution and influence of Oriental culture to the development
of culture of our peoples, both in the past and in a possible future,
that is, in the sense of a possible dialogue and synthesis, or permeations and meetings of those cultures; all that was only seen
as a dark age which should be forgotten as soon as possible.”63
It was that Balkan form of orientalist discourse recognizable even
today which frequently appears as a “hysterical convulsion and hostile
attitude of fierce Europeism towards everything that is not composed or
designed on its own accord”64, thus all until the mid-1960s Bosniaks faced
protracted denial of national and cultural identity and were declared an
amorphous, uncultivated and “uncommitted” mass which, allegedly,
missed the deadline for processes of national and cultural diagenesis.
It is also impossible to neglect a corpus of texts by Bosniak authors who,
by paradigmatic patterns of self-colonizational consciousness, denied
their own cultural identity by appropriation of orientalist discourse and by
a kind of ethno-cultural self-denial, more often because of quite profane,
mercantile reasons and interests than because of a true drama of identity.
Skender Kulenović wrote about this issue as early as 1936 in the text
Jedna žalost i jedna potreba (A Grief and a Need), published in the
Putokaz Magazine:
“Haven’t we had individuals who adopted a national conception?
Amongst such intellectuals, there have been those who changed
national orientations as shirts, so to say – over night, and what
is even more important, for pure careerist reasons […]. The
consequence of that was: uninformed Croats and Serbs created
an opinion that Muslims are some oriental doubledealers.”65
63
Muhamed Filipović, Uvod u razvoj teorijske misli u Bosni i Hercegovini, Treći
program Radio Sarajeva, No. 3, 1980, p. 485.
64
Abdulah Šarčević, o. c., p. 138.
65
Skender Kulenović, Jedna žalost i jedna potreba, Miscelanea, Izabrana djela,
Book 8, 1983, p. 44.
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Of course, these self-demeaning, self-colonizing denials of one’s own
culture because of “careerist reasons” are present today as well, however,
contemporary protagonists hide their self-denial by scornfully raising
their frog legs to be shoed by the quasi-poststructuralist hoof, while being,
at the same time, blind and deaf for the grotesque swinging of maces and
sabers of national combatants of the neighboring, traditionally written
literary narratives, which suit perfectly with “an ample platter of pilau”, to
use the words of Derviš Sušić.
Diabolized by the “Turkish sin”, reduced to the level of subcultural
dark-vilayet-like isolation, Bosniak literature was in that way left outside
institutionally organized scientific research, systematizations and evaluations, both in peculiarities of individual developments and continuities and
in the wholeness and competitiveness of the BiH mosaic and milieu. And
in the flow of national-romantic Serb and Croat cultural self-reflexions
from the middle of the 19th century, completely in the spirit of Lacan’s
understanding of the paradox of otherness, but frequently also by far more
aggressive demonizing of oriental-Islamic spirituality in the process of
constituting one’s own cultural, national and, in the end, political identities,
all that brought to the establishment, continual renewal and upgrade of a
vast catalogue of orientalist texts in Serb and Croat cultural and historical
imagology, which satanize and exclude or underestimate and marginalize
the entire cultural-historical heritage of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) tradition
as a “trace of an unpleasant and unlikable past”, as Jovan Dučić once wrote.
That is why that ideal of sacrosanct values deposited in the luminous
national library, of both Serb and Croat (and also, in a reverse image,
in Bosniak) literary-historical narrative, especially in the first phase of
constitution and construction of the cultural identity, is shadowed by the
dark, obscure library, a meticulously formed orientalist “cult archive”,
with a vast catalogue of different texts filled with animosities, because, let
us recall, “construction of identity includes the establishment of opposites of
the others as well, whose reality is always subject to a continual interpreation
and reinterpretation of their difference from that of our own.”66
Following the model of earler texts written by Midhat Begić and
Muhsin Rizvić, Muhamed Filipović and Atif Purivatra, Alija Isaković
and Mustafa Imamović, Sulejman Grozdanić and Fehim Nametak, about
66
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Edward W. Said, Orijentalizam, o. c., p. 412.
miscomprehension and usurpation of Bosniak literature and consequences
of deprivation of identity, other authors, like Esad Duraković, Gordana
Muzaferija and Nihad Agić or Vedad Spahić and Muhidin Džanko,
Hadžem Hajdarević or Ever Kazaz, have more recently written about this
issue very convincingly. Thus, Esad Duraković emphasized that we
“could have permanently observed the shading of the Bosniak cultural
heritage, prior to the latest genocide over Bosniaks, which had taken the
form of difficulties which the scientists working in this field experienced,
as well as the form of an ideological aggression against the Bosniak culture
and Islamic tradition as a whole.”67 On the occasion of the Bošnjačka književnost u književnoj kritici (Bosniak Literature in Literary Criticism)
edition being published Kazaz, in the text entitled Poetika i struktura
raskršća i ukrštanja (Poetics and Structure of Intersections and Interweaving), also emphasized, by summarizing the other authors’ attitudes,
the long-term processes of political instrumentalization of literary historiography which, in the end, serves to legally produce genocidal projects, by
delegitimizing the right of Bosniaks to their own historical reflexion:
“During the centenary process of nationalization of Muslims,
Bosniak literature, usurped by others, marginalized and repressed
to the degree of literary-historical liquidation, has endured not
only because of its own identity, esthetic value, but also because
of the strength of universal values, authentic and humane essence
which it produced in a creative manner, in the context of a bloody
scene of murder and genocidal political projects towards the
Bosniak nation.”68
Later, however, in an uncritical apotheosis of exactly those books
and texts in which Bosniak literature is “usurped by others, marginalized
and repressed to the degree of literary-historical liquidation” and in which
the entire Bosniak cultural tradition is frequently stigmatized “by Turkish
sin”, Kazaz himself overlooked and thus supported the renewed processes
of those usurpations, marginalizations and repressions.
Esad Duraković, Andrićevo djelo u tokovima ideologije evrocentrizma, Prolegomena za historiju književnosti orijentalno-islamskoga kruga, Connectum, Sarajevo,
2005, p. 204.
68
Enver Kazaz, Poetika i struktura raskršća i ukrštanja. In the book: Morfologija
palimpsesta, Centar za kulturu i obrazovanje, Tešanj, 1999, p. 315.
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41
Tzvetan Todorov wrote about the unsustainability of prejudices
towards cultural-religious “transformations” and, consequently, about the
dangers of depravation of identity because of such “convertism”, as well
as about important and complex processes of acculturation and cultural
permeations, sensing both the advantages and pains of that experience:
“We see the difference between a person who belongs to several
cultures, who feels good in two cultures and a person who
has lost his culture, who has forgotten his mother tongue… By
acquiring another culture, my initial situation will not significantly change; but the loss of my only culture leads to impoverishment and even disappearance of my world.”69
Naturally, it would be completely wrong to draw conclusions about
the dominance of orientalist discourse in Serb or Croat modern literary and
cultural history. That is only one of the numerous forms of literary-historic
descriptions of one’s own literary and cultural peculiarity. That is only one
of many forms of literary-historical descriptions of one’s own cultural
peculiarity, but of extreme importance for the Bosniak cultural selfidentification, especially in a careful and reasonable understanding of that
kind of political imaginations of the Balkan national-identity stereotypes
which are anachronically based on the sacral tradition of the exalted defense
of the Kosovo myth and, of course, the still living mission of acting as the
“bulwark of Christianity” in a grotesque renewal of the “prayer against
Turks” and “inquisition of the Turkicized”. That kind of still living Serb and
Croat “border-guard” stereotypes and myths which completely erase
the difference between the epic and historical world and time, literary
imagination and historical reality, is best presented in (alongside numerous
other texts of, let us say, Ivan Aralica and Željko Ivanković or Darko
Tanasković and Miroljub Jevtić) a text written by Karadžić’s Minister
of Culture and Education, a pre-war professor of oral literature at the
Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy, Ljubomir Zuković, entitled Preci kao
saborci (Ancestors as Fellow Fighters)70. “With Andrić’s Radislav,” writes
Zuković “the liberation struggle against the Turks and the Turkicized,
which lasts to this day began” and so “tomorrow, when this liberation fight
69
70
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Cvetan Todorov, Mi i Drugi, o. c., p. 246.
Ljubomir Zuković, Preci kao saborci, Javnost, 227/228, 5. 8. 1995.
of ours ends victoriously, a monument should be raised next to the Višegrad bridge to him as the first victim of rebellion against the Turks and
the Turkicized.”71
Proof of the renewal of the tribal longing for an epical missive
calling for “the inquisition of the Turkicized”, even after the terrifying
experiences of the Srebrenica genocide, by anachronous representation
of the Serb-Orthodox mission of defending the Christian Europe against
the invasion of Islam, lies in the claim presented by Dobrica Ćosić, at
the posthumous promotion of Nikola Koljević’s book entitled Stvaranje
Republike Srpske (Creation of the Republic of Srpska):
“Serbs in Bosnia, struggling for their freedom, again defended
the Christian Europe from the jihadic Islam.”72
This “border-guard” mindset of epic-heroic struggle at the bulwark of
European culture, religion and civilization is an expression of centuries of
antagonization, clashes and intolerance by which the orientalist literaryhistorical and ethno-cultural narratives of the Balkan area are contaminated. Todor Kuljić wrote about this issue rather suggestively:
“From the point of view of other processes (in which mythisation
had sedimented in various forms of cultural consciousness, from
frescos to guslas), the latest ethnic cleansing is, in a way, a direct
consequence of the aforesaid imperial heritage and borderguard mentality. One should observe, in the abovementioned
myths, an effort for radical demarcation from the Ottoman
Empire and fear of Islamic civilization that is overcome by
increased identification with the West via one’s own, ANTE
MURALE myths interpreted in a missionary fashion.”73
Faced with the latent presence of the border-land ante murale
myths that in the past twenty years again came to life in texts of Serb
and Croat literary-historical narratives, with emphasized Islamophobia,
we should not forget that, both in Serb and Croat literary historiography
Ibid.
Dobrica Ćosić, Demokratske laži o Bosanskom ratu, o. c., p. 35.
73
Todor Kuljić, Kultura sećanja: Teorijska objašnjenja upotrebe prošlosti, Čigoja
štampa, Belgrade, 2006, p. 194.
71
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43
appeared, at first weak – thus more precious, and later ever more dominant
voices that warned about unsustainability of those prejudices, especially
the ones that came as a result of ideologized literary imagination which
demonized an entire world, its religion and culture. Thus, in 1877, Nikola
Šumonja, in the text Muhamedanstvo i naša književnost (Mohammedanism
and Our Literature) which, in actual fact, together with other texts,
marked the start of Serb attempts to usurp Bosniak literature, warns
against the insubstantiality of orientalist discourse which, sadly, as an
anachronous form of the 19th century nationalist consciousness, survives
to his day:
“Subject-matter in poems, stories and other works of many
of our writers in the sixties and seventies,” Šumonja wrote
“was life of the oppressed Christian peasantry in the Turkish
Empire. Whoever, even a bit, observed the development of
literature of the time, will easily remember how Turks, their
Allah, the prophet, mosques and crescent were depicted, and
will also remember that it was not at all in velvet gloves. So
many poems by Zmaj and Jakšić emit avenging wrath against
the ‘bloodthirsty’ and ‘bestial’ Turks; and stories by Vladan
Đorđević, dramas by Matija Ban and works of many other writers
were the same. (…) That kind of writing reached its peak during
the Bosnian rebellion, Serb – Turkish war, Montenegrin –
Turkish war and Russian – Turish war. Sources were not lacking:
it was only necessary to think of a terrible event, present the reader
with several Turkish troops with gory eyes, with khanjars and
other guns; several rifles fired and – all on paper, of course –
several mothers and innocent children hacked to death, a
dungeon, gallows and there you go – a wonderful poem, story or
whatever you prefer, depicting the life of oppressed Christian
peasentry. A task less difficult than magnanimous.”74
Emphasizing that “one must admit that Mohammedans were not
as ’bestial’ and ‘bloodthirsty’ as described by the writers who had never
seen them”, Šumonja will point out in the end that such writing needs to
Nikola Šumonja, Muhamedanstvo i naša književnost, Stražilovo, 3, 21 (21.
5. 1887), p. 335.
74
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cease, especially such aggressive forms of “nationalization of Muslims”,
if they are to be brought in and integrated in the Serb literary and cultural
pattern, in the propaganda game with Croats:
“Some of us like to call the Bosnian Mohammedans ‘Serbs of
Mohammed’s faith’. That should not be done, for it makes no
sense. Everybody will understand that it is almost impossible
to call by a Serb name those who vividly remember the days
of Turkish glory and dominance; who have been brought up in
the Turkish nation, for it could not have been otherwise. That
is why this practice should be abolished; let time do its thing,
let circumstances bring Mohammedans to acknow-ledgment
of what and who they are. And for the time being – they are
Bosniaks and nothing else.”75
These same transformation processes of the border-land “anti-Turk
story writing” (which, in Croat renaissance literature imitated the patterns
of oral epic poetry), in the trend of Starčević’s right-wing program of
nationalization of the “Bosnian Mohammedans”, were observed well
by Milan Marjanović, in the study Iza Šenoe76 (Beyond Šenoa); and later,
that transformation, which started with the poetry of Nikola Botić and that
continued in the “pseudo-Bosnian” novellas and novels of Josip Eugen
Tomić, Antun Barac described almost the same way Nikola Šumonja
did in Serb literature:
“Entire Croat and Serb literature in the first half of the 19th century,
written mostly as an extension of folk poetry, is an expression
of the hatred of Turks. The extent to which that hatred could
go is best seen in the glorification of common murders in Smrt
Smailage Čengića (The Death of Smailaga Čengić) and Gorski
vijenac (The Mountain Wreath). Croat novellas of the fifities are
solely about Turks in Slavonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kordun, etc.
Nowhere in those novellas is the Turk depicted as a man, but
always as a tyrant.”77
Ibid, 3, 22 (28. 5. 1887.), p. 344.
Milan Marjanović, Iza Šenoe, Zadar, 1906.
77
Cited in: Muhamed Hadžijahić, o. c., p. 123.
75
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“Haiduk-Turk novellas of the fifties end with the demand of
extermination of Turks; Botić, contrary to his predecessors and
contemporaries, pointed out the absurdity of such hatred, for
it concerns not different peoples, but one people of different
faiths. Botić’s works mean, in a way, liquidation of a literary
fashion, in which everything was red from the Turkish blood
and when a writer did not know what else to write about.”78
The border-guard ante murale myths are one of the basic forms of
self-awakening ethnonational narratives in the South Slavic area and, in
fact, they are a tragic and grotesque version of imperialistic metanarratives
of the defense of the eternal values of transcendentally sanctified WestEuropean civilization. Emphasizing that, together with a contemporary
vision of Europe as a community of free peoples, cultures and individuals,
there also exists a tendency of “European unification on the basis of […]
Christianity as worldview and ideology”, Šaćir Filandra warned that
in such a “view, instead of Protestants and Jews, Muslims may become
the European others”79, which could have devastating consequences
for Bosniaks:
“On the basis of such attitude,” Filandra writes “a contemporary,
Europeanly dominated conception of Islam as otherness, as a
danger, and of Bosniak Muslims as something ‘non-European’
within Europe, something alien which should be purged, was
formed.”80
In that sense, the two centuries long stigmatization of Bosniaks by
the Turkish sin of convertism is even today persistently renewed by the
border-guard mentality championing the Eurocentric conception of the
lethal Ottoman cultural-historical, religious and political heritage as a
foreign narrative body: Bosniak converts are a “disturbing factor” which
even today prevents processes, started during the Medieval Bosnia and
interrupted by the Ottoman occupation, in the Europeanly globalized area
Antun Barac, Hrvatska književnost od Preporoda do stvaranja Jugoslavije, Knjiga
II, književnost pedesetih i šezdesetih godina, JAZU, Zagreb, 1960, p. 131.
79
Šaćir Filandra, Bošnjačka politika u XX. stoljeću, Sejtarija, Sarajevo, 1998, p.
394.
80
Ibid.
78
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“based on universal values of Christianity interpreted on the political and
artistic level, that is, unified on the socio-political and economic-cultural
level”81. Such outright prejudiced conceptions according to which at the
political level even today the “Ottoman heritage is still a burden” and a
hereditary sin, because “during the Ottoman period, the base for common
political identity of the Bosnian population was largely destroyed”82, while
the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia “interrupted the thread of Bosnia-Hum
culture, which had integrated the country into the universe of European
middle ages”83 are, in fact, a collective renewal of, as Ivan Lovrenović
precisely stated on the occasion of Andrić’s doctoral thesis, “christiancentric and Eurocentric elements in Andrić’s conception of (Bosnian)
cultural history”84. Unlike today’s increasingly frequent uncritical apotheoses
of Andrić’s doctoral thesis, Ivan Lovrenović emphasized, in the 1996 text
Bosanski Andrić (Bosnian Andrić), that it is no coincidence that Andrić
“prevented translation of that text from German, as well as its publication.
Probably not because he would have thought differently, but because he
knew best how unimportant, unliterary and worthless that text was. One
of such wheedled texts is that ominous study on the Albanian issue,
written on orders by the Belgrade Ministry.”85
The uncritical renewal of Andrić’s Christiancentric and Eurocentric
conceptions is seen even in cursory comparisons of Andrić’s attitudes
presented in the doctoral thesis86, defended in Gratz in 1924, with this, but
Dubravko Lovrenović, Povijest est magistra vitae, Rabic, Sarajevo, 2008, p.
211-212.
82
Srećko M. Džaja, Konfesionalnost i nacionalnost Bosne i Hercegovine. Predemancipacijsko razdoblje 1463-1804, translated by Ladislav Z. Fišić, the second, revised
edition, Ziral, Mostar, 1999, p. 223.
83
Nela Rubić, Stara hrvatska književnost u Bosni i Hercegovini, II, Matica
hrvatska, Magazine for Art and Science, Sarajevo, 2001, V, No. 21, p. 24.
84
Ivan Lovrenović, Ivo Andrić, paradoks o šutnji, Novi Izraz, Sarajevo, No. 39,
January – March, p. 29.
85
Ivan Lovrenović, Bosanski Andrić, Bosna, kraj stoljeća, Durieux, Zagreb, 1996,
p. 126.
86
“It is of decisive importance that Bosnia, in the most critical moment of its spiritual
development, in the time when turbulences of spiritual forces reached their peak, was
conquered by an Asian war people, whose social institutions and practices meant negation
of every Christian culture and whose faith – formed under different climatic and social
conditions and unadaptable for any adjustments – interrupted the spiritual life of the
81
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47
also with many other historical, cultural-political and literary-historical texts
that have appeared in the past twenty years as a paradigmatic expression
of a consciousness “preoccupied with the construction of a new useful
national history”87.
However, it should be emphasized at this point that, in the past twenty
years, the “Bosniak interpretative community” has also been preoccupied
with the construction of the new national history, so in the reconstructive
retelling of the past, along with many significant texts, we have seen a
number of scientifically unsubstantiated national-historical imaginations
of the heroic tradition “standing in defense of the Islamic civilization”. In
the overall intellectual confusion and consternation caused by the indifferent
silence of the West in the time of the renewal of nationalist Serbo-Croat
myths that culminated in the realization of genocidal projects, ethnic
cleansing and concentration camps; with the intellectual elite incapable of
articulating a modern, democratic program, in which the proper memory
culture would be rid of residual reflections of epic heroics, renewal of the
Bosniak ante murale myths occurred as well, together with the renewal of
one’s own historical mission on the border, in a grotesque presentation of
the heroic defense of Islam before the invasion of European Christianity.
Orientalist discourse in which a part of Serb or Croat historiography denies
or stigmatizes the Bosniak literary tradition and history also conditions the
sometimes concealed, sometimes overt obnoxiousness and intolerance
towards “the dark heritage of West-European Christian tradition”, seen in
the texts of Bosniak authors, in the further antagonization of cultures, with
superficial reading and simplifications of the postcolonial criticism onto the
profane, in our case tragically affirmed local version of the global conflict
of civilizations. It should not be forgotten, however, that the radical criticism
of imperial history and hegemonistic discourse of the West-European
country, deformed it, and made something quite specific”, Ivo Andrić wrote and added
in an appendix: “This place, as well as all other places in discussions which focus on
the influence of the Turkish rule, should not be understood as a criticism of Islamic
culture as such, but simply as criticism of those consequences which resulted from
its spread onto the Christian, Slavic land.” (Ivo Andrić, Razvoj duhovnog života u Bosni
pod uticajem turske vladavine, translated by Zoran Konstantinović, Sveske Zadužbine
Ive Andrića, god. I, sv. 1, Belgrade, June 1982, p. 51 and 201.
87
Todor Kuljić, o. c., p. 8.
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Christian civilization in the processes of collective Eurocentric selfdefining by antagonizing the world of Islam as the “normative Other”,
but also reverse cultural-religious processes of self-identifications by
diabolizing the Christian culture, was formulated by several scientists in
the West, which can be as well proven by Tomaž Mastank’s book Križarski
mir. Kršćanstvo, muslimanski svijet i zapadni politički poredak (Crusading
Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World and Western Political Order)88:
“An important moment in the articulation of the self-awareness
of the Christian community” Mastnek writes “was the construction of a Muslim enemy. The antagonistic difference between
them and Muslims was the essential element of the collective
identity of Latin Christians. The work of that new collective
identity was a new holy war against that essential enemy, for
Muslims represented infidelity as such.”89
Mastnak ends the book in bitter recognition that the centuries’present
sacral narrative of the crusades had come to life again (and was tolerated
by the European political bias or indifference), articulated in the language
which continually renews that story to which, notwithstanding all the
tragic experience, “the end still does not seem near”:
“Persistency of the crusade was certainly clear to both perpetrators and victims of the war against Bosnia in the late 20th
century. Both perpetrators and victims saw in language of the
crusades a way to describe their goals and unpleasant position.
Those who stood aside and watched the crimes unfold were
frequently unable to find words to express the absurdity of that
postmodern crusade or to condemn it. Their talk of peace only
helped the success of the crusade.”90
In the text Kršćanstvo, Kultura i globalizacija (Christianity, Culture
and Globalization), Željko Mardešić (Jakov Jukić) sees the tragic exOriginal title: Crusading Peace. Christendom, the Muslim World and Western
Political Order by Tomaž Mastnak, University of California Press, Berkley and Los
Angeles, California; University of California Press, Ltd., London, England, 2002.
89
Tomaž Mastnak, Križarski mir. Kršćanstvo, muslimanski svijet i zapadni politički
poredak, translated by Janko Paravić, Prometej, Zagreb, 2005, p. 124.
90
Ibid, p. 347.
88
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49
perience of the European history in three consecutive and connected kinds
of Catholic globalization (warlike, cultural and ideological) and emphasizes
that, starting from the first crusade, “peace was invoked only amongst the
Christians to achieve a better efficiency in the war against the others,
Muslims”91. Starting with the crusades – Mardešić writes – which “were
regularly initiated by the Church, and which the states eagerly allowed and
supported”9, through the colonialistic genocidal campaigns when “after
the persecution of Jewish and Muslim communities in the homeland the
time came to wipe out the superstitious autochthonous inhabitants in the
colonies across the seas… the royal conquest by the sword and Christian
expansion by the cross advanced together, and after that followed the
regular robbery of gold and erection of the baroque-style churches. First
came the war, then the culture of the foreigner and conqueror”93 The
devastating consequences of Counter-Reformation church’s activities,
Mardešić emphasizes, were especially visible in the conquests of South
America, in the “merciless profane colonialism and, at the same time,
forceful evangelization of the new peoples”94.
However, it should also be stressed that in the Islamic world, as well
as in many contemporary Islamic societies, religious extremist movements
have existed and that expansionist power of the Islamic states spread (to
the Balkan area as well) in the past, similarly to the crusades, in the name
of Islam, and that today “Islam, just like other global religious traditions,
has its extremist margin”.95 That is why it should always be noted that
“religious traditions are a unity of text and context – Revelation and human
understanding within a specific socio-historical frame”96, and that history
of holy wars does not rest upon the order of the Revelation, but on the
interpretations of the Holy Scriptures.
Similarly, Abdelwahab Meddeb warns of dangers of the semi-educated
commentators of the Koranic text in the contemporary Islamic world
Željko Mardešić, Kršćanstvo, kultura i globalizacija, Znakovi vremena, Sarajevo,
Winter 2006, vol. 9, No. 34, p. 30.
92
Ibid., p. 36.
93
Ibid, p. 35.
94
Ibid., p. 31.
95
John L. Esposito, Nesveti rat. Teror u ime islama, translated by Dušan Janić,
Šahinpašić, Sarajevo, 2008, p. 62.
96
Ibid., p. 129.
91
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who, through incompetent interpretations, support radical integrationist
movements and projects. At the same time, he emphasized the equally
devastating practices of diabolizing Islam as sub-text of the imperialist
strategies of the West, which, in fact, confirmed the tragic heritage of
historical renewability of the extremist ideologies, based on malicious
and manipulative exegesis of the sacral narratives:
“If fanaticism used to be a disease of Catholicism, Nazism of
Germany, it is certain that integrationism is a disease of Islam.”97
Exactly because of that, in an open intellectual dialogue, we should
observe both inner and outer causes, as well as reasons of identity crisis of
the Islamic world and unquestionable dangers that reside in the aggressive
integrationist movements. We are constantly faced with a possibility that,
even in occasional instances, the disease of integrationism may spread
onto the fragile community of Bosnian Muslims, wounded by the historical
fate of being a marginal, border-guard existence between the lines of two
civilizations and imperialist strategies and, as such, also prone to uncritical
rereading and interpretation of its own culture, history and, consequently,
holy tradition. That is why the Bosniak intellectual community should,
alongside the difference in ethno-cultural heritage, historical experience and
modern social realities of integration into the currents of European modernity, and exactly through the part of its being which is deeply enrooted
into the world of Islamic spirituality, culture and tradition, accept dialogue
which will not spare even those forms of Islamic tradition and contemporariness that have already been diagnosed as an undoubtedly sick “body
of Islam”. Abdelwahab Meddeb commented those inner and outer causes
by saying:
“Instead of pointing out the difference between the good and
the bad Islam, it would be better for Islam to again find places
of dispute and initiate discussions; to again reveal a multitude
of opinions; to create a place for disagreement and difference and
understand that the neighbor has a right to a different opinion;
that intellectual disputes again gain the right of citizenship and
Abdelwahab Meddeb, Zloupotreba islama, translated by Nurija Hadžić, IMIC
– Rabic, Sarajevo, 2003, p. 11.
97
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51
adjust to the possibilities offered by the multitude of different
voicess, so that the number of gaps increases as much as possible,
so that the monovoicedness disappears, so that the firm substance
of One disperses into a stream of elusive particles.
As far as the outer causes are concerned, it should be immediately
emphasized that they are not the causes of the disease which eats away
the body of Islam. However, it is beyond any doubt that they are catalysts
of the disease. What are those causes? One by one, it is nonrecognition
of Islam in the West as representative of inner otherness; it is the way in
which Islam is given the permanent status of the excluded, it is the way
in which the Westerner (in our times, an American citizen) gives up his own
principles and in that way, without punishment, implements his hegemony
towards the policy called ‘two principles’.”98
The tragic experience of imperial European history whose ideological
heritage undoubtedly influenced political bias or indifference towards the
tragedy of Bosnia and Bosniaks in the past war, caused, which is entirely
understandable on a human level, wrathful but also uncritical and equally
prejudiced rereading of European history as a history of general dishonor,
with characteristic stereotypes and generalizations which serve to write
a specific imagological lexicon of “European rot”:
“Europe is the cradle of genocide, urbicide, inquisition, crusades
and colonial and robbery-conquest wars, and of holocaust, and
nationalism, and racism, and chauvinism, and apartheid, and
reservations, and ghettos, and enclaves, and ethnic cleansing,
and fascism, and Nazism, and Communism, and Bolshevism,
and Stalinism, and concentration camps, and Gulags and
Kolims, and of confessions before people not before God, and
of ‘Communist self-criticism’ and ‘comradely criticism at the
party meeting’.”99
The muted, often traumatic experience of excommunication and
rejection from the “European family” because of the Islamic thread in the
Ibid., p. 14.
Mustafa Spahić, Zadah evropske truhleži; Da, mi smo muslimani II, Ljiljan,
Sarajevo, 1996, p. 112.
98
99
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cultural sash of the Bosniak ethno-religious identity, an experience that
mounted in the subconscious, narratively unarticulated representation
of the modern Bosniak history, appeared after the Srebrenica genocide in
texts of Bosniak authors in a symbolic and archetypal divide between the
two seemingly antagonized worlds. Facing the hypocritical activities of
the European centers of political power, which, by empty declarations and
resolutions, had covered the tacit approval of disappearance of an ethnos,
it appeared even to the author of these lines that after Trnopolje and Dretelj
concentration camps, Ahmići and Srebrenica, Europe, from the time of the
French Revolution to this day, is repeatedly telling successive lies about
the democratic principles of equality, freedom and brotherhood and that
their “speech about peace enabled the success of the crusade”. However,
that is how the scientific discourse of theoretically based criticism of
orientalist and Eurocentric strategies, verified by the tragic circumstances
of immediate experiences, has transformed itself into irrational presentations
of seemingly irreconcilable differences, allegedly built into the very core
of both historical and religious-confessional identities.
“Turning Spain into the nucleus of Catholicism by banishing
Islam and Judaism, Europe, in the medium of spirit, begins its
constitution, which coincides with the period of establishment of
Islam in Bosnia. Whereas Bosnia, mostly Islamic, accepts Jews
under its skirt, at the same time preserving both Catholicism and
the Orthodox faith, Europe owes its formation to the destruction
of different religions and worldviews. This constitution on antiIslamic principles, not in confessional but in ontological terms,
distances Europe from the habitus of Bosnian Muslims.”100
“The Islamic world, countries and nations have become more
conscious, learned and politically determined through the fate of
Bosnia than through all the events of the 20th century. Relationship
of the West towards Bosnia has taught Muslims more than all the
Islamic movements and books written in the 20th century.”101
Šaćir Filandra, Bosanski Muslimani i Evropa, u: Bosna i Hercegovina i Svijet,
Institut za istoriju, Sarajevo, 1996, p. 220–221.
101
Mustafa Spahić, Tri demona zla; Da, mi smo muslimani II, Ljiljan, Sarajevo,
1996, p. 98.
100
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53
“The historical sense of suffering of the Bosnian Muslims
Bosniaks is in the defense of the state singularity of Bosnia
and Herzegovina and the Islamic identity of the people.”102
Of course, one cannot deny the frequency of this kind of Bosniak
publistic, historiographical and literary-historical texts based on the
simplified representations of centuries’ long opposition of the “heretic,
polyphonic and multilateral Bosnia”103 towards the Christian unilateral
Europe, but the apodictic claim of Dubravko Lovrenović that “Bosniaks
have been, throughout most of their history, fed with the ideology of
Islamic ante murale towards that same Europe” is both incorrect and
unacceptable, and equally stereotypical; especially the conclusion that “the
Muslim-Bosniak elite feeds its people even today with such offensive-like
ideology.”104
Neither is orientalist discourse of Christocentric ante murale myths
the only and the most dominant flow of Serb or Croat historical, cultural
and literary-historical texts, nor is the ideology of anti-European Islamic
imprisonment the fundamental constituent of the Bosniak history, culture
and politics. In dreadful historical moments of ethno-confessional
antagonizations, such political prejudices and generalizations which
serve to stigmatize the entire history of different cultural-civilizational
communities again and as a rule come to life, overseeing the peculiar treasure
that every culture has, as well as the precious diversity – the characteristics
upon which a culture is based and by which it is recognized as authentic.
The dynamic historical reality of Bosnia rests upon the pattern of diversity,
socio-historical and ideological-political strivings irreducible to a monochromous image of the static concept of ethnical identity; it resists all kinds
of exclusivistic interpretations, especially the radical antagonization in the
spirit of Lewis-Huntington theses on an inevitable clash of civilizations.
It is for that reason important to emphasize that, in the ongoing permeations
of the Slavic-Bosniak profane home-culture and oriental-Islamic spirituality
in the period of the Ottoman reign, and later in those rich symbiosis with
Esad Hećimović, Vrijeme Mehmeda Handžića i naše vrijeme, Zbornik radova
sa znanstvenih skupova o Hadži Mehmedu Handžiću, El-Hidaje – Udruženje uleme
BiH, Sarajevo, 1996, p. 111.
103
Šaćir Filandra, o. c., str. 221.
104
Dubravko Lovrenović, o. c., p. 240.
102
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experience of the European modernity that was successfully formed in the
late 19th century and lasts to this day in the search for cultural, confessional
and ethnic peculiarities “as a South-Slavic people between Serbs and Croats,
expressing an anti-Turkish (not anti-Oriental) and, later, an anti-Austrian
(not anti-Western) attitude and determination”105, Bosniaks, in fact, have
shared a tragic border-guard destiny with the South-Slavic peoples
in general. That is why, with all contradictions of the complex culturalcivilizational differences, similarities or opposites “the literature of Bosnia
and Herzegovina is an extraordinarily attractive and rich resource for
imagological research […], primarily because the Bosnian man did not
perceive otherness through the walls of imperial civilizational borders, but
rather lived it in the most concrete of all terms as a reality and immediacy
of his own, daily life.”106
In a grotesque border-guard competition in authentic purity and
primacy of our cultural identities, we keep forgetting that all identities in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and all South-Slavic identities for that matter,
are borderline identities, formed at the crossroads of grand cultural and
civilizational systems and historical processes, thus along with their
unquestionable and precious peculiarities, we must not overlook that variety
of syncretic forms that resist “hygienic purification” of the national culture,
lustration and exorcism of “the evil spirits of an unpleasant and dislikeable
past”. That is why our understanding of history and cultural tradition of
Bosnia and Herzegovina should be freed of pseudo-mythical representations
of national romanticism, according to which we are the “wall of Christianity
and the sword of Islam and the core of Bogomilism; according to which we
are at the border of the empire, religions, civilizations, the East and the
West while, as a matter of fact, the issue is only a lack of reasonableness
and cultural level in order to equalize all religions and to equalize all the
occupiers as proponents of hegemonistic aspirations and consequences”107
and to, we should add, acknowledge the entire and various cultural patterns,
Muhsin Rizvić, Poetika bošnjačke književnosti, in the book: Panorama bošnjačke
književnosti, Ljiljan, Sarajevo, 1994, p. 24.
106
Vedad Spahić, Slika drugog u „Ljetopisu“ Mula Mustafe Bašeskije, in the book:
Prokrustova večernja škola, BosniaArs, Tuzla, 2008, p. 17.
107
Alija Isaković, Epska tradicija i naša zbilja, Neminovnosti, Univerzal, Tuzla,
1987, p. 75.
105
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55
regardless of the wave of historical events that had brought them, assimilated
and adjusted. Reasonable warnings of Alija Isaković, written long ago, on
the necessity of demystification of history of Bosnia and Herzegovina
in which we have, in fact, tragically participated in interceine conflicts
“either for the honorable emperor, either for the glorious sultan, either
for the powerful ruler”108 have still not truly echoed in our ideologized
historiography, burdened with ethnocentric exclusiveness. “A reader
should always know that impartiality has not been a virtue of the Balkan
historiography”109, Eric Habsbawm said warning against the scientific
unreliability of a historiography which even today offers representations
of the “made-up past”, constructed upon the epic heritage of heroic victories
of sacrifice and imprisonment. It is, however, a paradox that those
processes of demystification were conceived even in the epic poem, when,
in place of the epic-agonizing heroic and decasyllabic combats in which
the people of Krajina are symbolic-allegorical figures and proponents
of totius Christianitas and of the entire Islamic world, appears a general
experience of the tragic border-guard existence at the dividing lines of
historical battlefields:
“O, Krajina, you bloody dress!
This is the way bloody Krajina is:
Everyone chews the bloody morsels
The white day of rest never comes.”
(Lički Mustajbeg and Orlanović Mujo)
Ultimately, this was also the form of the frequently quoted letter,
written in 1684 in bosančica (Bosnian Cyrillic script) by Captain Mustafaga
Hurakalović (epical Mustajbeg Lički) to Petar Smiljanić, congratulating
him on the reward presented to his son, chieftain Petar Smiljanić, by Leonardo Foscolo, the Dalmatian proveditor. In the letter, there is no trace of
the cliché-ridden refinement of the diplomatic style, or of the epic rhetoric
of religious-national intolerance; rather, the full consciousness of closeness
and common roots of the tragically collided people of Krajina is revealed
in an illuminative form of intertextual citatory permeations of the aforeO. c., p. 75.
Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nacije i nacionalizam, Program, mit, stvarnost, translated
by Nata Čengić, Novi Liber (Biblioteka Erasmus; IV), Zagreb, 1993, p. 70.
108
109
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mentioned epic poem about Mustajbeg Lički and its epistolary pamphletary
renewal.110
Three hundred years later, again in a fictional text, in a story entitled
Kaimija, Derviš Sušić further demystifies the romantic-national visions
of the past and ultimately deconstructs the mythical-legendary concepts
of national-confessional battlefields and heroes, which, in a suggestive
stylistic change of the register of an epic narrative, is uttered by Budaletina
Tale, as well as by Skender Kulenović in his novel Ponornica, through
a burlesque parody of the epic duel of circus clowns “Švabo” (“Bosch”) and
“Turčin” (“Turk”), allegorical characters and comical masques representing
the “two empires – ghosts” hovering above the abyss of the Bosnian curse,
as well as through the image of the tragic outcome of a horserace, which,
in the end, turned into an agonizing clash of the “two faiths”.
“I better not say a word about the truth of heroisms, pure shame.
You see, Mustajbeg Lički once sent me to Kotare, to snatch two
fine oxen. And I snatched two fine oxen. I was chased from the
sea by horsemen but I, in prayer, got away somehow. Mustajbeg
gave me a ducat and a barren ewe. I would have lived my life
peacefully had a gusla-player not sung a vicious lie, for the
cost of one plate of pilau and a mutton thigh, about how I took
away Anđelija, sister of Ilija, from the land of Giaour.”111
“At the traditional race this afternoon, three faiths, Islamic,
Orthodox and Catholic will ride their horses once again; two in
fact, our “Turkish” and their two, which are, one for us, ‘giaour’.
A present and kind regards from us, master Mustafaga, Captain of Udvina and
Lika, to chieftain Petar Smiljanić, our brother and friend. We are surprised never to have
received a letter from you, friend of our father. Do you think we are worth nothing now
that our father is gone? If you see peace will not last, please let us know secretly and
friendly. Our mother sends regards and asks you to free a Turkish female slave and
we will pay you whatever the cost. Please, send our regards to your son, chieftain Ilija.
We hear he is a hero in that border-land. God knows we are glad because he is ours.
And we send him a hawk’s feather to wear before the heroes. And we ask of him a breechloader which we will, we swear on our faith, pay fairly. And we ask you Ilija to send
us a bottle of brandy to drink. And may you be joyful. Amen. (Quoted in: Krajišnička
pisma. Selected and edited by Muhamed Nezirović, Bošnjačka književnost u 100 knjiga,
Book 5, BZK Preporod, Sarajevo, 2004, p. 245.)
111
Derviš Sušić, Pobune, Izabrana djela, knj. 2, Oslobođenje, Sarajevo, 1986, p. 61.
110
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57
‘Our’ has remained here to protrude like a rotten root of the
age-decrepit empire which has retreated, and ‘their’ is under
the firm protection of their own scepter, which has, like a lake,
stabilized on these sides, with never before seen order of everything, but still, at its bottom and evermore frequently do those
signs appear, something menacing is stirring up and rising, and
coming from the Orthodox; so the race between the empires –
ghosts, one which now is only that and the other which is likely
to meet the same fate.”112
However, such examples are exceptionally rare, thus twenty years after
Isaković’s text, Nirman Moranjak – Bambrać similarly warned, in her text
Poetika i ideologija (Poetics and Ideology), that within our understanding
of literary tradition nothing has changed and that we should at last start
speaking about the change of cultural paradigms and literary processes
that had changed in centuries before us, instead of speaking about the
good and the bad masters.
“Upon looking at the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one can
see that the shift of cultural imperial patterns also brings along the
shift of different poetics, so the instrumentarium of postcolonial
criticism should be used for new readings and creation of a
reconstructive speech about the collective identity which, unlike
the normative, in an ideological sense, does not portray an image
of reality false to such an extent, an extent seen beneath the
confirmation of a single reality.”113
In such reconstructive reading the tragicalness of Bosnian and South
Slavic idiosyncrasies mirroring subconscious-irrational urges and contradictory sensations of repulsion and attraction in the perception of the Other
is perhaps best seen in two paradigmatic scenes from Andrić’s story Kod
kazana (By the Brandy Still) and in the novel Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge
on the Drina), in a dialogue between Tomo Galus and a young bey Bahtijarević, and then as a consequence in all the contradictory understandings
of orientalist stereotypes in the work of Ivo Andrić.
Skender Kulenović, Ponornica, Muslimanska književnost XX vijeka, knj. XI,
Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1991, p. 351.
113
Nirman Moranjak-Bamburać, Ideologija i poetika, Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta,
Sarajevo, 2000, p. 108.
112
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In the story By the Brandy Still, Mehmedbeg Biogradlija, “a janissary
and a true warrior” who “along with raki (…) poisons himself with poppyseeds which he takes in date or orange peel jam”, in a profane, blasphemous
understanding of his own culture reduced to the beauty of sensual experience and enjoyment, sacrilegiously and with overt hatred denies
every sense of the Christian religion and culture, in a midnight conversation
with friar Marko Krenta:
“A dark thing, the cross! Dark is everything that crosses with the
sign of cross! You’ve been kneading darkness for a thousand
years to no avail! You do not raise your heads above the cross.
That is your punishment. You are against the gift and creatures
of God! What can you do? Baptized people – unfortunate
people.”114
On the other hand, in the novel The Bridge on the Drina, the frequently
quoted Marx’s attitude: “Sie können sie nicht vertreten, sie müssen
vertreten werden” (“They cannot represent themselves, they must be
represented”) appears in our Bosnian version, in the exalted attitude of
Andrić’s character Tomo Galus who, thrilled by the ideas of South Slavic
nationalistic youth, denies capability and possibility of scientific selfrecognition of the Bosniak intelligence:
“You are Orientals, but you are wrong to think that you are
suited to be orientalists. You neither possess the vocation nor
true predilection for science.”115
The ferocity of Galus’ denial of the capability of Bosniaks to scientifically research their own culture and capability to represent themselves
is followed by the narrator’s conclusion that “they, like this Muslim
young man, the grandson of beys, carry their philosophy in their blood,
they live and die according to it, but do not know how to express it in
words, nor do they feel the need for it.”116
Of course, one can easily recognize in Galus’ attitudes the literate
paraphrase of stereotypes on “characterology of the Bosnian MohamIvo Andrić, Kod kazana, Sabrana djela, knj. VI, Mladost – Prosveta – Državna
založba – Svjetlost, Zagreb – Beograd – Ljubljana – Sarajevo, 1967, p. 68.
115
Ivo Andrić, Na Drini ćuprija, Sabrana djela, knj. I, navedeno izdanje, p. 270.
116
O. c., str. 270.
114
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medans”, described by Stojan Novaković and Jovan Cvijić as the mainstay
of the “orientalist archive” of Serb national-romantic ideology of the second
half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. “Language of abstraction,
language of thought, that which is, so to say, most beautiful in any language,
has been sealed for them”117, Stojan Novaković wrote, while, according to
Jovan Cvijić, “the Bosnian Mohammedans” are incapable of producing a
modern scientific thought, for they have preserved “a fossilized, clearly
medieval way of thinking”118.
The literary opus of IvoAndrić is overwhelmingly seen and understood
today as a paradigmatic “place where an ideology is formed”, a “battlefield and theatre” of fierce rereadings of “textual traces of the past” in
a simplified understanding of rhetoric strategies of the new historicism
and criticism of orientalist discourse on the one hand, and a traditional,
essentialist estheticism on the oher, which by a hypostasis of autonomy
of the literary world denies contextual and cotextual “contamination” of
a literary text by ideological content. That consequently results in parallel
and antagonistic rituals of demonization or beatification of Andrić’s
“character and opus”. In the process, neither of the approaches takes into
consideration the fact that ideologically unbiased narratives do not exist,
the same way that “innocent” interpretations do not exist, and that a
continual process of various interpretations takes place in poetics of every
culture, together with the “processing” of the historical sense in singlevoicedness of explicative forms and rhetorical strategies which, among
other, reveal the “historicity of texts” and “textuality of history”, and that
the new-historicist method is but one of the many understandings of
literature, irreducible to simple illustration of ideologically, allegedly
monolith discursive practice. The same could be said about the perception
of the “esthetic autonomy of the literary world” established in the time of
Romanticism, as if the literary text – as Nirman Moranjak – Bamburać
emphasized – reflects nothing from the historical reality:
“The beautiful dream of a ‘free genius’ is nothing but a utopia,
for his ‘freedom’ may, very much so, serve for different ideological moldings; and it always serves for molding a national
Stojan Novaković, Balkanska pitanja i manje istorijsko-političke beleške o
Balkanskom poluostrvu 1886–1905, Belgrade, 1906, p. 21.
118
Jovan Cvijić, Govori i članci, I, Beograd, 1921, p. 260.
117
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identity as the fundamental ideologeme of the contemporary
history.”119
In exactly that sense, Ivo Žanić, in the text Pisac na osami (Upotreba
Andrićeve književnosti u ratu u BiH) [A Writer in Isolation (The Use of
Andrić’s Literature in the Bosnian War)], warns about the complexity
of relations of literary and historical reality in Andrić’s work, of ethical and
esthetical synchronization and responsibility upon which both the literary
text and interpretative act equally rest:
“Literary reality is an autonomous reality; it exists within its
own rules and it lives a life of its own; yet, it is formed within a
subconscious reality and, once created, it retroactively affects
that reality by partly shaping and completing it the way that, for
example, Andrić’s novels and stories are read nowadays by
those who decide on Bosnia and Herzegovina and who, on that
basis, draw different conclusions. In that sense, the ‘Andrić case’
truly opens many realistic issues about the relationship between
literary and extraliterary reality, postulates of the creative process,
author’s responsibility regarding the reception of his work,
tendency in literature and its ideologization – regardless if it
comes from the author himself or from interpreters, both invited
or not; benevolent or malevolent.”120
Critical approach to a literary text in that sense necessarily requires,
even today, the analysis of both the “kind of yarn and the way of weaving”
(V. Šklovski) and of the submerging, polyphonic and heteroglossic production processes of ideological content in the way of writing and the
in way of reading because “every literary fact emerges (…) as a result
of two forces: inner dynamics of a structure and outer intervention”121.
However, the variety of different interpretations of Andrić’s literary
text is not solely based on the collective horizon of expectations or literary
competence of interpretative communities. An interpretative act means
Nirman Moranjak-Bamburać, Ideologija i poetika, o. c., p. 107.
Ivo Žanić, Pisac na osami (Upotreba Andrićeve književnosti u ratu u BiH),
Erasmus, Journal for Culture of Democracy, Zagreb, October 1996, br. 18, p. 48.
121
Jan Mukaržovski, Uz češki prevod „Teorije proze“ Viktora Šklovskog, Književna
kritika (Belgrade), VI/1975, str. br. 3, p. 67-68.
119
120
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61
also individual competence of reading and understanding of the literary
world, the same way Andrić’s fictional and non-fictional texts are, among
other, an expression of unquestionable ethno-cultural, ideological and
traditional interpretations of the historical world, but also of the individual
act of transposition of the fact of life into an artistic fact by the force of
the author’s expression and esthetic suggestion (un)submissive to violence
of collective ideological edicts, but also of personal idiosyncrasies. Neither
in the act of writing, nor in the act of reading are meanings of a literary
text produced by an abstract, “transcendental consciousness” of the
Author and the Reader; a literary text, in every new reading, reveals a
dynamic, always changeable image and individual and collective ideological semantizations of social reality, through the effect of “inner dynamics
of a structure and outer intervention”.
All this signifies the need for a calmer discussion onAndrić’s orientalist
views, because at the end of the day, even among those literary scholars
who in every other case insist with all reason on the differentiation, but also
the conditional relationship between the text and extratextual relations
and between the content of historical reality and esthetic imagination, in
the final judgment on Andrić’s “love” or “hatred” towards the BosnianMuslim world, expressed through identical rhetoric yet with different
conclusions, that difference has completely disappeared:
“I dare say that in the entire Bosnian (even in the BosniakMuslim) literature there hasn’t been a writer who understood
the historical and civilizational fate of Bosnian Muslims with such
refined empathy and deep co-sentiment like Ivo Andrić.”122
“There almost hasn’t been a writer in ‘Yugoslav literature’ who,
like Ivo Andrić, painted the image of an entire people and its
history with such repulsiveness and dark tone because it
belonged to another civilizational circle.”123
To these irreconcilably opposed attitudes on the nature of relations
towards Bosniaks in Andrić’s work, reduced to psychological-emotional
Ivan Lovrenović, Bosanski Andrić, Bosna, kraj stoljeća, Durieux, Zagreb, 1996,
p. 127.
123
Esad Duraković, Andrićevo djelo u tokovima ideologije eurocentrizma. In the
book: Andrić i Bošnjaci, BZK „Preporod“, Tuzla, 2000, p. 139.
122
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categories of love and hatred in texts which, allegedly, “threaten” to become
the summary of homogenous Bosnian “interpretative communities”124,
Zdenko Lešić, in the spirit of Said’s orientalism, without amnestying Andrić
from his undoubtedly orientalist views present both in his fictional and
non-fictional texts, includes at the same time the Lacanian paradox of
otherness (which is in the essence of Said’s teachings), in which we
are able to see a reverse image of ourselves in the other:
“Here” Lešić states “we cannot but remember Andrić and his
images of the ‘East’ and ‘Easterners’, which undoubtedly represent our contribution to the Western tradition of orientalism,
with a characteristic mixture of repulsion and attraction. But we
must add that neither in Andrić’s images, nor in the majority
of texts Edward Said analyzed, is there space for hatred, contrary
to the opinion of some, because those images are realized exactly
as the Lacanian paradox: images of others lure us for we believe
to be able to see the image of ourselves in otherness.”125
We should add to this, by and large, acceptable, but also to some extent
simplified interpretation of both Lacan’s and Said’s, and consequently
Andrić’s understanding and representation of otherness as a benign, reverse
image of ourselves, that it is not about a rational belief but a subconscious,
irrational process in which, through the ambivalent experience of attraction
and repulsion, a cultural demonological archive and catalogue of orientalist
images are formed, which we are also unable to foresee.
Exactly that mixture of “repulsion” and “attraction” can be seen in
friar Marko’s obsession with a terrible thought that “what comes from
God and what comes from the Devil is not clearly or straightforwardly
divided”: as Mehmed Biogradlija utters his blasphemous words, friar
Principal attitudes of the reception theory, from Jauss’ collective expectations
horizon, Iser’s implicit reader and narrative strategies as means of communication,
all the way to Stanly S. Fish’s understanding of the complex kinds of interpretative
strategies and literary competence of interpretative communities, have sadly been
reduced nowadays onto the profanity of ideological content of ethnonational perception
of the expectations horizon, by consensual antagonization towards supposedly “hostile”,
different and competitive communities.
125
Zdenko Lešić, Nova čitanja: Poststrukturalistička čitanka, Buybook, Sarajevo,
2002, p. 106.
124
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63
Marko recognizes in his image the image of a saint he once saw in some
Roman church:
“Friar Marko would unintentionally look up and observe the
Turk. That tilted head, that pale face with green shadows,
burning eyes – all reminded him of something remote and
sublime: it reminded him of a saint’s head he had once seen on
a painting in one of the churches of Rome. Regardless of how
much he fought against that sinful comparison which confused
him, it kept coming back, imposing itself irresistibly like a pest.
That was the head of an unknown saint, a martyr: the same
rapture, the same glow of the eyes and expression of the exalted
pain. And to make the pest complete, that head which reminded
of a martyr spoke now incomprehensible, shameful and blasphemous things. All that came to friar Marko, like a bad dream,
full of dark contradictions.”126
Of course, in the analysis of Andrić’s dissertation and other texts
“engineered, written owing to circumstances” (I. Lovrenović), it is not
difficult to recognize “what other hybrid ideas, enormous complex prisms
and idiosyncrasies he kept within”, but it is important to notice, as Vedad
Spahić puts it, that “within the story itself, however, a bad non-esthetic
intention does not define the function of the text” because “the text
(structure, the world of literary work) is sometimes highly self-reliant
and possesses its own defensive mechanisms against misuse.”127
It seems to me that all this obliges us to finally leave the epic-agonistic
base of our South Slavic literary-historical narratives, and to always keep
in mind during the critical rereading of Serbo-Croat orientalist residue
collected by “our eyes’cataracts” (S. Kulenović) that we are also the Other
to someone else and, as such, object of collective mystifications, stereotypical
views and hereditary socio-historical representations and burdens. That is
why it would be completely wrong to make our own catalogue of an obscure
library of orientalist texts in the reconstructive postcolonial discourse
and rereading. Instead, we should only center on paradigmatic patterns
Ivo Andrić, Kod kazana, quoted issue, p. 69.
Vedad Spahić, „Hljeb od javorove kore“, in: Tekst, kontekst, interpretacija, p.
156-157.
126
127
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that bare witness that negative perceptions and usurpations of Bosniak
literature happen today as well, almost according to inertia of the inherited
stereotypes which are seen practically as a general site of imagology.
In that sense, we will firstly illustrate the opposite conclusions Dean
Duda draws in the book Priča i putovanje128 (A Story and a Voyage),
depicting two identical views, burdened by the a priori prejudice, presented
almost at the same time by the Anglican priest Gleig after a voyage to
Croatia (1837) and Croatian travel writer Matija Mažuranić after a voyage
to Bosnia (1839 – 1840).
The case of Mr. Gleig, an Anglican priest whom peasants beat up
during the journey in Croatia and who “upon departure from Croatia
published journal entries in several foreign newspapers from his voyage,
in which he stated how the Croat ‘barbarians and ruffians’129 had made him
suffer”, is doubly mediated in explanation. Dean Duda, citing the first
reaction to Gleig’s writing in a text entitled “Obrana proti klevetnomu
jednom nasernutju na Horvate englezkoga putnika Gleiga” (“Defense
against a Libelous Attack on Croats by the English Traveler Gleig”) by
Slovak Dragutin (Karel Georg) Rumy130, carefully deconstructs Gleig’s
Eurocentric stereotypes and, completely in the spirit of Said’s criticism
of orientalism concludes: “For him, everybody’s the same. His perception
knows not of differences, for it is simply not ready for them. (…) Is his
roughness the consequence of a previously-created image or had the
Croat peasants really given a reason for it?” – the author asks and
makes a suggestion in the end by using Rumy’s comparison with
“English relationship towards Irish Catholics” that “Gleig is becoming
a representative of treatment of people who share the same religion with
Croats”131.
However, Duda’s approach to interpretation of Mažuranić’s 1842
travelogue Pogled u Bosnu (A Glimpse at Bosnia) in which, as Duda states,
“an uninformed traveler travels from one civilizational or cultural circle into
another”, “his itinerary was placed in probably most dangerous part of
Europe at the time” and that is why, in this voyage, he faced “one peril
Dean Duda, Priča i putovanje: Hrvatski romantičarski putopis kao pripovjedni
žanr, Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1998.
129
O. c., p. 19.
130
Danica, Zagreb, V/1839, No. 35, p. 138-139.
131
Dean Duda, o. c., p. 21.
128
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after another, in an unknown world, both savage and mystical” because
“mental attitudes of Bosnia, more precisely Turkish environment differed
from that of the travel writer’s”132 (emphasis by E.D.) In the end, the author
illustrates that with the writer’s conflict with children and, unlike Gleig’s
conflict with the peasants, he will conclude that Mažuranić’s travelogue
“leaves the final impression of humiliation of the Christian world in
Bosnia” and so “anyone possessing a better literary experience will gain
a good insight into the Bosnian situation”, even more so because Mažuranić in the end provides Različne opaske o Bosni (Various Remarks about
Bosnia), “the Bosnian lexicon”, in which “he wrote down the acquired
knowledge as a series of entries about the Bosnian everyday life”133. And
in order for that orientalist discourse of Duda’s interpretation (which is
more orientalist than Mažuranić’s travelogue) to gain full confirmation in
diabolicalness of the “Bosnian Turk border”, he will completely
“orientalize” that world and antagonize it with that of the travel writer’s
the same way he antagonized Gleig’s Anglicanism against the Irish and
Croat Catholicism:
“Finally, if an itinerary represents a sign, than Mažuranić’s voyage
across Bosnia at the turn of the 1830s is, surely, a true adventure, similar
in a way to the experience of the Dutch scientist Alexandrine Tinne, who
lived in Cairo in the mid-19th century, dressed in the Oriental fashion
and with Arab servants and black slaves, and was killed in the end, on
an expedition at the edge of the Sahara desert by Tuaregs.”134
Secondly, untenability of Serb-Croat usurpations of Bosniak literature,
which can be traced 150 years back, is also an unhidden form of depravation
of identity, denial of the Bosniak cultural identity, which can easily be seen
even by casual citing of paradigmatic excerpts from the texts of, for
example, Jovan Deretić and Slobodan Prosperov Novak about the alhamijado literature (works in Bosnian language written in an adaptedArabic
script), in which that enormous effort of explaining the unexplainable is
seen. Thus, Jovan Deretić, in an attempt to reconstruct Vuk Karadžić’s
national-romanticist thesis about Serbs of three religions, writes that
“multiethnicity and multiculturalism of the Serb literature are characteristics
O. c., p. 160 and 161.
O. c., p. 160.
134
O. c., p. 162.
132
133
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which give it the power of assimilation more than any other characteristic”,
and, owing to those characteristics, since “the Serb Church Slavonic
literature during the Turkish reign had lost the former creative power”,
that creativity gap may be filled with “the Islamic literature written either
in the oriental languages or in the domestic idiom in the Arabic alphabet
(alhamijado literature) and in Cyrillic alphabet; the Catholic Franciscan
literature in the domestic dialects and in Latin; literature of the Spanish
Sephardic Jews in the Jewish idiom of Spanish (Ladino) and in Hebrew”135.
Opposite Jovan Deretić, Slobodan Prosperov Novak proclaimed
alhamijado literature a part of Croat literary heritage:
“During the 17th century in Bosnia, as well as in the areas north
of the Sava River, a number of poems were written in the Arabic
alphabet, but in the language that Matija Divković and Bartul
Kašić called Slavene, Illyrian or Bosnian, that is, in the same
language Ivan Gundulić and Juraj Habdelić, Ivan Tonko Mrnavić
and Junije Palmotić wrote”, and emphasized that “the most
famous among them is certainly Muhamed Uskufi Havaji (!), who
wrote an interesting Turkish – Croatian dictionary (!), entitled
Potur Šahdi (!), or, if we translate it to the contemporary language,
The Small New Turk according to Šahdi’s Method (!!!)”136.
Thus, with Prosperov Novak, Hevaji becomes Havaji, Turkish –
Bosnian becomes Turkish – Croatian dictionary, Potur – Šahidija becomes
Potur Šahdi, and his translation The Small New Turk according to Šahdi’s
Method is a “new-Croatian” version of equally caricatured “old-Serb”
translation “made” by Stojan Novaković in his 1869 text entitled Srbi Muhamedovci i turska pismenost (Mohammedan Serbs and Turkish Literacy):
“Potur-šahidije according to Mr. Blau’s interpretation is translated into the Serb language as ‘The Turkicized according to
Šahid’, that is, instructions for learning Turkish according to
Šahid.”137
Jovan Deretić, Put srpske književnosti, Mala biblioteka SKZ, Belgrade, 1996,
p. 326.
136
S. P. Novak, Povijest hrvatske književnosti, svezak I, Raspeta domovina, Split,
2004, p. 171 and 172.
137
Stojan Novaković, Srbi Muhamedovci i turska pismenost, Glasnik Srpskog
učenog društva, Belgrade, 1869, p. 238.
135
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Vedad Spahić also observed Slobodan Prosperov Novak’s incompetence and a bizarre combination of arrogance and ignorance in his text:
“Literature cannot be stolen and non-scientifically motivated inclusions
cannot be prevented”, Spahić emphasized and showed in a careful
analysis that underneath Novak’s appropriation of older Bosniak literature
rests “a misery of ignorance, inappropriate for a scientist of Novak’s
reputation.”138 The same could also be said for the way in which, in more
recent times, Dubravko Jelčić, Krešimir Nemec or Božidar Petrač, that is,
Predrag Palavestra, Jovan Deretić or Staniša Tutnjević have systematically
or incidentally included Bosniak literature into the Croat or Serb literaryhistorical line. Their texts are frequently an unusual mixture of unhidden
orientalist views and grotesque attempts of “taming” and adaptation of
the Bosniak writers with the seeming renewal of thesis on voluntary and
continual “determination” of Bosniak writers for either Serb or Croat
national literature. Political violence of denying cultural and national
identity of Bosniaks and refutation of a possibility of their own ethnocultural identity and representation, which had lasted until the mid-1960s
(and that is where the extorted “determination” of Bosniak writers for
either Serb or Croat literature comes from) is used today as well as an
argument of appropriation of Bosniak literature in the cultural currents
of hegemonistic mainstreams. As this goes on, the deeper permeation
processes of literary traditions, which are a precious value present in
different forms and in all South Slavic literatures, are neglected while the
profane, incorrect and untenable thesis that “Muslim literature acquired
its national identity slowly and with delay, at the same time dwelling
within Serb or Croat literary consciousness”139 is emphasized.
Patency of political implications of such efforts to “acculturate”
Bosniak literature was observed long ago, in 1900, in the text Čemu se imamo
nadati? (What can we hope for?), published in the Bošnjak magazine:
Vedad Spahić, „Prušac“ i ine književne starine; starija bošnjačka književnost u
„Povijesti hrvatske književnosti“Slobodana Prosperova Novaka. In the book: Prokrustova večernja škola, Bosnia Ars, Tuzla, 2008, p. 37 and 38.
139
Staniša Tutnjević, Muslimanska književnost na srpskohrvatskom jeziku u odnosu
prema srpskoj i hrvatskoj književnosti, Open Society Institute, Electronic Publishing
Program, 1999. http://rss.archives.ceu.hu/archive/00001055/01/55pdf, p. 10.
138
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“We Mohammedans have remained in between and we are
that preponderance which could move the poise of the small
languages on the balance pan to the side we would choose. Croats
and Serbs are aware of that and they flit around us, each imposing
their own thoughts and ideas, using education as an excuse. And
that is why the ‘Osvit’ magazine has been initiated in Mostar,
as well as some Croat choral associations on the one hand, as well
as ‘Srpski Vjesnik’ and ‘Bos. vila’, ‘Zora’ etc, on the other.”140
About a hundred years later, a Belgian Slavist Stijn Vervaet, in text
Svoje i tuđe u bosanskohercegovačkoij književnoj periodici (1878 – 1918)
(One’s Own and of the Other in Literary Periodicals of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (1878 – 1918) observed the same unreliability, relativity
and fluidity of the Bosnian Muslims’ national identity, which is “Serb
according to Vuk, Croat according to Starčević, Bosniak according to Kalaj
and Kapetanović”, and emphasized that all these ideologies and political
conceptions have one characteristic understanding in common, which
is that “Muslim identity can only fit into the identity they preach, which
explains their persistent attempts of nationalization of Muslims, but also
cooperation of Muslim intellectuals schooled according to the Western
system in Croat and Serb magazines”141. In that sense, Vervaet also
emphasizes political instrumentalization of the literary periodicals of that
time and an accentuated competition in nationalization of Muslim writers
only on the basis of their cooperation in the Croat or Serb periodicals:
“However, faced with the imposing usurpation of Muslims in
Serb and Croat periodicals, Muslim associates frequently
found themselves clinched in the ‘brotherly’ embrace of their
national conception and they would run away to the other
side, or would find themselves somehow in the governmental
conception of Bosniakhood.”142
Anonymous, Čemu se imamo nadati?, Bošnjak, 10/1900, 11, 1, March 15.
Stijn Vervaet, Svoje i tuđe u bosanskohercegovačkoj književnoj periodici (1878–
1918), in: Svoj i tuđ. Slika drugog u balkanskim i srednjoevropskim književnostima,
Institute for Literature and Art, Belgrade, 2006, p. 211.
142
Ibid, p. 209.
140
141
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69
Rasim Muminović commented the absurdity and futility of those
attempts which, as we can see, occur today as well, in his 1969 text entitled
Povijesnost i nacionalitet (Historicity and Nationality) by saying that
“a man cannot choose what he is, for he is that, but he can commit himself
to what he is not […] or perhaps because others ask him to do so”143. That
is why even today, when facing such attempts of appropriation of Bosniak
literature and culture in general through pseudo-scientific arguments of
national-romanticist literary historiography which, within the spontaneous
permeations of literary experiences and values in the South Slavic
interliterary community represents a grotesque act of diffusion of the
imperial cultural property, we should recall Ilarion Ruvarac, who in 1885
superbly demystified Serb and Croat nationalist interweaving of cultural
and literary narratives:
“Well, there is a strange similarity in the name, work and fate
between Serb Panto and Croat Anto! Our Panto is Serb Anto and
their Anto is a notched Croat Panto; Panto S(rećko)vić is the
younger brother of Croat Anto, and Anto S(tarče)vić is the older
brother of our Panto, and they are children and emanations of
the same spirit, of the same father, and they both do the same
job and are looking for the poisonous plants of hatred and are
sowing the same seed: the seed of discord among the kindred
and closest of brothers, among the Slavic tribes in the south
– that respect one another.”144
All this leads to the conclusion that, even today, in the process of
defining the status and model of research of Bosniak literature by exploring
its poetics, it is of utmost importance to recognize it in those complex
correlations of B&H and South Slavic cultural-historical contexts, which
are dynamic processes of amalgamation and permeations of various literary
characteristics and forms, outside ethno-confessional appropriations and
attributions, inclusions and “conversions”, in a comparative procedure
which implies (and ultimately demands) the respect of the parallel,
neighboring and different literary-historical texts.
Rasim Muminović, Povijesnost i nacionalitet, Život, Sarajevo, 1969, No. 6-7,
p. 61-63.
144
Ilarion Ruvarac, Prelaz s prikaza na kritiku [1885]. Quoted in: Olivera Milosavljević, o. c., p. 21.
143
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Tatjana Lazić
FBiH Parliament
Sarajevo
UDK 314.15
CONTEMPORARY POPULIST POLITICAL CULTURE:
FROM MODERNISM TO POSTMODERNIST
POLITICAL TRENDS
The author analyses the degree of influence populism has on main
political trends in Euro-Atlantic societies by examining problems
surrounding the terminological conceptualization of populism and its
historical manifestations in a specific national context. The interiorization
of populism into the liberal-democratic political discourse has been
made possible by the ambivalent nature of democratic political culture,
which implies not only the autonomy of thought and the participation of
citizens in the political system, but also certain loyalistic, subservient
elements, cognitive-affective unity and the consent of subjects on fundamental values on which a political order is based. At times of major social
crises, which problematize and reevaluate the overall value system,
populism, through the programs of the far right and left, skillfully utilizes
the indoctrinational potential of democracy offering a simplified explication
of the reasons that caused crises and by influencing the retraditionalization
of behavior imposes itself as the guardian of a national collective’s values
and tradition. Populism, by instrumentalizing mass media, interprets
politics into a simple and easily understandable language thus reducing
the need for an intellectual and critical potential.
Key words: populism, political culture, political parties, democracy,
media
Defining Populism
Semantic differentiation of the word people, which is demos in
Greek and populus in Latin, explicitly places us into a bipolar discourse
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of politological-axiological concepts: democracy and populism. Demos as
the fundamental constituent of democracy favors the voluntaristic,
subjective-political and nation-building understanding of a politically
organized people, a legitimately established political order in which the
citizen is the central figure, manifesting its political sensibility and actively
participating in ongoing political processes. Consequently, active civil
components develop the discourse of democratic political culture as an
expression of the internized value system formed under the influence of
processes of political tradition and political socialization and in constant
communication with representatives of the authorities who play their roles
in the open political system. The consistency of a democracy is evaluated
through the stability and firmness of its institutions and representatives
of the authorities, especially at times of major social crises, which tend
to stir up demands for the revalorization of the political legitimacy of the
authorities. Namely, conventional definitions of legitimacy link this
phenomenon to collectivistic faith, confidence, acceptance and rational
justification that the existing institutions are adequate for the given system,
i.e. the society as a whole. The concept of legitimacy also stands in a
functional relationship with the concept of mass loyalty. According to
Claus Offe, loyalty of the underprivileged exists “where thresholds of
conflict between certain interest groups have not been permanently
crossed and where a functionally desirable dose of apathetical willingness
to follow given instances exists.”1 Therefore, it is conceived in a democracy
that the flipside of socialization processes carries, to a certain extent, traits
of a specific political indoctrination which produces general consent
with the wider axiological context with the aim of maintaining power
and stability of the political order. However, the question that arises is
will the political mind turn towards the rational resolution of a crisis, or
will it, on the other hand, find refuge in irrational political options, such as
populism, when a disruption in the perception of values within a group
reality occurs and when the process of legitimizing authority experiences
real obstacles which challenge its existence, i.e. when conflict potentials
are no longer reduced to the measure of a socially desirable level of
reproduction of social dynamics and social progress. Ralf Darendorf also
Claus Offe, cited in Esad Zgodic: Multiverzum vlasti: za nou kratologiju, Faculty
of Political Science, Sarajevo 2009, p. 49
1
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stresses that democracy and populism are not mutually exclusive concepts:
one man’s populism is another’s democracy, and vice versa. Development
of the populist template in modern democracies is made possible by the
fact that the political culture includes both participative and authoritarian
potentials, which means that besides the participation of citizens in political processes, mechanisms of mass loyalty and support for the political
system are also established at the same time. It is a characteristic of the
European civil humanism and republicanism for the community to have
advantage over the individual, i.e. for the individual-citizen to be constituted
through the collective, first in the form of an ethnos and then of a nation.
Populism, by resorting to the people and tradition, therefore often becomes
a component of national political programs.
That this is not merely a simplified politological phenomenon can
be seen from the definitioinal elasticity which determines populism as a
political orientations, a method of gaining power, a technique of government,
a specific “ideology” which mimics, introjects and oscillates in the wide
spectrum from far left to far right ideologies, possibly becoming their
active component and one of the significant political values. In his work
Populism and the Mirror of Democracy Francisco Panizza highlights three
things that subsume the basis of populism: Who are the people? Who speaks
on behalf of the people? How does populist identification take place? In his
search for answers the same author underlines three categories within which
the raised issues are analyzed: a) empirical generalizations, b) historicist
accounts and c) symptomatic readings – all alleged cases of populism.2
There is not definite, commonly accepted definition of the term
populism in political glossaries. The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides
two overlapping definitions a) a political movement claiming to represent
the common people and b) belief in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the
common people. Basically, any action claiming to defend the interests of
the common people can be described as populist, and since every political
action is rationalized, made meaningful by the purpose of defending and
protecting the interests of the people, or a part of the people, populist
vocabulary becomes present, to a greater or lesser extent, in a host of
political programs, with the sole intention of winning the support of the
Panizza, Francisco, Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, Verso, London, 2005.,
p. 1-2
2
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electorate. According to A. Miloradovic, the description of populism in
political-sociological discourse can be reduced to the search for its content
in movements or policies which call upon the people and bear the following
fundamental characteristics: resistance to modernization, anti-intellectualism,
traditionalism, a collection of ideas and convictions that reflect political
skepticism as opposed to parliamentary democracy; i.e. a movement
conditioned by socio-political rifts between the traditional and modern,
village and the city, collective and individual, religion and secularization.
A significant characteristic of populism is the nonexistence of
immanent ideological consistency, instead it is structurally recognized
in the political extremes of the right and left, and is manifested both as
reactionary and revolutionary (Latin American dictatorships: Getulio
Vargas (Brazil), J.D. Peron (Argentina), H. Chavez (Venezuela)), but also
as democratic (Switzerland, Austria, France), and conservative (DeGaullism). According to E. Canetti’s sociological definition, populism
represents a governing technique which rests on the syncretism between
the leader and the crowd within which the leader’s wish for power finds
footing in the frustrations of the members of the crowd.3 Political Scientist
D. Nohlan provides a similar definition of populism. He defines it as a mass
movement with members of heterogeneous lower social strata at its core,
a movement with a fragile organization and pronouncedly vertically
established relations of the movement leadership and the crowd at the
base on the principle of relations between the leader and the crowd.4 Post
Marxist theory considers populism in terms of its potential to neutralize
antagonistic political expressions, i.e. ways in which the dominant,
homogenistic class absorbs the heterogeneity of ideas and (re)establishes
and maintains its position in the society. Thus, populism becomes an ideology
of the elite, which in their effort to gain power, address directly the masses
(E. Laklau)5 flattering and urging them to back a priori made decisions.
The simplicity of theoretical desubstantialization of populist praxis
is achieved at time of major social crisis which condition and accelerate
changes in political reality, but also in the wider social context. Edgar
See more in Elias Canetti, Masa i moć, Grafički zavod, Zagreb, 1984.
Diether Nolan, Politološki rječnik: država i politika, Panliber, Osjek-ZagrebSplit, 2001.
5
See more in Ernesto Laclau, On populist Reason, Verso, New York/London, 2005.
3
4
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Moren labeled the 20th century as the century of crises manifested not only
as the “tearing of a continuum, as a disturbance of the, to that point,
seemingly stable system, but also as an increase in coincidence, therefore uncertainty.”6
In the broadest possible sense a crisis represents a period when
one model of development, organization and interpretation of the world
is exhausted, and a new one has not emerged. A crisis is “a collapse of
organization and represents a series of uncontrolled processes which
aim to gain strength through their own forces or to severely conflict with
other antagonistic process, which are also uncontrolled.”7 First condition
for an explicit manifestation of populism is a crisis of thought as a “historic
moment of danger or uncertainty during which decisions and changes of
crucial importance are made that will determine the future development of
the system, if it survives, and its new social, economic and political basis.”8
British sociologist Steward Hawk, who formed the “authoritarian
populism” syntagm to characterize the policy of former British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher and which would be used to describe numerous
far right governments and politicians, defined four aspects of crisis of
the modern world:
a) economic aspect (process of deindustrialization)
b) political aspect (absence of dialogue, parties become companies);
c) ideological aspect (contemplation of the future ceases)
d) cultural aspect (domination of subculture).9
Canadian publicist Naomi Klein subsumes this crisis parallelogram
under the statement: “drop in the value of money, collapses on the market,
the looming recession, put everything else on the back burner and give
leaders free hands to do what they wish in the name of national salvation.
Crises are, in a sense, “off shore” democracies, moments when normative
rules of consensus are suspended”.10
Edgar Moren, Kako izaći iz XX stoljeća, Globus, Zagreb, 1983, str. 274.
Ibidem, p. 275.
8
Dragan Koković, Naziranje umetnosti, Futura publikacije, Novi Sad, 1998., p. 196.
9
Postmoderna vremena (Fetišizam i kriza) Časopis Biznis i finansije,
http://www. bifonline.rs/tekstovi.print122/postmoderna-vremena-4-feti%
10
Ibidem
6
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Populism in Modernism
Populist political culture is linked to the emergence and development
of populist movements at decisive phases of European and world history
in the 20th century and is characterized by the impoverishment of the
intellectual and democratic potential of the society. Margaret Canovan
Herzena considers two populist templates significant for the dominant
characteristics of a society’s political tradition: a) agrarian populism formed
in the USA and Russia in the 19th century, i.e. peasant movements in
central and east European countries (Germany, Bulgaria) and b) political
populism, which we associate with strong, charismatic political leaders
whose political rule left a trace on practically all generational groups,
including the political culture of a society.
The US Constitution projected a specific political culture which
“diverts from the ‘intellectualism’, i.e. wisdom and enlightenment,
influenced by John Locke towards the Ruossovian (Jean Jacques Rousseau)
‘egalitarian’ sentiment and ‘populist’ unity”.11 Analyzing the political
culture in America, D. Bell observed that it is no coincidence that many
American presidents were heroes or generals, i.e. that presidents after the
Second World War, such as Truman, Nixon, Carter and Regan, were “open
populists” and opponents of the establishment.12 Principal characteristics
of American populism are anti-intellectualism and an anti-institutional,
provincial-religious culture without a strong aristocratic, artistic, Catholic
tradition.13
Political populism, in fact, leads us into the theoretical understanding
of the method and reproduction of populist templates in democratic
systems, i.e. it highlights how the existing democratic deficit in the wider
political-social system is instrumentalized with the marginalization of
parliamentary democracy institutions as its result.
Authoritarian populism represents a form of traditional political culture
in which a charismatic leader gains political legitimization based on the
dissatisfaction and acclamatory acceptance of the masses to be guided based
Stjepan Šimić, Teorija političke moderne, Nipp, Zenica, 1999., p. 87-88.
Daniel Bell in: Stjepan Šimić, Teorija političke moderne, cited on p. 88
13
Ibidem, p. 88
11
12
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on uncontrolled emotions. This relationship sets the basic differentiation
of democratic movements from populist movements. Democratic movements respect the principle of rule by the people, while populist movements
rely on the people, i.e. their emotions which they direct against democratic
principles and institutions. The basic characteristics of populist political
culture are: the people, leader, anti-individualism, anti-intellectualism,
anti-parliamentarism, and anti-modernism.14 Instead of cultivating a sense
of the polyphonic and minimizing sources for the reproduction of authoritarian habits and monocentric political culture15, populist political culture
is inclined towards discrediting, suspecting, controlling, excommunicating
and decapitating intellectuals who are seen as unruly, undisciplined,
unreliable and abstract individuals. Furthermore, it also demonstrates
a strong distrust in the processes of modernization and the work of
parliamentary institutions, as a result of which populist movements are
perceived as a kind of neo-romantic rebellion and revolt against the spiritus
movens hinting major social changes. Exploring the edges of liberalism
and of liberal-democratic political culture, B. Arditi concluded that
contemporary democracies cannot escape the influence of populism:
“Populism is a drunken guest at a polite party: He can disrupt table manners
and tacit rules of sociability by speaking loudly, interrupting conversations
of others, and perhaps flirting with them beyond what passes for acceptable
cheekiness”.16
Andelko Miloradovic differentiates three populist movements based
on the underlying concepts of nationalism, anti-individualism and antimodernism which dominate them:
a) Poujadism – an anti-modernist movement formed in France from
the frustrations of the marginalized segments of the society
excluded from the mainstream of modern society. This movement
stands at the position that it is the people, not the parties, who
should control the government
Anđelko Milardović, Uvod u politologiju, Pan liber, Zagreb, 1996., p. 152.
Esad Zgodić, Realpolitika i njeni protivnici, Univerzitetska biblioteka Derviš
Sušić, Tuzla , Centar za informisanje i kulturu, Tešanj, 2008., p. 125.
16
See more in Benjamin Arditi, Politics on the Edges of Liberalism: Difference,
Populism, Revolution, Agitation, Edinburgh University Press, Scotland, UK, 2007., p. 78.
14
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b) McCarthyism – movement named after US Senator Joseph McCarthy17 at the beginning of the Cold War. This movement, based
on mass pressure and harassment of individuals on unsubstantiated
charges, represents a dark moment in American democracy.
c) Peronism – the Latin American type of populist dictatorship
(named after Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron) with
prominent anti-capitalist and national features. Peronism was also
characterized by anti-parliamentary populist content stressing
that the party and its leader draw their power directly from the
people.
S.M. Lipset’s political study Political Man describes Charles de
Gaulle’s rule as French post-war populism. It is interesting to note the
causal-temporal parallelism between the emergence of populism in the
National Socialist Germany and the French V Republic. A look at the
socio-economic situation and the undermined sense of value of the German
and French nations after World War I, i.e. World War II, shows that the
development of political practice was shaped on the principles of a
charismatic leader and the emotional mobilization of the masses. However, a clear distinction is visible between the consequences of political
production of uncontrolled emotions in the two systems.
A crisis of democracy in the Weimar Republic and the IV Republic
caused socialization processes in the political culture to be based on
prominent values of patriarchal-organicistic-primordial attachment
between the community and the land, strong patriotism resulting from
integrative cultural values, language, customs, and integral identity of the
community which constantly defends itself from the aggressive “invading”
external elements. Constitutions in both political systems made possible
the total concentration of power in the hands of the political leader.
However, unlike the totalitarian system established by Hitler in Germany,
Joseph MacCarthy, Republican from Wisconsin, gave a Lincoln Day speech
on February 9 1950 to the Republicans Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, in
which he announced the list of 57 suspected Soviet spies and communist sympathizers
working in the State Department. He was then presented as the savior of the nation by
the media. McCarthyism, a movement which formed on an explicit anti-communist
sentiment, prompted a wave of arrests of people suspected of propagating communist
ideas without credible evidence ever being presented (citied from: http://en.wikipe
dia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy).
17
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de Gaulle based his power on strong presidentializm (republican
monarchism) in order to overcome the political instability of the IV
Republic, the failure in Indonesia and the unresolved Algerian issue, but
also to avoid the fate of the Weimar Republic. French political scientist Yves
Meny thus puts it: “The Regime of the V Republic is based on the principle
of representation, but reconciles it with the direct populist-Bonapartist
approach of referring to the people”.18 In 1964 de Gaulle proclaimed:
“Indivisible authority of the State is wholly entrusted to the President
by the people who elected him”, and “it is he who has the final say”.
De Gaullism, being presidentializm, represents strong personal authority with huge influence of the Republic President manifested in the
policy of preservation/protection and promotion of French tradition,
strengthening of the national and cultural (European) identity, i.e. improvement of the position of the French nation in Europe, all this without undermining civil liberties during that process. In foreign policy,
however, the controversialism of French diplomacy is reflected in its
Europhilic attitude which, from a populist position, calls for the removal of the influence of the Atlantic element on European culture.
This culminated in the 1960s with the “empty chair crisis” and the withdrawal of France from NATO. De Gaullism, by rebuilding the authority
of the state, in fact, merges the French Catholic “right” tradition and the
tradition of the French socialistic left with the emphasis being placed
on the axiology of citizenry principles. De Gaullism, as a form social
populism, represents one of the most authentic marks of French political culture and it has also left a trace on the presidencies of de Gaulle’s
successors. France, now as a member of NATO and the European
Union, is still searching for a consensual political position regarding its
attitude towards globalization, asylum seekers, the European Constitution, further expansion of the European Union etc.
Populism in Postmodern Politics
The globalization process today ranges from globalution, as a form of
“external pressure” for the sociological-cultural polyphony of various
Ives Meny in: Anđelko Milardović, Populizam i globalizacija, Centar za politološka istraživanja, Zagreb, 2004., p. 35.
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social nucleuses to be unified in the widest context, to glocalization, which
translates the global to the local, more understandable language and
protects the authenticity of the referent cultural community. The openness
of European borders has allowed greater mobility of people from different
countries and common participation in the European Union project.
Migration waves have caused two kinds of problems: economic agility of
a system to absorb a large number of immigrants from less developed,
peripheral societies and their ability to culturally integrate into developed
political systems. With the arrival of new population into economically
more advanced societies, a review of democratic political orientations
towards immigrants is taking place in Euro-Atlantic political systems.
As a reaction to the “theft of jobs” phenomenon, the number of right-wing
political is increasing in Europe. The threat of “foreignization” creates
a wave of right-wing xenophobia. In that respect the “exit view of Hannah
Arendt that stateless people, refugees and the disenfranchised would
represent the decisive trait of the present day has turned out chillingly
correct”.19 As a reaction to the postmodernist crisis, populist political
parties are being formed in France (The National Front), Austria (The
Freedom Party), Italy (The Northern League, the National Alliance),
Belgium (the Flemish Bloc), Switzerland (The National Party). These
parties bring to the open the problem of tensions between European citizenry
and national identity, i.e. coexistence of diversity and pureness of the
national element. In that respect S. Zizek observes that the word worker has
disappeared from the political vocabulary and that it has been replaced
or pushed aside by the word immigrant (Algerians in France, Turks in
Germany, Mexicans in the US), which turns the class issue of worker
exploitation into a multiculturalistic issue of intolerance towards
Otherness.20 Namely, populism skillfully uses the shortcomings of
parliamentary democracy reducing the cunning of mind to simplified
impressionist-communicative sequences in political demagogy: those
who are against populism are against the people. In practice, populism
reduces the open political mind to cynicism towards political position
discreditation of political pluralism. In the postmodern political culture
Slobodan Divjak, Nacija, kultura, građanstvo, Javno preduzeće Službeni list,
Beograd, 2002,p. 42.
20
Slavoj Žižek, Prema politici istine: Povratak Lenjina, internet
19
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of neo-liberal democratic capitalism, populism finds its foundations in
anti-capitalism, anti-modernization and anti-megalopolization movements.
In essence, these are political entities that shape their political-ideological
programs on conservative, traditional-customary axioms, including
xenophobia, by emphasizing negative effects of globalization processes
which culminate in a global economic crisis, drop in living standards,
growing crime rate and existential insecurity in the society.
However, unlike relatively homogenous populist impulses in political
cultures of central and southern European countries, which marginalize
the work of parliamentary democracy institutions, political attributions
of populism in the developed social-democratic north of Europe do not
represent a negation of the social-democratic context, rather they become
an exemplum of progressive socio-economic trends theologically focused
on the elevation of the standard of living, ensuring a balance between
the central and local authorities, i.e. the simultaneous development and
strengthening of the state and local self-government units. Basically, the
populist potential, on the internal political stage, is released and directed
towards social development and efforts for providing social security.
However, negative political views concerning immigration (in Sweden
and Norway for example) show that not even the social-democratic north
of Europe is immune from negative political attitudes towards potential
socio-economic threats from uncontrollable migrations and cultural
assimilations.
To summarize: even though the axiological wealth of European liberaldemocratic political culture, from a theoretical point of view, reflects
the development of the principles of freedom, tolerance, coexistence,
multiculturalism in a rational-enlightenmentalist discourse, a partial
transformation occurs, on the backdrop of negative dialectics, in the context
of global social developments and changes, which introduces into
political practice the issue of social migrations and internal structural
changes to the socio-economical and cultural code as consequences of
immigration policies. Populism thus gains its credibility as an element
standing in the defense of traditional values, as well as an opportunity to
actively participate in the co-shaping of political life. Negative effects of
globalization, in fact, serve as arguments for populist political rhetoric
aimed at discrediting the work of mainstream politics and legislative
and executive institutions in parliamentary democracies. That populist
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attributions lack a homogenous structure is visible from their polysemy in
the social-democratic north of Europe. Despite the fact that even those
populist parties are not immune from the negative populist connotations,
evident in their positions towards asylum seekers and migrants (foreign
policy discourse), they, unlike those in central and southern Europe, are
trying in public discourse to achieve a balance of strong democratic central
authorities and strong social security for the population at the local level
(internal policy discourse).
The postmodernist context of populism in political culture is especially
important in the interaction of the media and political rhetoric/demagogy.
The influence of the media on political culture is reflected in the formation
of political views, political orientations and values. The way we view
society, i.e. the way the perception of the society has been formed by the
media is much more important than its real structure and distribution of
power and resources. According to A. Heywood “perception can not
only be more important from reality, but it can practically be reality.
Consequently, the key role of what we call political culture is being
emphasized. The beliefs of people, symbols and values simultaneously
shape their attitude towards the political process and, more importantly,
towards the regime they live in – especially whether they consider the
regime legitimate, i.e. illegitimate”.21 Representative of the Dependence
Theory Keplinger thinks that “the media have a key role in political
processes, because they not only comment on and criticize political
decisions, but also prepare them through their reporting. The media define
the framework in which those decisions are considered acceptable and
capable of compromise, i.e. the media, the way they see it, have a significant
influence on the legitimacy and implementation of political decisions”.22
Michael Kunzik thinks that the “necessity of capturing media attention
has caused the mediatization of politics, the stigmatization of everything
that is in a bad shape and moralization on that matter, all of which has
resulted in the trivialization of politics”.23
Andrew Heywood, Politika, Clio, Beograd, 2004.,. p. 379.
Michael Kunczik/Astrid Zipfel, Uvod u znanost o medijima i komunikologiju,
Zaklada Friedrich Ebert, Zagreb, 2006, p. 59.
23
Ibidem., p. 64.
21
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Berlusconism represents an explicit example in European politics.
In the early 1990s Silvio Berlusconi enters politics as a successful
businessman and owner of AC Milan football club building an image of
a “man from the people for the people” and using simplified, yet extremely
effective negative rhetoric towards the political establishment. The control
of mass media and the introduction of the concept of telecracy in the form
of videocracy achieves the effect of visualizing the public space in the
private space, thus creating a sense of directness, closeness, of an emotional
relationship between the political leader and the voters, and through that
stronger social homogeneity of the electorate. According to E. Zgodic,
marginalization of representative democracy institutions, i.e. the taking of
sense out of parliamentary democracy itself, is one of the consequences
of telecracy.24 In his research of Berlusconism D. Grubisa highlights three
basic characteristics:
1. radical populism and manipulation of the public through the use
of mass media;
2. authoritarian rule with the leader having possession of the legal
levers necessary for justifying his political actions, i.e. legalization
of corruption through legislative practice;
3. personalization of politics, i.e. changes to the constitution which
will strengthen the position of the Prime Minister in relation to
the Republic President to such an extent that the Prime Minister
will be able to dismiss the Government.25
In such a case the state is viewed as a capital-profit company, i.e.
the Prime Minister represents a successful political entrepreneur who
manages a company. The Forza Italia political party was not formed
according to conventional models of political parties with bureaucratic
networks, instead key positions were given to individuals who would
implement decisions of the party leader and show unconditional obedience.
The process of privatizing public services is being implemented in the
same way, which, in fact, condenses and disperses political power from
one position giving it its personal-psychological profile.
Esad Zgodić, Multiverzum vlati: za novu kratologiju, Fakultet političkih
nauka, Sarajevo, 2009., p. 491.
25
See more in Damir Grubeša, Berluskonizam: talijanski politički dossier: 2001.2006., Adamić, Rijeka, 2007.
24
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According to Pierre Musso: Berlusconi builds an image of the future
which the majority can immediately accept and then transforms into the
leader of that collective dream. Berlusconi sets the reference value (dreamed
and beloved Italy) and declares himself its living embodiment”.26
The mediatization of democratic populism politics places public
activity into the virtual sphere of images, beliefs and passions. The practice
of emotionalization and intimization of political activities can be seen
in populist political culture, i.e. the affective-conative elements which
produce authoritarianism, loyalty and give political legitimacy to the
authorities. Politics, as P. Bourdieu stresses, is read as a “popular science
magazine or a high-class magazine, available and understandable to all”.27
The karyokinesis of populism has been made possible by the use
of politics in an entertaining, popular, sensationalistic way, which has
made it easily understandable and accessible to al,l transforming it, as
Bourdieu put it, into a “rational demagogy” with the aim of making the
field of politics even more closed, establishing a direct relationship with
the voters, without mediation, which would leave individual and collective
players (parties or unions) who have a mandate confirmed by society to
draft and propose formal solutions out of the game.28 Political information
receive a label of marketing-propaganda and a personal signature of the
politician of whom the populist mentality wishes to know more and enjoy
in every piece of his or her privacy and personal life. Pierre Musso describes
Berlusconi as an “industrial with a smile, inspired by the model of a neotelevision host… The cult of the smile is one of the signs of television and
managerial training of an ideal body, a young, athletic, happy, winning
body…”29 In a comparative discourse, the same elements of populist culture
can be seen during the elections for the US President with the personality
of the candidate being given central focus, while the program of the political
party is marginalized.
In brief: we find the key for identifying populism in postmodern
political culture (with the exception of the social democratic north of
Pierre Musso, quoted in Nermina Šaćić : Medijsko lišavanje smisla“, „Zeničke
sveske-časopis za fenomenologiju i kulturnu dijalogiku, broj: 06/07, decembar 2007,
p. 183.
27
Pierre Bourdieu, Narcisovo ogledalo, Clio, Beograd, 2000., p. 102.
28
Ibidem, p. 104-105.
29
Pierre Musso cited in: Nermina Šaćić: Medijsko lišavanje smisla“, p. 183.
26
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Europe!) in the combination of mass media and political charisma at times
of prolonged crisis in the functioning of parliamentary democracy
institutions and crisis of confidence in those institutions (European
political systems), i.e. in the creation of mass euphoria and media spectacle
on the Ancient Roman template of “bread and circuses” (American
political system). According to David Paletz and Robert Entman the
“general impact of the mass media is to socialize people into accepting the
legitimacy of their country’s political system (…) direct their opinions in
ways which do not undermine and often support the domestic and foreign
objectives of elites (…) and deter them from active, meaningful participation
in politics”. Populism built on the combination of the European and
American populist template, which perverts democratic political culture
into an ethno-populist model, can be seen in today’s Russia and countries
in transition in central and eastern Europe.
Reevaluation of the Populist Potential
in the Political Culture of EU Member States
In his research of the phenomenon of populism Klaus von Beyme
concludes that it emerges in modern conditions as a response to the
processes of globalization and Europeanization expressed in the populist
slogan “Europe, Yes – EU, No”.30
The postmodern discourse of modern politics in the EU especially
highlights the following issues around which populist tendencies of
right wing parties in the European Parliament gravitate and which hint
what Euro-Atlantic foreign policy and multilateral relations between
existing members states will focus on in the future:
a) the issue of European citizenry and the adoption of the European
Constitution;
b) Turkish accession to the EU;
c) accession of new members from East Europe and the Western
Balkans.
According T. Ziljak, the opening of the discussion on the principles
of European Citizenry, promoted by the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam
Klaus von Beyme, Populism and Right Wing Extremism in Modern Democracies,
Populism in Central Europe, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, 2007., p. 28.
30
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85
and Nice, indicates that besides positive there are also negative (critical)
trends important for the political fluctuation of the populist mentality
in the European Union. These incllude:
1. weakening of the internal agreement between political parties, i.e.
the ability to draw together and maintain unity between citizenry
and political parties;
2. weakening of intergenerational loyalty in political parties and
weakening of national identification among those born in the
post-war period in Western Europe and the US;
3. weakening of intergenerational social trust with consequences
extended to social trust, national identification and voter involvement;
4. public cynicism and dissatisfaction with the government and
policies;
5. conflicts between different cultures and a policy creating animosities
between citizens and anger against the government;
6. legitimization problems and crises.31
The basic argument of populist rhetoric is that the European integration project is elitist in character, i.e. that it has been led by the elites.32
The wide spectrum of conditions, commitments and ways of
participation of national states in the European Union is embodied in the
administrative documents passed by European institutions (centralization
and bureaucratization of Europe), which indicates that the entire project
is structured from “above”, without direct participation and influence
of the European citizenry in the decision making process, except for the
possibility to elect members of the European Parliament. The rejection
of the European Constitution at referendums held in France and the
Netherlands in 2005 showed that the process of transferring loyalties of
European citizens from national to supranational institutional had still
not matured politically.
In a broader context the tension between European citizenry and
national identity in the populist discourse has intensified Euroscepticism,
Tihomir Žiljak, Načelo građanstva i obrazovanje odraslih, Politička misao, vol
XXIX, br. 1, Zagreb, 2002., p. 110.
32
Ben Rosamond in: Grupa autora, Uvod u politologiju, Politička kultura, Zagreb,
2002., p. 95.
31
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especially in “North European countries – Great Britain, Sweden, Finland
and Denmark. Among non-member states, Euroscepticism is strong in
Switzerland and Norway, which have refused to join the EU”.33
According to Albena Azmanova four trends have shaped the political
environment in Europe since the elections for the European Parliament
in 1999: “The centre-right has become the dominant political formation
on the continent, far-right populism has established its lasting presence,
electoral support to the radical-left is diminishing, and support to the
centre-left is faltering”.34 Changes in voter preferences during elections for
the European Parliament in 2004 and 2009 are shown in the table below:35
Zekerijah Smajić, Evropska unija za svakoga, Eurokontakt, Sarajevo, 2005.,
p. 100.
34
Albena Azmanova cited in: Irena Gluhić, Fenomen euroskepticizma u Francuskoj,
Politička misao, Vol. XLV, br. 3-4., Zagreb, 2008., p. 191.
35
Sources: for results of the election for the European Parliament in 2004 see:
European Union-institutions, legal system and decision making, http://www.pravo.hr/
_download/repository/i, and for the 2009 election see: Results of the 2009 European
Election, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parlament/archive/elections 2009/en/
index_en.html
33
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36
In his analysis of results of the 2009 European Parliament elections
A. Miloradovic stressed that besides the victory of the political right,
the elections have also shown the emergence of a new group formed as
the successor of the Democratic Alliance for the Europe of Nations under
the name Europe of Freedom and Democracy. This group stands for radical
Euroscepticism, regionalism, national conservatism and right populism,
i.e. the protection of European borders, European tradition, culture and
identity.37
The dominant issue of the Eurosceptic view is the fear of losing
national sovereignty as a result of market liberalization and increased
freedom of movement (immigration). Youth right-wing extremism appears
as a reaction to the crisis of capitalistic values and the crisis of identity,
rising unemployment and a sense of physical insecurity following the
September 11 terrorist attacks. Political rhetoric in Western democracies
following September 11 elevates, through media attention, the problem
of terrorism above the level of daily-political reactions of the public
and, using fear as a basis, heightens social awareness on its presence in
everyday life and thus influences the political behavior and attitudes
of citizens towards persons, countries and, in a wider context, cultures out
of which terrorism spreads. The message they implicitly send out is that
36
Euronat was formed in 2005, but following the withdrawal of five Romanian
representatives and the reduction of the number of Coalition members to 18 representatives, the Coalition fell apart in 2007 since it needed to have a minimum of 20
members from six different countries.
37
Anđelko Milardović, Euroskeptici u parlamentu, http://www.vjesnik.com/html/
2009/07/10/clanak.asp
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the world which has a different faith, in which aggressive fundamentalism
originates and from which terrorism spreads, is a world that is not free.
This unjustifiably equates religion with fundamentalism, i.e. wipes out the
basic meaning of both words, and produces negative emotional charges
and fear of “Christian Europeans” from the “non-Christians” who often take
the public stage in protests against the infidels by chanting slogans and
humiliating symbols of the cultural-civilizational setting they belong to.
In Euro-Atlantic political cultures this affects the formation,
differentiation and reduction of the political-social perception of the
Western and Eastern cultures into binary systems of value: individualcollective, antifoundationalistic – foundationalistic; tolerant – intolerant;
open – closed; freedom - lack of it; pacifism - aggressiveness/terrorism.
Besides the oppositions mentioned above, populist parties, when discussing
the inclusion of Turkey into the European Union, also raise the following
arguments which serve as a basis for adopting a negative political attitude
towards this issue:
a) demographic factor: Due to the fact that Turkey has the fastest
growing population in Europe it is realistic to expect that its
accession to the European Union could have a massive affect on
the shaping of multilateral relations, because votes in the Council
of Ministers primarily depend on the size of the population of every
individual country;
b) European identity: even though Turkey is a secular country, the
issue of cultural influences, interactions, contacts and consequences
on the Judeo-Christian discourse of European civilization remains
a contentious one, and this is something that can be easily
instrumentalised for political purposes by populist parties
advocating organic unity of the nation and traditionalism, thus
supporting/maintaining fear from the loss of national identity
and cultural cohesiveness of the European society, i.e. creating
a sense of anxiety and insecurity posed by the infiltration of
foreign elements.
c) political borders: accession of Turkey to the European Union would
move its borders to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Georgia and Armenia, which
could have a more direct impact on Euro-Atlantic policy in terms
of diplomatic and military involvement in conflicts in the Middle
East, i.e. legitimate justification for direct political engagement
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89
in these areas to prevent these conflicts from spilling over into
the European Union;
d) issue of structural and cohesive support: the majority of the
workforce in Turkey is employed in the agricultural sector, and
considering the fact that most funds from the European budget are
directed towards the development of agriculture, rural development
and structural funds, it is widely believed that the additional
budget strains caused by the accession of Turkey would lead to
the transformation of the character of European integration.38
Furthermore, political arrogance can also be seen on the issue of
accession of Western
Balkan states and it is supposedly caused by concern that the process
of Balkanization could be transferred to organized European societies.
As a long-term result of the incomplete integration of Balkan societies,
the economic-social crisis in the European Union could continue to
deepen if adequate models are not found for a balanced development
of differential national economies and their positive contribution to the
overall development of the European integration project.
In brief: further enlargement of the European Union, especially
accession of Turkey, will clear more space for political reconsideration
towards structural modification of the European integration process, but
it will also raise the issue of necessity of institutional reengineering and
the sufficiency of economic and democratic capacities for overcoming
populist political oscillations in the European Parliament and the individual
member states. Europe has a long tradition of openness, tolerance, multiculturalism and liberal democracy, its ideology has overcome periods of
great political and social crises, and this has given the European-integration
project, despite the undemocratic, authoritarian, populist political tendencies,
a progressive developmental potential, which is vital in a rational-critical,
humanistic-emancipationist discourse.
5. Conclusion
The emergence of populist political culture is visible at times of significant socio-economic and political changes in the context of institutional
38
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Približavanje Turske Evropskoj uniji, http://www.imo.hr/europa/publics/euroscope
insufficiency and irresponsiveness of mainstream politics. Populist pulses of
Modernism and Postmodernism plausibly emphasize how easily democracy
can slip towards authoritarian discourse, how public space can be banalized
and how the rational-critical and the spirit of enlightenmentalism can
collapse at times of existential crisis, while deliverance is sought in the shape
of charismatic national saviors. The populist discourse is simplified,
straightforward, direct and emotionally stimulating with no quarters left
to rational interpretations and revisions of the presented content and as a
result it is antagonistic to all forms of intellectual and critical activities,
which require mental effort and disqualification of irrational explanations
of the problem at hand. Populist mechanisms do not offer realistic solutions,
redeeming formulas for societies in serious socio-economic troubles, but
rely on discrediting rhetoric and constant suspicion of those in power, i.e.
those who participate in the decision making process (populism “from
the ground up” – method of winning power of the political opposition),
i.e. create political commotion and an artificial sense of discomfort and
insecurity from the magnitude of change that would ensue in the event of
the verification of certain hypothetic anticipations (negative consequences
of some futuristic development of the European Union), or inspire hope and
prolong the illusion of a relaxed, entertaining, successful and progressive
political figure, the only one competent for achieving progressive social
developments and a positive national image, for example in Italy and the
US (populism “from the top” – the technique of staying in power). However,
in both cases we are dealing with unliberal and undemocratic tendencies
of marginalization of parliamentary democracy and political pluralism, and
it is therefore necessary, in a humanistic – emancipationist discourse of
liberal-democratic political culture, to persevere with even greater firmness
in order to ensure that the populist mentality is transformed into an active,
democratic, mature and responsible conscience towards the present state
of affairs, changes and political-social crises which the future may hold
in store.
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LITERATURE:
BOOKS:
1. Arditi, Benjamin, Politics on the Edges of Liberalism: Difference,
Populism, Revolution, Agitation, Edinburgh University Press, Scotland,
UK, 2007.
2. Burdije, Pjer, Narcisovo ogledalo, Clio, Beograd, 2000.
3. Canetti, Elias, Masa i moć , Grafički zavod, Zagreb, 1984.
4. Divjak, Slobodan, Nacija, kultura, građanstvo, Javno preduzeće
Službeni list, Beograd, 2002.
5. Grubeša, Damir, Berluskonizam: talijanski politički dossier:
2001.-2006., Adamić, Rijeka, 2007.
6. Group of Authors, Uvod u politologiju, Politička kultura, Zagreb,
2002.
7. Hejvud, Endru, Politika, Clio, Beograd, 2004.
8. Koković, Dragan, Naziranje umjetnosti, Futura publikacije, Novi
Sad, 1998.
9. Kunczik, Michael, Zipfel, Astrid, Uvod u znanost o medijima i
komunikologiju, Zaklada Fridrich Ebert, Zagreb, 2006.
10. Laclau, Ernesto, On Populist Reason, Verso, New York/London,
2005.
11. Milardović, Anđelko, Populizam i globalizacija, Centar za politološka istraživanja, Zagreb, 2004.
12. Moren, Edgar, Kako izaći iz XX stoljeća, Globus, Zagreb, 1983.
13. Nolan, Diether, Politološki rječnik: država i politika, Pan liber,
Osjek-Zagreb, Split, 2001.
14. Panizza, Francisco, Populism and the Mirror of Democracy,
Verso, London, 2005.
15. Smajić, Zekerijah, Evropska unija za svakoga, Eurokontakt,
Sarajevo, 2005.
16. Šimić, Stjepan, Teorija političke moderne, NIPP, Zenica, 1999.
17. Zgodić, Esad, Realpolitika i njeni protivnici, Univerzitetska
biblioteka Derviš Sušić,Tuzla, Centar za informisanje i kulturu, Tešanj,
2008;
18. Zgodić, Esad, Multiverzum vlasti: za novu kratologiju, Fakultet
političkih nauka, Sarajevo, 2009.
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MAGAZINES AND COLLECTED PAPERS:
1. Beyme, von Klaus, Populism and Right Wing Extremism in
Populism in Central Europe, Association for International Affairs, Prague,
Czech Republic 2007.
2. Šačić, Nermina, Medijsko lišavanje smisla u: Zeničke sveskečasopis za fenomenologiju i kulturnu dijalogiku, broj 06/07, decembar,
2007
3. Žiljak, Tihomir, Načelo građanstva i obrazovanje odraslih u:
Politička misao, vol. XXIX, broj 1, Zagreb
4. Glušić, Irena, Euroskepticizam u Francuskoj, Politička misao,
Vol. XLV, br. 3-4., Zagreb, 2008.
INTERNET:
1. Približavanje Turske Evropskoj uniji, http://www.imo.hr/europa/
publics/euroscope
2. Slavoj Žižek, Prema politici istine: Povratak Lenjina
3. McCarthysim, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy)
4. Postmoderna vremena (Fetišizam i kriza) Časopis Biznis i finansije, http://www.bifonline.rs/tekstovi.print122/postmoderna-vremena4-feti%
5. Anđelko Milardović, Euroskeptici u parlamentu, http://www.vjes
nik.com/html/2009/07/10/clanak.asp
6. Europska unija-institucije, pravni sustav i odlučivanje, http://ww
w.pravo.hr/_download/repository/
7. Results of the 2009 European Election, http://www.europarl.eu
ropa.eu/parlament/archive/elections 2009/en/index_en.html
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93
Esad Duraković
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Sarajevo
UDK 82.09
THE ANATOMY OF A PARADOX
(ON IVAN LOVRENOVIC’S ESSAY ANDRIC,
A PARADOX OF SILENCE)
Summary
Ivan Lovrenovic’s essay, which won the „Midhat Begic“ Award for
the best essay in 2008, is a pretentious attempt of the author to reevaluate
the understanding of Andric’s work and to reexamine the significance of
the work in literary history. In the process, Lovrenovic places a special
emphasis on the critic texts on Andric, which reveal and explain his ideological positions. However, Lovrenovic’s essay is, in essence, inferior
to the very critics of Andric’s work he mentions and is, at the same time,
methodologically inadequate in relation to Andric’s work: Lovrenovic
combines in his essay the methods which are incompatible, even contradictory, so it is seen throughout the text that the author is unaware of his
own methodological contradictions – he creates a methodological
galimatias by demonstrating methodological inconsistency and research
incompetence and immaturity. In an attempt to reveal the so-called paradox
in understanding of Andric’s literary opus, Lovrenovic wrote an essay which
is a paradox on its own, thus standing out as an example of methodological
incompetence in understanding and valorization of a literary work.
Key words: Ivo Andrić, methodological incoherence, literary history,
paradox, Ivan Lovrenovic, orientalism, ideological approach, reception,
positivism
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The word paradox in my title, besides the function of style, also
has the task of indicating by its position the methodological and logical
untenability of Lovrenovic’s essay, which has that important word paradox
in its title as well, and its aim is to present the paradox in the understanding
of Andric’s work by readers in former Yugoslavia. However, Lovrenovic’s
text is methodologically ambiguous in itself to such an extent that,
in fact, it stands as a paradox on its own and as such fails to achieve the
basic objective intended by the author.1 The most important thing for every
(scientific) research work, but also the somewhat more flexible genre of
essay, is to be methodologically coherent and consistent, to be, so to speak,
“bullet proof” in that sense, regardless of whether the method is valid or
not, but also reversely – a work is untenable depending (proportionately
to the extent) on the extent of its methodological incoherence.
There are several important reasons for analyzing Lovrenovic’s essay.
First of all this is a text which pretentiously tries to reevaluateAndric’s work,
but perhaps even more than that, the reception of that work over a long time
span, primarily based on national-ideological criteria and classifications.
The second reason is, as I have already mentioned, the fact that the
basic objective of Lovrenovic’s essay is to evaluate and “arrange” in a
special way the enormous body of literature on Andric’s work, which means
that he is trying, in the form of an essay, to validate the immense literaryhistorical material on an exceptionally important literary opus. Naturally,
such pretentious objectives well surpass the limitations of the essay as
a genre – and this is his first “genre-methodological” paradox – thus
“judgments” in Lovrenovic’s essay are passed as impressions, often
“founded” on the fragmentation of texts they communicate with; as such
they are unsubstantiated and as a result the essay is characterized by
methodological inconsistency. Tackling the opus of Ivo Andrić, presenting
details from his biography which Lovrenovic considers important for his
interpretation and, especially, the revalorization of the immense literaryhistorical sources on that opus is possible in a study, not a single essay:
it is exactly in this case that the essay shows its inadequacy to support the
Ivan Lovrenovic’s essay Ivo Andric, A Paradox on Silence won the first biannual
award for a literary essay “Midhat Begić” for 2007 and 2008 presented by the PEN
Centre BiH and the Novi Izraz magazine. The essay was published in: Novi Izraz, nr.
39, PEN Centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, January-March 2008, p.3-44.
1
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objectives of its author. Many problems of Lovrenovic’s work stem from
the fact that he uses some of the genre-defined characteristics of the essay,
and “comes across” as an essay, while, at the same time, he entertains
pretensions of writing a scientific, literary-historical study, something
he is unable to consistently implement. Methodological inconsistencies
are inevitable in such cases.
The third reason is the fact that is has been awarded by the recently
established “Midhat Begic” Award, and it is because of this fact as well that
it requires attention.
The fourth and final reason is the fact that the author – in his utter
methodological inconsistency – comments on one of my works dedicated
to the writing of Ivo Andric.2
One of the postulates of Lovrenovic’s essay is that a work of literature
should be read free of any ideological “contaminations” and projections,
that the work should be approached outside the ideological context. He
therefore focuses his criticism on the “national-ideological criteria” (p. 26)
in the understanding of Andric’s work and in that sense uses subtitles to
structure his essay. The paradox is already present, because the author of
the essay is developing and then promoting the same things he is fighting
against: his subtitles Turkish and Irrational,3 “Bosnian Hatred”, Andric
and Muslims, Croat Understanding, stylistically and in accordance with
the fundamental understanding of the text, explicate the struggle of the
author against the ethno-national and ideological understandings of
Andric’s work, but his fervor against such readings, which itself has been
elevated to the level of becoming the basic task of the essay, represents an
ideological position, because it would be at odds with logic to claim that
the struggle against (certain) ideologies is not an ideological platform
itself. It is Lovrenovic’s objective – the title and subtitles of the essay make
this immediately apparent – to primarily settle scores with the validations
My work titled Andric’s Opus in the Wider Context of Eurocentrist Ideology has
been published several times, both in Bosnian and in English, and Lovrenovic cites the
collected papers Andrić and Bosniaks, Preporod, The Bosniak Cultural Association
– Municipal Association Tuzla, Tuzla 2000, p. 192-206.
3
Instantly, in the introductory segment of the essay, Lovrenović readily adopts
the quote and relationship towards the Turkish Irrational (the Turkish in Bosnia) from
Miroslav Karaulac, who describes the Turkish in Bosnia as “landscapes of dark”
(from: Novi Izraz, p. 7)
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and readings of Andric’s work that are different from his own, consequently
Lovrenović’s ideological positioning represents the soul of his text. He is
right, in my opinion, when he delegitimizes the laying of claims onAndric’s
opus (and literature in general) based on the ethnic affiliation of the writer,
place of his birth and other extraliterary criteria, as literature – and I have
written about this on numerous occasions – is a supranational system. In
this respect, it is wrong for certain Bosniaks to reject Andric’s valuable
literary art as an important segment of their heritage, an art in which – after
all and with almost complete consensus – the model of Said’s Orientalism
has been established. Furthermore, I think that Andric’s opus is primarily
Bosnian (and Bosniak, of course) when evaluated against all the valid
criteria according to which the history of literature is created and studied,
regardless of whether the world of Andric’s literary work is to their liking
or not. Periodic attempts by certain Bosniaks to push that work “across the
Drina River” are senseless because they are futile and unfounded in literary
history. However, I wish to return to Lovrenović’s disguised ideologization.
While Lovrenovic condemns all “national understandings” and
“valorizations” of Andric’s work, the reader of the essay will effortlessly
realize that he does this to promote the Yugoslav position in the understanding of Andric’s work. He persists on this, siding – enduringly and
firmly – with Andric’s articulation of Yugoslavism, only to say in the end
(20/21), candidly and mournfully, that Andric’s ideal of Yugoslavism has
fully collapsed in our time. It needs to be stressed at this point that it is
irrelevant whether the idea of Yugoslavism is a positive or negative one.
However, it is important to note that its positive contextualization in
Lovrenovic’s essay emerges as a fatal methodological paradox. Namely,
an author who refutes as erroneous ideological approaches to Andric’s
work should be methodologically consistent and avoid creating another
ideological platform as a replacement for them, be it Yugoslavism which
– supposedly no further proof of this is needed?! - is an ideological category,
even more than that, a political one. In the essay Lovrenović writes numerous
pages on Andrić and Krleža to show that they are very “similar, especially
ideologically”, and concludes – again making a firm connection between
the literary and the ideological, something he is, paradoxically, fighting
against – that precisely this “biographic simultaneity on the one hand, and
thematic compatibility in literary works on the other, allows for all impor98
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tant literary and ideological (Italic by E. D.) differences between them
to be made visible in a comprehensive comparative analysis” (15/16).4
In relation to this, the author’s next step also leads in the direction of
methodological self-denial. Specifically, Lovrenović says, and rightly so,
that it is “axiomatically clear that literature is not historiography, nor is
Andrić’s work a history textbook” (36).This, of course, is clear to anyone
who has any knowledge of literature. He is also right when he says that
Andrić’s work is “distinctly historical in a special way” (36), that there
existed a “firmly and consistently shaped relationship towards history in
the writer’s conscience, which could be described as pessimistic vitalism,
and which would in Andrić’s future works find expression in a whole
spectrum of different concrete manifestations in an endless procession
of characters, fates and situations” (10). Finally, Lovrenović mentions
something, a fact that should be recognized already in high school, which
he labels as methodological falsification: “…literary fiction is replaced
by and confused with actual historicity and the words of the characters
are deceitfully transformed into the writer’s ‘positions’, ‘statements’,
‘opinions’, i.e. Ivo Andric the citizen...” (23). These are all indisputable
literary-theoretical facts, but Lovrenović’s methodological problems begin
exactly at the moment when – after having set these axioms – he denies
an ideological dimension to Andric’s opus. This much should be clear, in
theoretically consistent thought at least, that a work that is “pronouncedly
historical in a particular way” etc. invites an understanding of history
regardless of the fact that it should not be identified with the (nonexistent)
position of the author. It is methodologically incoherent to claim that a
certain opus is “pronouncedly historical in a particular way” (especially
in cases where history is full of ideological conflicts) and at the same time
deny ideological deposits in that work and reject the correctness of
“historical” readings of that work, which does not event have to mean that
Looking for a foothold in biographies of authors to analyze the literary and
ideological aspect of their work is a paradox, not only because the author of this essay
thus coordinates the literary and the ideological, something he claims to be against,
but it is also a paradox because it introduces the biographical criterion, which, the
author repeatedly stresses in the text , needs to be kept separate from the literary, and
even goes as far to accuse Rizvić of positivism as a cardinal sin - however, this is
something I will say more about later.
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99
it is being read as a history textbook: the complexity of such understanding
of such a work escapes the entirely simplified interpretation of Ivan Lovrenović. His text, in fact, points towards an unambiguous and an utterly
simple conclusion: Andrić’s work is “in a particular way also pronouncedly
historical”, but history must not be visible in it. The relationship of the
fictional and the factual in a literary work is much more complex than
the paradoxical relationship established by Lovrenović. A literary work
is polyvalent and open in that aspect as well. Proving this point is also the
fact – one which Lovrenović writes about, but incorrectly interprets –
that since Andric’s work appeared so have its different understandings:
“Muslim”, “Croat”, “Serb”, “Yugoslav”. And of course, the intersubjective
academic understanding.5 Even readers with an academic approach to
a literary work cannot reject with indignation equal to Lovrenović’s all
understandings different from their own, or from our academic understanding, because there are so many readers, not only among the (nonacademic) population, but also people with an academic education who
read Andrić’s work exactly in the way Lovrenović is so disgusted by. This
fact, which is so apparent that even Lovrenović dedicates an entire essay
to it, tells literature researchers that the point here is not persistent stupidity
or utter ignorance of the majority of the audience/audiences, rather that
“there is something” in the work itself – in this work precisely! – which
irresistibly lures even such interpretation. “The matter at issue” lies in
the work, not the reader. Only a completely rigid reader of Andric’s opus
can persistently deny this nuancing. However, Lovrenović does say (24/25)
that the right to different readings of Andrić’s work cannot be denied,
but then immediately goes to ironize such readings reducing them to the
understanding of a literary work as a “history textbook”. The word right,
In this uneasy footnote – right on the margins of my text – it is perhaps worth noting
that these “national understandings” on Andrić’s work (“Muslim”, “Serb”, “Croat”,
“Yugoslav”) have been “internationalized” in an almost morbid way. Namely, not only
Radovan Karadžić used Andrić’s work A Letter from 1920 as a political argument at
meetings with senior representatives of the international community, but it was also
noted that many international dignitaries, before deploying to Bosnia and Herzegovina during the aggression against BiH and afterwards, were given Andric’s work
The Bridge Across Drina as compulsory reading material, which was to help them
better understand the essence of the “conflict” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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which the author uses, also captures attention. What is at question here is
not the right to something, because the readers have the right to do with
books whatever they wish; the relationship towards it is entirely different,
and by using the word right, however, the author of the essay irrevocably
disqualifies any reading that is different from his own. What theoretical
discourse should be about is the validity of an understanding, not the right
to it. Finally, rigidity of this kind ignores the ancient premise that values
(and interpretations) in literature cannot be discussed scientifically, in terms
of the absolute and the so-called positive sciences, instead, the ideal in the
science of literature remains at the level of the intersubjective. Naturally,
I am not at all denying the validity of Lovrenovic’s interpretation of Andrić’s
work, I am only expressing amazement by his (awarded) methodological
inconsistency in discrediting all different interpretations. Lovrenovic’s
next paradox also illustrates well how his impassioned denial of the
validity of the “Muslim understanding” of Andrić’s work has been brought
to a state of complete methodological contradiction and logical chaos.
Namely, the author of the essay writes about “alleged (italic by E. D.) AntiMuslim views in Andrić’s work” (27), about “Andrić’s supposed (italic by
E. D.) negative attitude towards Bosnian Muslims” (37).6 Furthermore,
as he deals with my interpretations of Andrić’s work in the context of
the ideologies of Eurocentrism and Orientalism, the author of the essay,
almost immediately, feels “a great intellectual need – for Andrić to finally
be understood in a way in which he has never been understood, one which
we are still waiting for, one which would not run away from the correctness
of some of the premises on which this understanding (my understanding)
rests, even though, only several lines earlier he described this understanding
as eerie and ominous (27). The author then tries to support his unsubstantiated views by quoting Enver Kazaz: “It is, of course, possible to also
explore the negative aspects of the image of Bosniaks in Andrić’s work,
especially the image of the Orient…”, then by quoting Zdenko Lesić: “At
this point we cannot but remember Andrić and his images of the ‘East’
and ‘Easterners’, which undoubtedly represent our contribution to the
Lovrenović’s inconsistent spelling of the word M/muslim, at one moment with
a capital M and the other with a small m, perhaps means that with such spelling the
author covers Muslims and muslisms, both as a people and a confessional community.
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West-European tradition of ‘Orientalism’” (28). I do not wish to dwell on
the texts of Lešić and Kazaz (my text is dedicated precisely to damasking
Eurocentrism and Orientalism in Andrić’s work), which Lovrenović draws
out of their original context and then uses them, fragmented, to fit them as
arguments into his own context, his own construction and methodological
controversies, which the quotations do not have to hold in their textual
integrity. So, the number of major methodological and logical mistakes
made in Lovrenović’s text is unbelievable. Let us take a look at some more.
The author talks about “alleged Anti-Muslim views” and “Andrić’s
supposed negative attitude towards Bosnian Muslims”, which unequivocally means that he denies such an attitude on the part of Andrić, hence
considers every “Muslim interpretation” ignorance and falsification. But,
since he is talking in this way – in fact since he is thinking in this way
– how is it then possible, methodologically and logically, and practically
on the same pages of the text, for him to confess that “some of the premises
on which this interpretation also rests” are correct?! He immediately adds
(27-28) quotes from Kazaz and Lešić who think that there are aspects
of a negative attitude by Andrić towards Bosniaks and “Easterners”!
Putting aside the fact that by doing so Lovrenović forces other texts to
participate in his erroneous methodological and logical confusion, and to
make matters even worse to stand as arguments, because the readers of his
essay do not need to have access to integral texts from which the quotations
were taken. Putting aside this, the real problem is that the author of the essay,
in a very small space, offers his own and arguments of other authors against
his own claim that a negative image of M/muslims in Andrić’s work does
not exist.
The problem is deepened by the fact that Bosniaks represent a
collectivity. This represents the introduction of the ideological criterion
at the highest level, because what other meaning could there be in the
acknowledgment that Andrić, in the end, expresses a negative view
towards one people, an entire cultural-civilisational sphere – the Orient, if
not the placement of his art in the field of the ideological?! This is equal
to a methodological “hara-kiri” of this essay, which arrogantly attacks all
Bosniak authors who have recognized in Andrić’s work this aspect as well
(Šukrija Kurtović, Muhamed Filipović, Muhsin Rizvić, Esad Duraković):
Lovrenovic builds the entire essay on how it is methodologically completely
wrong to read Andrić’s work in a way that would recognize in it a negative
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attitude towards M/muslims, only to then acknowledge that aspect of
Andrić’s work himself.7
In the further explication of consequences of Lovrenović’s paradoxical
acknowledgement that Andrić’s work, ultimately, does provide a basis
for claims on his negative attitude towards M/muslims it is necessary to
look more closely at how Lovrenović writes – negatively of course – about
the “Bosniak-Muslim national ideology” (26) in the understanding of Andrić’s work, and then reaches for a quote from one of the cited authors on
the “collectivization of understanding” (28). There is, of course, no such
thing as a “collectivization of understanding” of Andrić’s work; rather,
there is a theoretically legitimate intersubjective understanding of a literary
opus. On the other hand, if one acknowledges that there are elements in
Andrić’s work providing a basis for establishing his negative attitude
towards M/muslims as an ethnos and a confessional community, and that
it is from their ranks that works were created also identifying and explaining
the negative attitude, then it is illogical to deny – rather affectively as the
author of the essay does – even such interpretations of Andrić’s work. In
relation to this, Lovrenović’s paradoxes pile up. Let us take a look now at
how they culminate on only one page of his essay.
At the top of page 27, just before he “swoops down” on my text in
which I write about the negativization of Muslims in Andrić’s work, Lovrenović talks about the supposed Anti-Muslim attitude in Andrić’s work.
He then immediately “detains” a number of my qualificatives, from a
Concerning the names of Bosniak and Bosnian authors who studied Andrić and
his work and whose names Lovrenović mentions, there is a specific kind of error in
the text which hints towards an attitude of bias on the part of the author, and this
contradicts argumentation and analyticity. Namely, when he talks about the works
of Muhamed Filipović, Muhsin Rizvić, Esad Duraković, whose texts he criticizes,
the author of the text only mentions their names without any other civil or academic
title, and this is a common method in research texts. However, when he mentions the
names of authors whose texts he uses to support his position, then he says, and this is
uncommon: “professors Zdenko Lešić, Enver Kazaz and Nedžad Ibrišimović” (p.27).
It is a fact, however, that the authors from “both groups” are university professors
and Lovrenović’s decision to differentiate them this way i unfair to say the least.
It is clear that he thus shows partiality in analyzing different interpretations of
Andrić’s work. And this now falls under the domain of academic falsification and
basic courtesy.
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relatively extensive text, “lines them up” in a very small space, as at an
execution site, and they now – concentrated by this “stylistic trick”
– produce a much different effect from the intended one when they are
distributed through the “depth” and “width” of the original text. The author
of the essay does not contest my views and positions with arguments,
but affectively declares them eerie and ominous, thus leaving my views
unscathed. We also see a paradox appear in Lovrenović’s essay at this
point: with a complete lack of tolerance, even affectively, he condemns an
(Bosniak) author because he thinks that Andrić demonizes Muslims in
his work, while even Lovrenović himself describes the author of that text
eerie and ominous.
Contradictories in the8 essay continue. In the second part of the same
page Lovrenović states that there is a great “intellectual need – for Andrić
to finally be understood in a way in which he has never been understood,
one which we are still waiting for, one which would not run away from the
correctness of some of the premises on which this understanding also rests”.
The understanding he (moments earlier) described as eerie and ominous he
now considers “intellectually necessary” admitting that some of its premises
are correct. Thus refuting himself, the author fails to at least hint what those
corectnesses and premises could be. Lovrenović’s sudden “benevolence”,
opposed to his previous position, concerns my understanding of Andrić’s
work within the context of Said’s Orientalism. Consequently, his thought
again suffers in a cleft stick, caught between paradox and illogicality: since
Lovrenović continues by writing that he has become familiar with Said’s
Orientalism fairly late. Namely, he says that at the time when he was writing one of
his papers on Andrić (1982) “At that time we had still not heard of Edward Said; his
Orienatalism was already published in America (1978), but a lot more time would
pass and horrific events would happen before his work would begin to be quoted on
our pages…” (p.28/29). It remains unclear when did Lovrenović first get in touch
with Orientalism (in any event it happened after “a lot more time passed”), and it is
even more puzzling on whose behalf is he speaking,, who and with what right has he
included into his “we didn’t know”. I, for example, have quoted Said’s Orientalism in
my doctoral thesis (Mahğar Poetics in U.S.A.), which I defended at the Philosophical
Faculty in Belgrade in 1981. Since I defended the dissertation in 1981, that means that
I had studied Said’s Orientalism several years earlier in the research phase, in other
words, I communicated with that impressive work while its first edition still carried
a heavy scent of printer’s ink..
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Orientalism in Andrić’s work is being “diagnosed” here, the critic of such
“diagnosis” cannot remain coherent with the claim that Orientalism first
does not exist, then that it does exist – and what is an even greater paradox
– it exists a little, then it doesn’t, in fact it does in certain premises. A
theoretically and methodologically consistent deliberation needs to make
a choice: either there is Orientalism, or there is not, because Orientalism
is not something that fluid that it can be there one moment and gone the
next, that some of its premises exist in Andrić’s work, while others do not.
Such inconsistency and “analytical arbitrariness” are completely unacceptable in systematic deliberation, because – Orientalism is a “cunning”
ideology which harnesses art and science in the fulfillment of its ideological
objectives. On the other hand, if the author of the essay acknowledges the
presence of Orientalism in Andrić’s work, be it only in certain premises
(!), then he also acknowledges his involvement in the mainstreams of an
ideology, even though this is exactly what he denies so persistently in many
segments of his essay. The fundamental intention of the entire essay is, in
fact, to deny the validity of understanding Andrić’s work in a way that
would recognize a negative attitude towards M/muslims in it, claiming
that that attitude is supposed, alleged etc. However, the analysis I have
just presented shows that, after all, Lovrenović does admit the presence
of Orientalism (and I reiterate that this is an ideology) in Andrić’s work,
and the author immediately substantiates this as the text continues (the entire
page 28, which teems with paradoxes) by quoting Kazaz and Lešić. It is
important in this context to remind of those quotations: Kazaz says that
“it is possible to examine also negative images of Bosniaks in Andrić’s
work, especially images of the Orient, because neither Andrić, nor European
modernism, had escaped what Said defined as Orientalism”; Lešić
concludes, correctly, in a view similar to mine: “At this point we cannot
but remember Andrić and his images of the ‘East’ and ‘Easterners’, which
undoubtedly represent our contribution to the West-European tradition of
‘Orientalism’”. Shortly before, Lovrenović describes as a deadly sin the
fact that I have “applied Said’s paradigm of Orientalism” (27) to Andrić’s
work. Paradoxes have made Lovrenović’s work methodologically and
logically entirely impassable. It even remains unclear if Lovrenović has
fully understood Said’s Orientalism to this day.9
There are even more paradoxes and methodological conflicts in Lovrenović’s work which confuse any serious student of literature. It is also
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important to take a look at how Lovrenović inconsistently interprets the
relationship between a literary character and its writer as a civilian (23), and
that “the private and civilian life of an artist need to be strictly separated
from his work” (12). What Lovrenović talks about has been clear in literary
science for a long time: (relative) autonomy of the world of a work of art
from the “civilian life of an artist”. However, the problem lies in the fact
that Lovrenović dedicates most of his essay to examining the “civilian
life” of Ivo Andrić, his biography, nonliterary correspondence, statement
etc. in order to, with the aid of all this, interpret Andrić’s literary work. This
is the positivism Lovrenović so objects, albeit declaratively. Lovrenović
constantly violates in both directions the proclaimed principle on
significant (Lovrenović says strict) separation of the writer’s “civilian life”
from the world of his art. On one hand he methodically searches the artist’s
biography, in which Andrić’s private correspondence has an important
place, and deals with the “aspects of Andrić’s personality” (italic by E. D.)
to shed light on his work and characters (p. 10 and on). This positivistic
method, as I have already mentioned, is well known in history, and
Lovrenović, almost indignantly, uses it to label Rizvić’s work on Andrić,
even though he himself abundantly uses this same method. However,
the positivists were at least, in most cases, methodologically consistent,
while the most unsuccessful research is the one that is methodologically
inconsistent and incompatible, as I have already said. This is exactly where
Lovrenović’s essay faces its fatal setback, because he not only uses the
“civilian life of the writer” generously in analyzing his works (even though
he stressed the need for them to be “strictly” separated), but also goes in
the opposite direction. This is truly shocking. Let us take a look at how the
author of the essay does this.
“…From Signs by the Roadside, as well as from rare interviews, it
is possible to clearly reconstruct some sort of a theoretical credo – that
‘everything is in the work’, that the private and civilian life need to be
strictly separated from his work” (12). It is unbelievable what this sentence contains.
In the final part of the sentence its author stresses that the “private and
civilian life need to be strictly separated from his work”, while in its first
part he says exactly the opposite: from Signs by the Roadside (despite being
a literary work), as well as from rare interviews, it is possible to clearly
reconstruct some sort ofAndrić’s theoretical credo! Lovrenović reconstructs
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a theoretical credo from a work of art, the same Lovrenović who talks about
the need for separating the “civilian life” of a writer from his literary work.
Is a greater paradox and logical chaos even possible?! Even more, the
literary work is used here for reconstructing a “theoretical credo”, which
represents a chaotic confusion of entirely separate fields. In addition to all
of this – and in order to make the methodological mess complete – Lovrenović introduces interviews at the same level and from them – in the same
way as from Andrić’s literary work – he reconstructs Andrić’s theoretical
credo.
Lovrenovic confirms that this is no oversight with the next sentence
on the same page as he talks about literary work: “these writings are always
sublime, and yet (italic by E. D., as a warning of paradoxicality) they are
able to clearly hint /style!/ that they are not merely poetical-meditative
generalizations, rather that they are firmly connected with the concrete
circumstances of life” (12).
Just like in the previous sentence, we are stunned by the methodological rambling, because the author of the essay first strictly separates the
artistic from the writer’s “civilian life”, but then moves from the “civilian”
into the artistic and vice versa, “clearly hinting” all sorts of things from one
thing in the other, all this in an unprecedented methodological construct.
Lovrenović’s essay, therefore, due to the metholodogical confusion
fails to reevaluate Andrić’s work, or the voluminous literature on that work,
which undeniably belongs also to Bosniak literature and whose artistic
value refuses to be denied despite the ideological deposits in it, because –
and this needs to be reiterated as a conclusion – there are no ideologically
“innocent” texts.
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Nijaz Ibrulj
Faculty of philosophy
University of Sarajevo
UDK 16 (497.6)
BOSNIA PORPHYRIANA
AN OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOGIC
IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Abstract
The text is a drought outlining the development of logic in Bosnia
and Herzegovina through several periods of history: period of Ottoman
occupation and administration of the Empire, period of Austro-Hungarian
occupation and administration of the Monarchy, period of Communist
regime and administration of the Socialist Republic and period from the
aftermath of the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
to this day (the Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina) and administration of
the International Community. For each of the aforementioned periods,
the text treats the organization of education, the educational paradigm
of the model, status of logic as a subject in the educational system of a
period, as well as the central figures dealing with the issue of logic (as
researchers, lecturers, authors) and the key works written in each of the
periods, outlining their main ideas. The work of a Neoplatonic philosopher
Porphyry, “Introduction” (Greek:
; Latin: Isagoge; Arabic:
Īsāġūğī), can be seen, in all periods of education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the main text, the principal textbook, as a motivation for
logical thinking. That gave me the right to introduce the syntagm Bosnia
Porphyriana.
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1. Introduction
Man tamanṭaqa tazandaqa.
He who practices logic becomes a heretic.1
It would be impossible to elaborate the development of logic in Bosnia
and Herzegovina without reflecting on cultural, political and social
occasions in different stages of the country’s development: the Bosnian
Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Republic
of Bosnia and Herzegovina (as a part of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia) and the Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina; each of them
being, in fact, historical, cultural, political and ideological sequences that
have collided and confronted in this area; an area in which their interests
and political geographies are intertwining even today and which cannot be
rationalized as a single-principle continuum, be it of cause and effect or
descriptive.
Effort placed in the production of this text is limited on the presentation
of information about facts related to a scientific and philosophical discipline
and the educational position it occupied or occupies in a dynamic social and
political interaction. The very dynamics of interaction between political and
social ontology, their logical structure and intentional character, ideological
matrix as a regulator of contradictions and tautologies of cultural and
political geography in this area, theory and history and interactions in the
mentality background, will not be discussed in the text, although some
reflections are inevitable.2
The famous sentence used by the Arabian theologists against philosophers favoring
the Hellenic thought, who introduced the logic of Aristotelianism into discussions
on topics in Quran. The sentence originates from a medieval discussion while Ibn
Taymiyyah, in his treatise Against the Greek Logicians repeats this sentence, attacking
the logic of Aristotelianism.
2
A complete study on the development of logic in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which
contains broader methodological and content-wise presuppositions for valorization of
the existing material, which also introduces critical in place of counterfactual doxography
in interpretation of the above-mentioned materials and which discusses the influence of
ideological systems on the inception of content and form of the material, will be published
by Nijaz Ibrulj in a book entitled Bosnia Porphyriana – A Cultural Metaphor during 2010.
1
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It should be stated in the introduction that research and authorship in
the filed of logic as a science has not been present in Bosnia and Herzegovina outside schools and universities, and that the first civic Society for
Development of Logic and Analytical Philosophy in Bosnia and Herzegovina was not formed until July 2 2007 in Sarajevo.3 That is why it is
reasonable that a natural frame for the studies of the development of logic
in Bosnia and Herzegovina is that very status of logic as a discipline in
the system of education of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the society which has
lived through different ideological and regime systems. The content of the
development worth mentioning has been abstracted in the text (chapter
3) and is entitled Bosnia Porphyriana, which is, by itself, a cultural and
spiritual syntagm introduced here for the first time (and with good reason, I hope!).4
Just as well, broader research conducted by a significant number
of authors or research papers on the development of logic in Bosnia and
Herzegovina cannot be found. There are, however, two specialist research
papers worth the attention: one by Prof. Dr. Amir Ljubovic, entitled The
Works in Logic by Bosniak Authors in Arabic (Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut,
1996), and other by Academician Dr. Serafin Hrkac, OFM (Ordo Fratrum
Association ACADEMIAANALITICA – Society for Development of Logic and
Analytical Philosophy in Bosnia and Herzegovina (http://www. academia-analitica.org)
was founded in Sarajevo on July 2 2007. Founder and President of the Society is Prof.
Dr. Nijaz Ibrulj, professor of logic, analitical philosophy, cognitive development theory,
philosophy of languages, cognitive sciences and methodology at the Sarajevo Faculty of
Philosophy. The Logical Foresight is an e-magazine published by the Society. One of
the ongoing projects is also Philosophical Textbooks: Logic 1 – 4, that is to be published
by 2012, and which will contain the following texts: Book 1: Dialectics. Syllogistics.
Logic terminorum (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Boetius, Porphyrius, Ammonius, Dexippus,
Simplicius, Philiponus, Averroes, Ockham, Duns Scotus, Hispanus, Aquinas); Book 2:
Logical Atomism (Boole, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Tarski, Quine, Gödel);
Book 3: Logical Holism and Pragmaticism (Wittgenstein, Austin, Sellars, Strawson,
Dewey, Quine, Davidson, Searle, Putnam, Rorty); Book 4: Logic and Artificial
Intelligence (Turing, Denett, Minsky, Searle, Putnam, Churchland, Fodor, Newell,
Simeon, Zadeh). In that same year, 2007, Nijaz Ibrulj founded ZINK – the first
Scientific and Research Incubator in Bosnia and Herzegovina (www.ziink.word
press.com) at Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy.
4
The syntagm originates from the syntagm Arbor Porphyriana – the Porphyrian
Tree, which contains all differences, in a single vertical, from bottom to the top and from
top to bottom.
3
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Minorum), entitled Philosophical Manuscripts in Latin in Bosna Srebrena
(Mostar: Ziral, 1998). These works are, in fact, a source for understanding
the activities of Bosnian writers in the field of logic in Arabic and Latin,
within a broader cultural heritage created by members of the Islamic and
Catholic denominations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a longer period.
These two research papers will be used in this text extensively.
2. Period of Administration of the Ottoman Empire
in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1463 – 1878)
After the fall of the Bosnian Kingdom (1463) and after its territory had
been occupied by the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Turks imposed forms
of administration on different principles. The empire introduced, in all its
conquered territories (Eyalets), institutional procedures and institutional
laws, in place of the customary, unwritten laws. In that way, a category of
state apparatus - administration was introduced together with subjects to
the empire who had, on the basis of being a part of a single administration
in a wider territory, both rights and obligations. On the other hand, the
Ottoman administration privileged certain social classes according to
their origin, wealth, administrative position and religious denomination.
2.1. Educational Paradigms, Schools and Subjects
Ottoman Turks, being Muslim, took over the form and content of
cultural and religious life of an Arab state and so continued erecting
mosques, mektebs and madrasahs which were all built through donations
of the sultan and other people of wealth and power. Only religious teachings
had been practiced at mosques, mektebs and madrasahs until Suleiman II
(1520 – 1566) came to power and amended a decree thus enabling secular
teaching, primarily grammar and logic, which could have contributed the
understanding and interpretation of Quran. Within such political, confessional, and cultural compression, other religious denominations existed
(Jewish and Christian), tolerated by the empire and which provided education
for members of their faith through administration of their own and which
had frequently been in conflict with both their own hierarchy outside of
BosnaArgentina, namely, in Vienna and Venice, as well as with the Ottoman
administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina [Hrkać, 1998, 7-45].
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The principal educational paradigm of the Ottoman Empire had been
founded on the basis of religious denomination of the ethnic communities
formed in the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Empire favored Islamic
faith and the entire institutional educational infrastructure was governed by
that fact. Separate mektebs were formed, for men and women, providing
elementary education. Logic was taught in medresahs and ruzdijas,
together with subjects related to religious teachings, which was considered
important for the understanding of religion-related issues. At the same
time, Bosnian Franciscans, present over 700 years, were denied in that part
of Bosnia Argentina their students and educational institutions (students of
grammar, philosophy and theology existed in parts of the Provincial under
the administration of Vienna and Venice) in the time of domination and
exclusiveness of the Islamic confessional community, but they organized
on their own training for their members in monasteries (Kraljeva Sutjeska,
Kresevo, Fojnica) and sent their students to study abroad. [Ibid., 251].
However, one can see in students’ syllabi from other parts of the
Provincial, which had organized the above-mentioned educational institutions, or in the school Elenchus Materiae that was taught at the Franciscan
institutions of education, the extent to which theological science was linked
with the study of logic (summa logicae, summulae logicales) in different
periods and with different authors. In that way, studying language and logic,
that is, studying structural, semantic and pragmatic characteristics of
language of the holy books played a significant role in the development of
spirituality in this area in general.
Between the fall of the Bosnian Kingdom to the Ottomans (1463) and
the Austro-Hungarian occupation (1878), a significant number of Muslim
schools (mektebs) had been established in bigger towns, mostly in Sarajevo. It is reasonable to believe, according to some authors [Kasumović,
1999, 95], that over 100 mektebs existed in Sarajevo alone, since mektebs
were erected together with mosques. As a matter of fact, every mahala
(a town’s neighborhood), which reached the number of 104 in the second
half of the 17th century, had its own mekteb.5 Mektebs were either all-male,
all-female or coeducational.
See the register of mektebs and more detailed information on each of the mektebs
in Sarajevo, Novi Pazar, Mostar, Foca, Travnik, Banja Luka, Zenica and other towns
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at Dr. Ismet Kasumovic [20].
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“In towns, during the first period of the Ottoman rule, those were the
institutions which most directly participated in the gradual cementing and
spread of the Oriental-Islamic culture, by introducing basic elements of
Islamic education into this milieu.” [Ibid, p. 143].
Mosques and masjids gave rise to the first high schools and collegiate
schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely, madresahs and darshanas, in
the early 16th century. Constant opening of the new schools had to do with
the increasing number of conversions of the domestic population (mostly
Bogomils and members of the Church of Bosnia) to Islam. “Madresah, as
the Bosnian kind of junior high school and collegiate school, appeared in
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 16th century and, just like mektebs,
mualimhanas (schools for future teachers) and other cultural and
educational institutions, they were erected at the initiative by individuals to
function as foundations, which was a common practice in the entire
Empire. To be precise, the majority of education was financed, in accordance with the organization of the Empire, from a fund known as Sandik
/ Beytul-Mal il Ganaim (Spoils of War Fund) which collected incomes
from spoils of war, mines and from prisoners (one fifth).” [Ibid., 152].
According to Dr. Ismet Kasumovic’s research [1999], activities in
madresahs were organized in three levels: beginner, focusing on the basics
of grammar and synthax of Arabic; arithmetic and geometry; logic, rhetoric
and apologetics. The same subjects were taught at the second level, but
with more extensive textbooks. At the higher level, certain branches of the
Sharia law, interpretation of Quran, corpus of the Islamic tradition, etc.
The following subjects were taught in madresahs:
a. traditional sciences, a higher degree of science
(al-ulumu l-muqaddima)
1. morphology (as-Sarf)
2. syntax (an-Nahw)
3. science on notions (al-Wad‘)
4. etymology (al-Ištiqāq)
5. geometry (al-Handasa)
6. calculus (al-Hisāb)
7. disputation (al-Munāzara)
b. logic (al-Mantiq)
1. Isagoge (Isāgūgī)
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2. Fanari’s Commentary on Isagoge (Šarhu l-Fanārī)
3. Compendium of Logic (Husāmu l-Kātī)
4. Matali’s commentary (Šarh -i Matāli‘)
c. Apologetics (al-Kalām)
1. Glosses (Hāšiyātu t-tagrīd)
The first state, secular schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina were
ruzdijas, “open prior to the occupation and accessible to members of all
denominations in Turkey.” [Ljubović, 1965: 139].
Official language of the schools was Turkish and they were of the
same rank as junior high schools; they were civil schools preceding the
enrolment to madresahs. “In Turkey, ruzdijas were considered to be newer
schools, according to the period of their origin. The 1287 AH (1870/71)
salnama (Ottoman government’s yearbook) mentions ruzdijas to have
been founded in 1263 AH (1847 AD), which means they date from the time
of Sultan Abdul-Medjid. In Bosnia and Herzegovina they are dated to
the second half of the 19th century, the oldest being that in Sarajevo.”
[Ćurić, 1965: 140].
Over 30 ruuzdijas had existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina prior to the
1878 occupation. They served a special function compared to mektebs
and madresahs as schools of a nature that is less confessional and more
secular. That is why they were not as popular among Muslims of Bosnia
and Herzegovina who had preferred enrolling their children to confessional
schools. Ruzdijas were considered a novelty from Constantinople in which
the “giaur subjects” and the “Turkish language” met. That was not a
respectable program for Muslim people of Bosnia and Herzegovina at
the time. It is these schools that would later be transformed into first
state schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by the decision of the Federal
Government. Author Curic lists the subjects taught at ruzdijas: Turkish,
Arabic and Persian languages were the focus of teaching, together with
calligraphy; apart from religious teachings and morality, secular subjects
were taught, including history, geography, algebra and geometry. Logic was
taught together with all those subjects. Textbooks for logic were Isagudži
and Risale-i erbea.
“Risale-i erbea” is a short textbook comprising of four parts: 1) “Dede
Džengi” (On Logic), 2) “Risale-i vadijje” (Introduction to Logic), 3) “Feride”
(On Metaphor in Arabic) and 4) “Isagudži” (On Logic)” [Ibid., 156].
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It can be seen from the above-listed subjects [Kasumović, 1999: 154]
that most attention was given to the instrumentarium for exegesis and
interpretation of the sacral texts and religious truths. The study of language
(morphology, syntax, etymology) and science on notions was connected
to the study of predicative forms and structures in logic and was, altogether,
applied in the field of apologetics. Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina
were educated at the prestigious schools and institutions of learning in
Istanbul/Constantinople, Baghdad, Syria; where they gained knowledge
on Arabic logic and Islamic law, and where they themselves would
frequently lecture (like Mustafa Ejubovic – Sejh Jujo). During their
pedagogical engagement in madresahs, they would pass that knowledge
into Bosnia and Herzegovina by transcribing the leading scientific works
of the time and by writing useful notes and commentaries.
Primary schools for members of the Orthodox faith were least
documented. Existing data shows that the first separate school building
for children of Orthodox faith was built and opened in 1727. Schools that
opened in Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Brcko, Gracanica, Prnjavor, Stari Majdan,
Cajnice and Travnik, by the approval of the Ottoman Government in 1832,
“…were at a poor educational level. Elementary literacy was taught in those
schools with some of the Orthodox faith moralities.” [Papić, 1972: 23].
In 1854, all-female school opened in Sarajevo. Tradesmen initiated the
opening of a high school (1855) which was called general or trade, later
general (1864) and secondary school (1879). Staka Skenderova founded
in 1858 in Sarajevo a private Serb female school and in that same year, the
preparatory spiritual school was founded in Zitomislici, aimed to train
priests for the area of Herzegovina. The Serb seminary in Banja Luka (the
Pelagic Seminary) was formed in 1866. Two English women, Adelina
Irbi and Mis Makenzi formed the first female high school in Sarajevo
in 1869, known by the name of Mis Irbi’s Institute.
Convents and churches were centers of literacy and spiritual life of
Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bearers of such life and literacy
were Franciscans who founded the first schools in Olovo, Kraljeva Sutjeska, Kresevo and Fojnica. In this, as well as in the case of content and
forms of education of members of Islamic faith in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
one can see the synergy (sometimes also asymmetry and even confrontation)
of the local and regional history of education, of the system and its part,
regional patch (once: the norm) and provincial application.
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The paradigm (norm, patch, standard, regulation) of education of
Christian (Catholic) candidates, that had been defined in institutions of
the Catholic Church in Rome, acted in parts of the provincial under the
authority of Vienna, Venice, Istanbul/Constantinople; while the concrete
educational life was led in accordance with the local cultural and political
situation which was, in the area of Bosnia Argentina under the Ottoman
rule, in contradiction with the situation in the territory from which the
paradigm originated. In that sense, one cannot talk about the “borrowed
identities” consumed by ethnic and confessional communities in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, but instead about the homogenous and interactive
identities, which functioned within a paradigm, as well as those which
adjusted to the local conditions, outside the paradigm boundaries.6
Many arguments were led between members of the same ethnic
and confessional community, that is, between those who lived within
a homogenous core community and those who lived outside it, in an
interactive community of several ethnic groups. Rules, will and standards
were imposed by regional or core organizations, whether political or
confessional, onto the local communities in the field, which, like the
Franciscans in Bosnia and Herzegovina, often disapproved them or even
refused their implementation [Hrkać, 1998: 7-45].
However, once a paradigm or standard or norm of education was
set, it functioned in both the homogenous and the interactive area.
“Pope Clement VIII issued a bull (Decet Romanum Pontificem (June
26 1603) approving the demand that in every province three schools be
founded – namely, grammar, school of philosophy and of theology.
By introduction of instruments of national political ontology on “endangerment of
peoples”, political and confessional oligarchies, today in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
are asking that the identity role-models for Croats and Serbs, that is, Catholics and
Orthodox living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are set in Croatia and Serbia (mother country
– mother identities), and under their influence of cultural and national oligarchy purify
national languages, national historiographies, active institutional and non-institutional
forms and contents from interactively-formed elements within them (interactive, adaptive
identities). As a reaction to those demands and that practice, Bosniak political and
confessional oligarchy is working on networking of Bosnia and Herzegovina with
the Arab countries and on islamization of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with
the aim of changing the peculiarities of the Bosnian Muslims’ identity in the sense
of making it more rigid in religious and cultural sense.
6
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117
Franciscan education classified schools according to kind and degree.
The following kinds of schools were differentiated: grammar (ranking
as high schools with the task of providing the basic forms of education),
philosophical or schools of logic and theological (moral theologies or
dogmatism). Schools were classified as provincial (studia provincialia)
or general (studia generalia), according to the degree” [Ibid., 29].
The very content of subjects was largely determined by and compatible
with Christian doctrine, which means that it served the establishment
and strengthening of Christian dogmatism. The aforementioned Pope also
determined in the bull which subjects should be taught in the general
schools.
“He allowed three professors to teach in each of the general schools.
The first taught the first book of the Four Books of Sentences by Peter
Lombard (called Magister Sententiarum), the second taught the second
and third and the third taught the fourth book. In Franciscan schools of
the 13th and 14th centuries, a significant role was played by the Summa
of the first teacher of the Francisacan Order, Alexander of Hales, who at
the Paris University, despite the dominant platonic orientation of Peter
Lomabard, promoted Aristotle’s dialectical method and included many
Aristotelian elements into the Summa.” [Ibid., 29-30].
In an extraordinary study on this topic, Academician Dr. Serafin
Hrkic, OFM, clearly names the Franciscan order and Bosna Argentina
as the leaders of educational life of Catholics, emphasizing in several
places the conflicts between this Order and bishoprics, their decisions
and intentions in this area. (This tension has remained present till this
very day). Since wars and conflicts divided Bosna Argentina into three
parts (1757), governed by different political authorities, education was
also of a different character.
“In a cultural sense, in the part of the provincial governed by Vienna,
and later in the part of the provincial governed by Venice, schools and
educational institutions were established in accordance with the guidelines
of the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) and constitutions of the Franciscan
Order, which, until then, had mostly depended on initiative and ingenuity
of individual monastic administrations. In the part of the provincial under
Ottoman rule, Franciscans had only three monasteries (Kraljeva Sutjeska,
Kresevo, Fojnica) and had no education institutions, but continued to send
their candidates abroad, or to the provincial schools governed politically
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by Vienna or Venice. For that purpose, a school of philosophy was founded
in Slavonski Brod (1712 – 1783), so that the candidates from Bosnia would
not have to travel far.” [Ibid., 251].
Friar Ilija Starcevic from Orasje founded in 1823 the first common
Croat primary school. Most credit for spreading education and literacy
amongst the Catholic population belongs to friar Ivan Jukic and later friar
Grga Martic. One of the best known primary schools founded by traders
is in Livno and has existed from 1820. “Secondary schools were, for the
first time, mentioned in the early 18th century in monasteries of Fojnica,
Kresevo and Sutjeska.” [Papić, 1972: 31] The General Catholic Schools
were founded in monasteries of Siroki Brijeg and Guca Gora near Travnik
(relocated later to Visoko). According to Mitar Papic, friar Grga Martic
founded the school in 1865, which was attended by both boys and girls
[Ibid., 32]. The Junior High School of Fojnica was founded in 1874.
In the mid-sixteenth century, Jews exiled from Spain and Portugal
started settling all around Europe, including Bosnia and Herzegovina,
where they introduced the Spanish language and literacy. Some reliable
data state that only one primary school had existed prior to the late period
of the Ottoman rule, which was mentioned in the Bosnian Herald (Bosanski
Vjesnik) in 1866. There is also data on a Jewish religious school, founded
around 1768. Sephardic Jews arrived to Bosnia and Herzegovina having
been exiled by Christians from Spain and Portugal (in the 16th century),
mostly from Cordoba and Toledo, places in which they had had intercultural development with other confessions, primarily with Islam.
Sephardic Jews were mainly educated religiously, in the spirit of
teachings of the Bible and Talmud. With the help of a language named
Ladino, a mixture of Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish, they were able to
quickly adjust to the environment of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to create
works of art and literature. The first Jewish community was founded in
Sarajevo in 1565, which at the time served as the educational centre for
Sephardic Jews; while the first synagogue was built in 1581 in Sarajevo
(and met its doom in Eugene Savoy’s tilt. Three centuries later, during the
period of Austro-Hungarian rule, Ashkenazi Jews settled and formed their
own municipality, practicing different cultural habits and language (German).
A number of Sephardic children were schooled in Constantinople, where
they studied Turkish and other oriental languages, thus acquiring education
necessary for clerical work in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other Sephardic
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children attended Meldar (primary school), studying Talmud, Torah and
Hebrew.
2.2. Works on Logic in Bosnia and
Herzegovina Written in Arabic
In order to gain a comprehensive insight into the origin, development
and kinds of works on logic written in Arabic in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
being familiar with the origin, development and ways works on logic,
logical problems, logical applications in theological apologetics and legal
practice (the Sharia law) were handed on, through quite a long period of
development of spiritual and cultural world of Islam, is a necessity.7
Works on logic written in Arabic in Bosnia and Herzegovina directly
take their pattern, in terms of content and form, from the commentaries
on Aristotelian logic and Porphyrian isagogics8 (logical classification
of propaedeutic study) written by the Arabian logicians (al-Farabi, al-Kindi,
Ibn Sina / Avicena, Ibn Ruzda / Averroe); that is, Arabic commentaries of
these comments (written by their pupils, al-Urmevi, al-Khatibi, al-Ebheri,
al-Fenari, and others).
This writing based on a preexisting pattern (rewriting, note-taking,
adjusting, sectioning, interpreting, recommending, interpretative
adjusting)9 or commenting is not only significant for the works written in
the East, in Arabic, but also for commentaries written in Greek, in the neoPlatonic school, both in the pagan Athens and in Christian Alexandria;
written by Porphyry, Ammonius, Dexippus, Philiponos, Simplicius,
Iamblichus, David, Elias and other followers of Plotinus. Both here and
there existed the form of such pattern based commentary which included
the well-established practice of accepting and passing over a number of
This study focuses solely on the main works of Bosnian commentators and
we assume the reader has the information on the status of Aristotelian logic and
Porphyry’s isagogics within the Islamic cultural tradition determined by Quran, Hadiths,
the Shria law, theological discussions etc., at the disposal.
8
The Terminological coin “Porphyry’s isagogics”, which I have introduced here,
can be applied in the sense of “classification of propaedeutic study” which became, after
Prophyry’s Isagoge a canonic part of logical discussions which obligatorily preceded
Aristotelian logic and was placed in the introduction of the Organon.
9
See footnote No. 17
7
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constant questions and answers, from one commentary to another, on: what
is (the real, the first, the main) issue of the work commented, where is the
(real) beginning of the discussion, which is the real title of the work, what
is the (genuine) content, what are the (true) meanings of some notions,
why did the author of a work or discussion introduce new notions, what
should the relation towards the whole and parts of Aristotel’s work be,
what were the reasons for writing a work in one way or another, etc.10
Greek commentators used some minor terminological changes to pass on almost
entire sections of the pattern to be commented. For example, a significant number of
Aristotel’s writing entitled Categories starts with an introduction which contains the ten
inevitable questions, answered in that introduction in the way that an introduction to
a commentary is longer than the writing commented on! For example, introduction to
Amonious’ commentary (435/445-517/526) entitled Prolegomena to Ten Categories
according to Philosopher Amonious (Greek:
) states: “Since our
ask ten questions which will help us explore in succession. First: what is the origin of
names of philosophical schools? Second: how should the works of Aristotle be sectioned?
Third: From which point should the study of Aristotle’s writings begin? Fourth: What
is the evident benefit of studying Aristotle’s philosophy? Fifth: What should serve as
guidance towards that goal? Sixth: How should a listener of the philosophical speech
prepare himself? Seventh: What is the form of such exposition? Eighth: Why was the
philosopher deliberately indistinct on certain points? Ninth: How many and what kinds
of presuppositions should one have to be able to study Aristotle’s writings? Tenth:
What should the interpreter of those writings be like?” [Translation according to the
original text: Ammonius In Aristotelis Categorias Commentarius. Commentaria in
Aristotelem Graeca IV 3, Berlin 1891. Translation: Nijaz Ibrulj.] The ten questions,
although distantly related to Aristotle’s Categories had been passed on until the late 6th
century, through the works of other Greek commentators, as a constant part of the
commenting patchwork. Only after this section, which was supposed to provide an
introduction to the entire philosophy of Aristotle and its origin (3'2 ) 1(23.3$5+.42
&$-$520 ( %(+.2.%(5 2), does the first theme of Categories appear, together with a
comment. The ten questions and such form of organization of the comments was taken
over by Philoponous in his scholia on Aristotle’s categories (cf. Philophoni in Aristotelis
Categorias Commentarium. Vol.XIII), Simplicius in his commentaries on Aristotle’s
Categories (cf. Simplicii in Aristotelis Categorias Commentarium. Vol.VIII), and
by others. Arabic commentators of Aristotle’s Categories do not contain such an
introduction, which is completely lost in Latin commentators (Cf.Averroes’ Middle
Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione.Princeton University
Press, 1983).
10
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Hasan Kafi Pruscak (Hasan Kāfī b.Turẖān b.Dāwūd b.Ya’qūb az-Zībī alĀqḥiṣari al-Bosnawī, b. 1544, Prusac, d. 1615, Prusac) is considered to be the
most significant author in the field of logic in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
who wrote in oriental languages during the Ottoman occupation of the
country. Several sources say that he was considered highly educated in
several fields of science and was a well-known commentator of different
works. In the field of oriental studies in Europe, Hasan Kafi was known for
his work Basis of the Wisdom of How to Arrange the World, which has
been translated into French, and which had been presented by the author
himself at the sultan’s court in Istnabul/Constantinopole, in Arabic.
Immediately after that, the author was given a recommendation to translate
the work into Turkish. That piece of writing led the sultan to give him
a province in Prusac, which was Pruscak’s lifelong pension. “As a professor,
he writes comments and glosses on issues of linguistics, even logic. As
a theologian, he writes about the basic postulates of the Islamic belief. As
a quadi, he is involved in legal issues. As a thinker, in the domain of politics
and society, he clearly and openly criticizes the shortcomings of the society
and recommends ways of healing. Finally, as a writer, he writes down
significant data on himself as well.” [Ljubović, Nametak, 1999: 10].
Hasan Kafi Pruscak is the author of two works in the field of logic:
KAFI’S COMPENDIUM OF LOGIC (Muẖtaṣar al-Kāfī min al-manṭiq)
was written in 1580. A copy of the work is preserved in Gazi Husref-bey’s
Library in Sarajevo; the size of the manuscript being 19,5 x 13 cm. In
this work, written as a textbook typical of Islamic tradition, Kafi deals with
the issue of what logic is and what is its field of study, methods and tasks.
According to him, science (‘ilm) is, “… a tool with the property of law,
and its use secures the mind (ḏihn) from mistakes in thinking (fikr)”
[Ljubović, 1996: 65]. In that same place, the entire insight into Kafi’s
Compendium on Logic can be found:
1. On Words (fī-al alfāẓ);
2. On Outcomes of Notions – the Five Universalias
(fī mabādi‘ at-taṣawwurāt-al-kulliyyāt);
3. On Outcomes of Notions – Interpretative Speech
(fī maqāṣid at-tasawwurāt al-qawl aš-šāriḥ);
4. On Outcomes of Claims – Judgment
(fī mabādi‘ at-taṣdīqāt al-qaḍyya );
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5. On Goals of Claims – Sylogisms (fī maqāṣid at-tasdīqāt al-qiyās ),
a. Apodictic (al-burhān),
b. Dialectics (al-ğadal),
c. Rhetoric (al-ḫiṭāba),
d. Poetics (aš-ši‘r ),
e. Sophistic (al-muġālaṭa )
COMMENTARY ON “KAFI’S COMPENDIUM OF LOGIC”
(Šarḥ Muẖtaṣar al-Kāfī min al-manṭiq), was written in 1583. Apart from an
extensive introduction, this work contains the following parts:
1.On Words (fī-al alfāẓ);
2.O Outcomes of Notions (fī mabādi‘ at-taṣawwurāt-al-kulliyyāt);
3.On Goals of Notions (fī maqāṣid at-tasawwurāt al-qawl aš-šāriḥ)
Ljubovic states to have found this work at the Cambridge University
Library, while “motifs for writing this work… are the same as before, that
is, to help pupils overcome the issues of logic” [Ibid., 36]. This work, just
like all others, relies on the Arab logicians like Ibn Sina and others.
COMMENTARY OF THE SUNNY TRACTATE (Šarḥ ar-Risāla aššamsiyya) was written by Mohamed Son of Musa Allamek. He was born in
1595 in Sarajevo, graduated at Gazi Husref-bey’s Madressah, educated
in Istanbul at the Sahn-i Seman educational institute, and appointed the
supreme judge in Help (Syria) in 1634/35. He wrote all his works in
Arabic which he also taught in different schools, together with logic.
The Commentary consists of:
1. Introduction (al-muqaddima) which consists of two discussions
(1) On the Essence of Logic and (2) On the Subject of Logic;
2. The First Article (maqala): On Individual Notions with Six Subsections: (1) On Words, (2) On Meanings, (3) On Universalia and
Particularities and (4) On Definitions.
3. The Second Article, with an Introduction (On the Definition of
Judgment and Its Segments) and three Subsections: (1) On
Categorical Judgment, (2) On Conditional Judgments and (3) On
Rules of Judgment (the direct forms of concluding)
4. The Third Article, On Syllogism, with five Subsections: (1) Definition, Its Parts and Forms, (2) On Mixed Syllogisms (Modal),
(3) On Connected Syllogisms, (4) On Separated Syllogisms and
(5) Supplementary on Syllogism
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5. Conclusion (hatima), with two discussions: (1) On Content Syllogisms and (2) On Segments of the Science
Allamek’s commentary of the work The Sunny Tractate (written by
Al-Kazvani al-Katibi and which, according to Ljubovic is one of the
most significant works of the later period in the field of logic in Arabic)
was used as a textbook in logic in some of the senior-level madressahs
[Ibid., p. 41].
THE NEW COMMENTARY OF THE SUNNY TRACTATE was
written in 1690 by Mustafa Ejubović-Sejh Jujo who was “our most fruitful
and most prominent writer in Arabic” [Ljubović, 1996: 42]. He was born
in 1651 in Mostar. The form and content he uses [Ibid., 47 - 49] completely
goes along with Allamek’s Commentary, although the pattern of commenting, in both cases had probably been taken from the form and content
of the Sunny Tractate itself, which was written by Nedzmudin al-Kazvani
al-Katibi (d. 1295).
In the Ottoman Empire, logic was studied and taught, together with
the basics of the Arabic grammar, speculative and scholastic theology of
astronomy (kalam), geometry and rhetoric, in junior-level madressahs,
known as ibtida-i haridž. [Ibid., 180]. “In most cases, Al-Ebheri’s Isagoge
(Īsāġūğī) was used as the basic textbook or some other work of the similar
kind, like Kafi’s Logical Compendium, written by Hasan Pruscak
exclusively for his pupils, or some other “short” commentaries. At seniorlevel madressahs (dahil-madressahs, tetims, etc.), which are close to our
notion of secondary education, logic was also a compulsory subject, for
the study of which more demanding works were used, most frequently the
already-mentioned Al-Katibi’s Sunny Tractate (ar-Risāla aš-šamsiyya)
or some of the comments on this work. The highest degree of education
(sahn madressahs) treated logic not as an individual subject, but as a part
of speculative theology – apologetics.” [Ibid., 180].
2.3. Works on Logic in Bosnia and
Herzegovina Written in Latin
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, works on logic written in Latin, neither
in the sense of form or content, have the character of commentaries. They
do not directly rely on Aristotelian logic or Poryphian isagogics (classificatory propaedeutics) but mostly on medieval resumes, summaries, logical
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summae or simmulae of the Christian writers, who for their needs adapted
parts of Latin scriptures related to everything that was acceptable in Aristotelian logic (epsteme). The most prominent medieval figures mentioned
here are Duns Scotus, Petrus Hyspanus, Petrus Lombardus and Thomas
Aquinas but their thoughts are taken as a part of the accepted science
of logic, not as a part of their teachings within logic.
The following manuscripts from Kresevo, dealing in most part with
logic, systematized by Academician Dr. Hrkac, should be mentioned:
MANUSCRIPT 3-III-5: PHILOSOPHIE NOTIONES. The text
contains about 80 pages. No data on the author is available other than I.M.S.
initials written on the top of the page. Based on a thorough linguistic analysis
Hrkac concluded that “it was undoubtedly written by our man.” [Hrkać,
1998: 59] A special edition of the manuscript was published in 2000 in
Mostar, since the “content of this manuscript stands out from all other
manuscripts from the mentioned monasteries… Other manuscripts either
deal only with individual philosophical tractates, or several joint tractates.
Only this one, in a way, is an outline of the entire matter of logic and ontology. It was written in the form of questions and answers and contains a
very short introduction to psychology (only one text-page)” [Hrkać, 2000:
III]. The manuscript is the work of a lecturer or philosophy professor,
and it is his conscript of lectures for a year. In it, an ordered approach
in logical and cognitive-theoretical sense to the whole of cognitive
questions, in which logic dominates, can be seen.
MANUSCRIPT 3-III-23: INTRODUCTIO ET PROLEGOMENA IN
UNIVERSAM ARISTOTELIS LOGICAM. The manuscript contains
about 236 unnumbered pages. The name of an unfamiliar author is written
on the first page: I. Pluit. According to the available content, the monument
comprises of two main parts: 1.Introductio in universam Aristotelis logicam,
which contains five sections with the total of 50 headings, all of which focus
on predicates, statements and their elements, on the kind of statements and
modules, and on syllogism and method, 2. Prolegomena in universam
Aristotelis Logicam, which consists of nine headings, some in the form of
questions on nature of reason and mind and on the nature of logic as science.
[Hrkać, 1998: 65].
MANUSCRIPT 3-III-25: LOGICA. METAPHYSICA. PNEUMATOLOGIA.The manuscript contains 436 written, unnumbered pages. The
page 182 states: Finis Logicae perscriptus per me Fratrem Blasium Pardusic
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Anno 1877 Domini Mense junii. First part of the manuscript focuses on
logic, second on metaphysics and third on pneumathology. In the segment
on logic, the first part deals with notions and judgments, the second with
statements and third with method and proof. [Ibid., 69].
MANUSCRIPT 3-IV-29: LOGICA UNIVERSA. The manuscript
contains only 48 pages written in small letters. Top of the title page contains
the inscription: Prima pars Philosophie, middle of the page: Logica universa,
and bottom of the page: Tomus primus Die 22 Septembris Anno ab
Incarnatione 1832. The following is written at the end of the page 48: Ego
Frater Jacobus Ivankovich finivi hucusque die ultima Martii Milesimi
octingetesimi trigesimi tertii [Ibid., 102].
Manuscripts on logic preserved in the Kraljeva Sutjeska monastery
that should be mentioned here are:
MANUSCRIPT 16. LOGICA. The manuscript contains 652 pages,
written by friar Antun Zderic from Vinkovci, who was a philosophy
lecturer in Slavonski Brod from 1735 to 1738. The manuscript consists of
two parts. First part was written in small letters on full 42 pages all dealing
with Elementa logicae parvae seu summularum. The second part is entitled
Enchyridion philosophicum in universam Aristotelis logicam. Disputationes
ad mentem subtilis doctoris Ioannis Duns Scoti [Ibid., 163].
MANUSCRIPT 17. LOGICA. The manuscript contains 374 unnumbered pages. The first page contins the inscription: Spectat ad quitidianum
usum Patris Philippi Kordic m. pr.Anno Domini 1879. Logica San-Severino
[Ibid., 170]. It deals with teachings on syllogism, methodology, and
criteriology.
MANUSCRIPT 25. SYSTEMA PHILOSOPHIAE FUNDAMENTALIS SIVE LOGICA. The manuscript contains 76 unnumbered pages.
It was written in Czechoslovakia. The title page contains the inscription:
descripta per...Kopich (name erased) in venerabili conventu Nittriensi ad
SS.AA.Petrum et Paulum. The last page contains the inscription: 1831
[Ibid.,181]. The first part is entitled Logica theoretica and it deals with
definition, evidence and syllogism, as well as with the sophist presentation
of evidence.
MANUSCRIPT 44B. LOGICA. The manuscript contains 153 pages.
It opens with: Philosophia sive Logica perscripta per fratrem Ioannem
Turbic de Tesevo clericum simpliciter professum Anno Domini 1879.
Sutiskae die 24 octobris Anno Domini 1880. Written on page 101 is: Ego
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Petrus Turbić m.p., and on page 117: Ego fr. Raphael Barisic de Ocevija
m. p. a. 1880 die 5 octobris [Ibid., 191]. The part of the manuscript stating
Pars prima: Logica formalis contains sections on ideas and notions, on
judgments, propositions and syllogism.
MANUSCRIPT 53. INTRADUCTIO IN PHILOSOPHIAM. The
manuscript contains 126 pages, written by friar Mihael Franjkovic from
Vares in 1866/67. It deals with the subject and notion of logic, judgments
and syllogism. [Ibid., 193].
Some of the manuscripts on logic, preserved in the Fojnica monastery,
include:
MANUSCRIPT 65. LOGICA. Academician Hrkic reports that the
title page of this well preserved and readable manuscript contains the
following inscription: Logica auctore I.B.Bouvier. Descripta per fr. I.
Vujcic, lectorem philosophiae in Livno 1874. Reliquit P. Hieronymo Vladic
Lectori Philosophie et suo succesori. One can see from the very content
that this is a modern interpretation of medieval doctrine proprietatem
terminorum, which is preceded by discussions on definition and division,
on judgments and their classification, etc. [Ibid., 249].
The very content of the above-mentioned manuscripts, both in Arabic
and in Latin, shows that the philosophy (logic) lecturers in monasteries
focused primarily on syllogistic and formal logic, that is on instructions on
the basics of logic in which the students were introduced to the notion,
judgment, evidence, syllogism and method. Some newer manuscripts in
Latin introduce into lectures the elements of medieval logic (Proporietates
Terminorum) and, later, Cartesian logic. The manuscripts show and provide
evidence of the content of the subject of logic taught at lower levels, and
which was available in Latin in this region.
In general, the educational paradigm in which Muslim teachers and
students participated was compatible with the educational paradigm of
Catholic teachers and students in BosnaArgentina, in their colleges (whether
grammar, philosophy or theology) which were founded in parts of the
Provincial under the administration of Vienna and Venice.11 Catholic
This formal compatibility within educational systems of different confessional
communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina is taken by Amir Ljubovic as evidence that
the “…case here is of a unique history of logic, existent in two parallel flows or
language expressions and cultural or language expressions: one which developed in
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127
students from Bosna Argentina under Ottoman rule, had studied and
accepted this paradigm during their schooling abroad, only to later
introduce it into educational practice in monasteries (Kresevo, Fojnica,
Kraljeva Sutjeska), upon their return. During their stay in foreign countries,
they were exposed to leading figures, texts and atmosphere of the European
education of the age, all of which had influenced them greatly.
Istanbul/Constantinopole (in some instances, Baghdad and Syria)
and Rome (in some instances, Vienna and Venice) may be considered
regional centers of intellectual gravity and production of educational
paradigm and practice which strongly attracted people from Bosnia and
Herzegovina to different sides. It is also possible to see that on that road
of education, schooling and training for the primary vocation of religious
teachers and pedagogues, those people accepted in the centers both the
theoretical and practical part of education achieved by that point in history,
as well as the norms of civilization that had been determined in ancient
heritage through Aristotelian logic and epistemology and Porphyrian
isagogic. Hence, that heritage came to Bosnia and Herzegovina from
two directions, written in two languages, Arabic and Latin, and has been
preserved, as we shall see, to the very day.
3. Bosnia Porphyriana12
Porphyry [grč. .1%451(.2 ; lat. Porphyrius] is described by some
authors described as “the last of the Greek philosopher” [Smith, 1974: xi;
Peters, 1968: 286], or as a great Hellenistic erudite and pagan philosopher,
“the most intelligent of philosophers, although the most fierce enemy
Arabic and within the Arab-Islamic spiritual and cultural tradition, and the other in
Latin (in a significantly smaller scope and in languages of the peoples), within the
West-European philosophical tradition” [17, p.172]. One can only tentatively speak
about “creations” in the field of logic. Perhaps it would be more precise to say that
there existed two flows of understanding of the ancient philosophical and scientific
heritage, which were interactive only during an intermezzo of medieval cultural,
political and civilization interaction between philosophy and theology.
12
At this point and for the first time, I introduce into our spiritual life the term Bosnia
Porphyriana, with the aim of expressing the centuries-long presence of Porphyry’s work
Isagoge in education and in logical thought of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless
of religious and ethno-national affiliation.
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of Christians.” [Augustin, 1995: 72-73]. Porphyry wrote a book entitled
3
1(23( -6- +.5&.( “Evidence against Christians”, better known as
“Against Christians”, as translated from Latin Adversus Christianos,
which was burnt in 448 by an edict issued by emperors Valentianus III
and Theodosius II.
That was not a reason to forget or reject Poryphyry, either in the East
or in the West. His attempts to reconcile in Plotinus’Academy Plato’s and
Aristotle’s followers through hermeneutics of his works, as well as his
comments on Plato and Aristotle, became and have remained a pattern
for other comments that later appeared. But, Porphyry as an educator and
a great erudite who persistently applied logic (the so-called “emperor logic”,
“Roman logic”) to all aspects of spiritual and cultural life, by virtue of his
comments had become a pattern for the use of this philosophical form.
It is his comments of manuscripts on logic and philosophy that are a reason
to study his opus even today, not his struggle to preserve the state (Roman)
faith (polytheism) and laws, not his struggle against the formation of
monotheistic beliefs (Christianity).
Porphyry’s works (he wrote about 75 of them) came to life 1.700 years
ago, in the 3rd century AD. From the time of Hellenic and early-Christian
era, through the medieval period of scholasticism, until today, they remain
in the center of attention: they were translated into ancient languages at
first (Aramaic, Syrian, Hebrew, Latin) and then into modern languages; they
have been commented and published. Already in the 3rd century, Porphyry
had become a leading figure for commenting the works of Plato and
Aristotle, for both commentators from the West (it would suffice to see
the curricula of the European universities as early as 12th century until
today) and from the East (see the list or index of books of Greek authors,
as well as Fihrist compiled by Ibn al-Nadim), especially those works which
concern logic.13 “As a commentator of Plato’s andAristotle’s pieces working
Aurelius Augustinus, one of the most important apologetes of Christianity in 4th
century AD, stated in his work De Civitate Dei that Porphyry is “the most intelligent
of all philosophers, although the most fierce enemy of Christianity” (doctissimus
philosophorum, quamvis Christianorum acerrimus inimicus) [16, pp.72-73]. He called
him “a great enemy of Christianity” (Chistianis inimicissimo) or “Photinian heretic”
(Photinianus haereticus) [16, pp.76-77], for acknowledging Jesus Christ as a person,
not divinity; for Poryphyry, Hebrew God Jahwe ‫( הוהי‬The One Who Is) was a true
and acceptable example of monotheistic God.
13
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129
and writing in 3 century AD, who was preceded by comments of Galenus,
Aleksander Afrodisius, Celsus and other, Porphyry became an established
figure for this genre of philosophy with commentators in the period from
the 4th to the 6th century AD, like Ammonius, Iammblichus, Dexippus,
Simplicius, David, Elias, Stephanus and other. Some of them had an overt
pagan orientation, like in the Athens school, some were between the
boundaries of paganism and Christianity, like in Rome, and some were
Christian students at the neo-Platonic school, active in, for example,
Alexandria. Their reception of Plato’s and Aristotle’s works had varied,
but when Porphyry’s comments surfaced, a standard was established and
followed since then. ” [Ibrulj, 2009: msc.].
Because Porphyry’s work Isagoge served as an active, common
educational agenda in educational institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
a special chapter will be devoted to that phenomenon in this paper. In
connection to this, Dr. Nijaz Ibrulj’s translation of Isagoge from Classical
Greek into Bosnian, published in Sarajevo in 2008, is important to mention
[Ibrulj, 2008: 1-50]. The philosophical tradition of Bosnia has received
Porphyry’s Isagoge in two languages, Latin, in the works of Catholic
professors of theology who teach philosophy-related subjects at faculties
of Bosna Argentina, and Arabic, in the works of Bosnian mufti, khadi and
ulemma, educated in Istanbul / Constantinople and some other university
centers of the East.14 What is important to note is that exactly this Porphyry’s
work was in many cases used as the primary and common source for both
of these versions: Arabic commentators of Aristotle approached this work
the same way as medieval scholastics (primarily through Boethius’ 5th
century translation).
The original Greek text ()2 &6&'5 was not known in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the same way it was unknown to the Arabic commentators
of Aristotle or Plato or Porphyry, who were of the Islamic confession and
tradition of Quran. Arabic commentators who were not Christians or Jews
had an insight to Syrian, Aramaic or Hebrew translations of the Greek
manuscripts, which they had obtained mainly through Nestorians, Christian
translators from Syria. Greek texts were translated from Aramaic and
Data on authors and works on logic from this period, written in Arabic are taken
from Amir Ljubovic’s work The Works in Logic by Bosniak Authors in Arabic Sarajevo:
Orijentalni institut. 1996.
14
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Hebrew into Arabic, that is, into Persian.15 Commentators like Al-Farabi,
Al- Kindi, Ibn Sina (Avicena), Ibn Ruzd (Averroes) referred to those texts
in their comments. Later, around the year 1200, the texts were translated
into Latin, first in Toledo and then in Cordoba.16 “A very important, if not
decisive role in presenting and passing on the Hellenic heritage to the
Arabic world, especially of logic, belongs to Christian sects from Syria and
Persia, Nestorians and Monophysites, who greatly contributed to the
translation of discussions on logic into Syrian and Persian, and then into
Arabic.” [Ljubović, Nametak, 1999: 26].
It was available to Bosnian students of Catholic faith at lectures in
Rome, in the Latin language (probably Boethius’or Marcelius’translation).
They were also exposed to the classic commentaries in Latin, for example,
Ammonius, Elias, David, Aleksander Afrodisius, Simplicius, Philoponus.
On the other hand, Bosnian students of Islamic faith, who studied in
Constantinople, gained information about this text in Arabic, apart from
having been acquainted with the commentaries of Arabic philosophers,
primarily Avicena and Averroes, who were the leading figures in interpretation of works they studied, that is, in the works of their students like
Al-Ebheri, Taftazani, Al-Fenari, Al-Urmevi, Al-Kazvani.
3.1 Porphyry’s ISAGOGE in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
in Works Written in Arabic
The most important work for the reception of Aristotelian logic written
in Arabic in Bosnia, is Isagoge (Īsāġūğī), written by an Arabic commentator
See: Tony Street: Arabic Logic.[in]: Handbook of the History of Logic. Volume 1.
Greek, Indian and Arabic Logic. Edited by Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods. Elsevier,
North Holland, 2004. pp.523-597. Because of many cases of reservation in connection
to uncritical usage of the syntagm Arabian Logic, Tony Street holds necessary to make
the title precise: ‘Peripatetic logical writings in Arabic produced in the realms of
Islam between 750 and 1350, with special reference to the syllogistic’ (p.526). See also:
Lagerlund, Henrik: The Assimilation of Aristotelian and Arabic Logic up to the Later
Thirteenth Century. .[in]: Handbook of the History of Logic. Volume 2. Mediaeval and
Renaissance Logic. Edited by Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods. Elsevier, North Holland,
2008. pp.281-346.
16
See: Burnett, Charles: The Transaltion of Arabic Works on Logic into Latin in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance. [in]: Handbook of the History of Logic. Volume 1. Greek,
Indian and Arabic Logic. Edited by Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods. Elsevier, North
Holland, 2004. pp. 597-607.
15
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131
of Aristotelian logic Esirudin al-Ebheri (d. cca 1256), which was a wellknown compendium of logic in the East. The work seems to have had the
strongest influence on commentators of the Porphyry’s work. “It is difficult
to provide the exact number of comments, supercomments and glosses
written about this work (all the collections of Oriental manuscripts in the
world have not been catalogued as yet), but it is quite certain that the number
exceeds two hundred. That is probably the most frequently commented
work on logic in Arabic, which was used for a long period of time, be
it the text itself or only some of the more successful commentaries, as
a textbook at different levels of education.” [Ljubović, 1989: 217].
It should be mentioned that Dr. Amir Ljubovic holds that this work
is neither an adaptation nor commentary of the famous Porphyry’s work
Eisagoge, but rather an original writing which talks about the same topic
– the five universalia, in a concise manner, and that Porphyry’s term
Īsāġūğī was only borrowed as a title for the introductory part. [Ibid.,
218-223]. This work was commented by all Bosnian writers who wrote
about logic in Arabic. However, the domain of this perception was
determined by educational goals: a new atmosphere in Bosnian madressahs
was brought in by the teachers who had been educated in Istanbul/Constantinople and who, upon their return to the country, changed the old way
of teaching – some theological matters were to be described and explained
to students on the basis of rational reasons.
COMMENTARY ON ISAGOGE (Šarḥ Īsāġūğī) or COMMENTARY
OF “ESIRI’S TRACTATE ON LOGIC” (Šarḥ ar-Risāla al-Atīriyya fī almanṭiq) was written in 1682 by Mustafa Ejubovic (b. 1651 in Mostar, d.
1707 in Mostar). It is a commentary of a well-known work on Logic in the
East – Isagoge (Īsāġūğī), written by Esirudin al-Ebheri (d. 1256). Contents
of the work:
1. Isagoge, p. 6 – 24, containing short tractates on words, meanings
of words, relationship between words and ideas, on notions and,
especially, about the five universalia (kind, gender, characteristics
and accidence),
2. On Interpretative Speech (al-qawl aš-šāriḥ), p. 24 – 27, that is, on
rules of forming definitions and descriptions
3. On Judgments (al-qaḍyya)
4. On Syllogism, (al-qiyās)
5. Apodictic (al-burhān)
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6. Dialectics, (al-ğadal)
7. Rhetoric (al-ḫiṭāba )
8. Poetics (aš-ši‘r)
9. Sophistics (al-muġālaṭa )
A USEFUL GLOSS WITH “AL’FENARI’S GLOSSES” FOR
ESIRUDI’S TRACTATE ON LOGIC (Hāšiya mufīda li al-Fawā‘ id alFanāriyya ‘ alā ar-Risāla fī al-manṭiq« ) was written by Mustafa Ejubovic (b.
1651 in Mostar, d. 1707 in Mostar). The work was completed in 1692 oju
je napisao Mustafa Ejubović (1651 u Mostaru-1707 u Mostaru). The gloss
(hāšiya) was completed in 1692 and contains the author’s notes on margins,
all written with a different intention (note taking, interpretations, commenting). [Ljubović, 1996: 45].
UNCOVERING SECRETS IN COMMENTS ON “ISAGOGE” (Fatḥ
al-asrār fī šarḥ al-Īsāġūğī). Author of this work was Muhamed Cajnicanin
(b. 1731 in Cajnice – d. 1792 in Sarajevo). From 1781 until 1783 he lectured
at the Djumisic Madressah in Sarajevo and was named Mufti of Sarajevo
twice. About three quarters of this comment are exactly the same as
comments in the work of Mustafa Ejubovic, which means that a significant
part of the text was simply rewritten. At this point, Ljubovic states the
following: “Although the entire opus in Arabic in the field of logic of the
later period can be described as being in the spirit of idea and forms of the
grand predecessors, Muhamed Cajnicanin, that is, ‘his’ work, may be
described as typically epigonic.” [Ibid., 55].
COMMENTARY OF THE TEXT “ISAGOGE” BY MULA FADIL
UZICANIN (Šarḥ matn Īsāġūğī li mawlā al-Fāḍil Ūžičawalī). Author of this
work is Fadil Uzicanin and no data is available about him. The work was
completed in 1657 and it is not possible to accurately and unambiguously
determine who Fadil Uzicanin was. The work is considered to be mediumlength commentary of Esirudina al-Ebheri’s Isagoge [Ibid., 58].Content of
this work is almost identical to the above-mentioned work Commentary
of Isagoge, written by Mustafa Ejubovic.
UNCOVERING SECRETS IN COMMENTS ON ISAGOGE
FROM SCIENCE ON LOGIC (Fatḥ al-asrār fī šarḥ Īsāġūğī fī ‘ilm al-mantiq)
This work was written by Muhammad the Son of Yusuf Bosnjak. One can
see from the contents that the model of commenting is the same – probably
taken from Esirudin al-Ebheri’s comment on Isagoge. A. Olesnicki found
this, as well as the previous work and catalogued it among the Oriental
manuscripts. [Ibid., 59].
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Without going into details about the content of these works – which
Prof. Ljubovic has done in his book – it will suffice to say that this work
influenced the approach to logic in Bosnia, namely by writers who wrote
in Arabic; leaving open a possibility that it was an individual research
and original analysis of the same problem area.
A comparison of Commentary on Isagoge (1682) by Mustafa Ejubovic
and Kafi’s Compendium on Logic (written in 1580) shows that the form
and content had been completely taken over, which leads to a conclusion
that there had existed a primary model of content and form of the subject
of logic, which was simply taken over and passed on with little changes to
formulation. It is difficult to determine when and how that local stereotype
emerged in Bosnia and whether Kafi was the first link in the chain, but it
is clear that the stereotype can be traced back to the Arab commentators
Ibn Sina (Eastern school) and Al-Farabi (Western school) and to some other
Arab commentators of Aristotle and Porphyry. In fact, it is possible to
determine the genesis of the comments17: (1) on the first place were Greek
comments written in the period from 1st to 5th century by Alexander
Aphrodisius, Porphyrious, Ammonius, Syrianus, Dexippus, Iammblichus,
Simlicious, Philoponus; (2) on the second place were Latin (Themistius,
Boethius) and Greco-Byzantine comments (David, Elias, Sophoniae,
Michael Ephesious), written in the period from 5th to 11th century; (3) on
the third place were the Arabian comments of Aristotle and Porphyry,
written by Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Ruzd, in the period from
11th to 18th century; (4) on the fourth place were Arabian comments of
their Arab pupils (Taftazani, al-Fenari, al-Ebheri, al-Urmevi, al-Kazvani),
and (5) on the fifth place were Bosnian comments of Arabian comments
Genesis of the comments should not only be spoken of, but it is also important
to keep in mind the importance of the different forms of comments. Commentaria
is the umbrella Latin term which, in a way, covers the differences in approaches to
the reception of a work. At least 10 moduses of comments are distinguished with
Greek commentators (cf. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca), like: 1. introduction
($()2 &6&'5); 2. dialogues (.:( #( +.5&.( 3. #( +.&(*.- 245&&1 ,, ); 3. sentences
( %.51, (); 4. reminders (4/.,-'5,'); 5. retellings (/ 1 %1 52(2); 6. prefaces
(/1.+'5&.,$- ); 7. interpretations ($)7'&'2(52), 8. aporie and solutions (')/.1'5,$-6* ( +( (53'2); 9. indicationse ( )/.2',$(652$(2), 10. explanations (2".5+( ). Each is
characterized by its own particularities and they all have something in common (see
more in: Nijaz Ibrulj. Bosnia Porphyriana – a Cultural Metaphor. Sarajevo, 2009).
17
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written by pupils of the Arab commentators (Kafija, Ejubovic, Opijac,
Uzicanin, Bosnjak).18
All this is quite far from the original Greek works of Aristotle and
Porphyry, which were translated in Arabic around 900. And if we say that
neither Ibn Sina (Avicena) nor Ibn Ruzd (Averroes) knew the Greek
language and that the works on logic they read were translated by Christian
translators from Syria, who had approached these works through the
Alexandrian neo-Platonic school in the 5th and 6th centuries, in which,
from the time of Ammonius, Christian students prevailed, it becomes clear
why Ibn Sina himself had stopped directing his attention to those texts,
focusing instead on the spirit or idea they represented.
3.2. Porphyry’s ISAGOGE in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
in Works Written in Latin
Owing to a dedicated scientific engagement of Academician Prof.
Dr. Serafin Hrkac, OFM, a Bosnian Franciscan, and his exceptional
knowledge of the Bosnian philosophical heritage we now have information
allowing us to reconstruct the presence of Porphyry’s Isagoge in education
conducted in Latin in Franciscan monasteries and high schools.19 How
Having exhausted the list of data on authors and manuscripts he held important,
Amir Ljubovic, in his excellent study (doctoral dissertation), gives the final opinion:
“…it can be seen that notwithstanding the different structures and types of works, or
more precisely, different mutual identification of questions that are analyzed in certain
chapters, sections, subsections, etc., they all (apart from the glosses that represent a
special form of individual opus) display common general themes and a clear orientation
towards the basic problem area. The second characteristic of all these works, which is
also a characteristic of the entire opus influenced by Ibn Sina, is that all the questions
treated, regardless of the different classifications, are only parts of the whole of the
Arabian organon (italics N.I.)” Still, the existence of Arabian organon is questionable,
the same way the term Arabian logic, used for partial inclusion of Aristotle’s scripts
within corpus of Islamic theological thought which was always given the primacy,
is questionable. Many of the so-called critical terms used in this field are a result of
counter-factual doxography and creation of conceptual (top-down), rather than individual
(bottom-up) analogies.
19
All data on the manuscripts enlisted and on authors who wrote in Latin, and who
belonged to Catholic confessional and cultural circle of Bosnia and Herzegovina and
in the period in question are taken from the work of Academician friar Serafin Hrkac:
Philosophical Manuscripts in Latin in Bosna Argentina. Mostar: Ziral. 1998.
18
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135
is Isagoge present in these works? In most cases, as an introductory part
to the Aristotelian syllogistic or as the main part of teachings in logic, which
preceded medieval texts (summe, sumulae) on logic that were studied
in these institutions.
Isagoge in manuscripts from the Kresevo Monastery:
MANUSCRIPT 3-III-19: COMPENDIUM LOGICAE ARISTOTELIS, ex Organo eiusdem Summulisque Petri Hispani expertum. This is
the work of an unknown author – probably scripts of a high school teacher.
It can be seen from contents precisely mentioned by S.H. that, in the first
book, discussion 2 (Incipit secundus tractatus), the author of this textbook
or notes deals with predictabilities in Porphyry’s sense: Caput primum: De
praedecabilibus in communi. Caput secundum: De genere. Caput tertium:
De specie.Caput quartum: De differentia. Caput quintum: De proprio.
Caput sextum: De accidente. Caput septimum: De quibusdam dubiis circa
praedicabilia emergentibus [Hrkać, 1998: 61].
MANUSCRIPT 3-IV-16: LOGICA. METAPHYSICA. PHYSICA.
Ivan Tometinovic is the author of this manuscript. The First Book (Liber
primus), which deals with logic, was written in 1785. In the second chapter,
(Caput secundum), prior to the discussion on Aristotle’s categories, the
author talks about Porphyry’s general notions: De ideis universalibus
Porphyrii [Ibid., 85].
MANUSCRIPT 3-IV-21: LOGICA. METAPHYSICA. According
to S.H. these are a student’s lecture notes. The first part deals with logic
(Logicae pars prima). In it, in chapter two (caput secundum), there is
a title: Appendix prima: De universalibus Porphyrii. This is followed by
a lecture on Aristotle’s categories. [Ibid., 94].
Isagoge in manuscripts from the Kraljeva Sutjeska Monastery:
RK. 12B. TRADITIONES IN UNIVERSAM ARISTOTELICOSCOTICAM PHILOSOPHIAM. The manuscript was written in the period
from August 29 1726 to May 28 1729. Friar Filip Lastric from Ocevija
(b. 1700, d. 1783) is the author. Problem area has been classified in the
discussion (disputatio quinta - decima) of the so-called grand logic (Incipiunt disputationes in Logicam magnam).
Disputatio quinta: De universali logico:1.An detur universale logicum
et in quo consistat eius ratio constitutiva? 2. Per quem actum intellectus
fiat universale logicum? 3. Quot sunt universalia seu predicabilia?
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De praedicabilibus in particulari-Disputatio sexta: De genere: 1.
Utrum genus bene definiatur a Porphyrio? 2.Quomodo genus praedicetur
de individuis? 3.Utrum genus posist salvari in unica specie et species
in unico individuo?
Disputatio septima: De specie, secundo praedicabili: 1.An species
bene definiatur a Porphyrio? 2.Per quodnam constituatur species in esse
universalis? 3. An individuum bene definiatur a Porphyrio? An ab omnibus
individuis possit abstrahi aliqua ratio communis?
Disputatio octava: De differentia, tertio praedicabili: 1. Quid et quotuplex sit differentia? 2.In ordine ad quid differentia constituatur in ratione
universalis et tertii praedicabilis? 3.Utrum differentia includat genus et
differentia superiores, et e contra?
Disputatio nona: De proprio, quarto praedicabili: 1.Quod sit proprium
et per quid constituatur in ratione quarti universalis? 2. An proprium
distinguatur et possit separari suo obiecto?
Disputatio decima: De accidente, quinto praedicabili: 1. An accidens
legitime sortiatur rationem universalis seu quinti praedicabilis? In qua et
de eius definitione discutietur. 2. Quibus naturis conveniat universalitas
accidentis? Et responsum quorundum.
Section dealing withAristotle’s categories (Tractatus de praedicamentis
seu categoriis Aristoteles) follows the aforementioned part. [Ibid., 150].
Isagoge in manuscripts from the Fojnica Monastery:
MANUSCRIPT XXX. TRACTATUS LOGICAE TOTIUSQUE
PHILOSOPHIE CURSUS. In the work entitled Incipit tractatus de universalibus Porphyrii, disputatio prima: De universali in communi. Disputatio
secunda:De universali logico.Disputatio tertia: De genere. Disputatio quarta:
De specie.De individuo. Disputatio quinta: De differentia. Disputatio
septima: De proprio. Tractatus de praedicamentis seu categoriis Aristotelis
follows this part. [Ibid., 203 ].
MANUSCRIPT 40. SUMMULARUM LIBRI TRES. Author is
unknown. In the work entitled Dissertationes ad Logicam pertinentis,
dissertatio septima, de genere(127), De specie.(127) De differentia. (128)
De proprio.(129) De accidente.(130) Sectio unica: De decem Aristotelis
categoriis(137) follows this part. [Ibid., 221].
MANUSCRIPT 51. ISAGOGE IN ETHICAM CHRISTIANAM.
The manuscript contains 168 pages. Finis is written in the end. Vacii scripsit
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137
Bon. Marainovich die 2. Ianu. 1827. In 3iiAnni Thgia. Continuatur. Sequitur
ethica Prticularis was also written and traced over. [Ibid., 235].
3.3 Porphyry’s ISAGOGE in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, in Bosnian
Original Greek text ΠΟΡΦΙΡΙΟΥ ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ ΤΟΥ ΦΟΙΝΙΚΟΣ
ΤΟΥ ΜΑΘΗΤΟΥ ΠΛΩΤΙΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΛΥΚΟΠΟΛΙΤΟΥ (Porphyrii
Isagoge et in Aristotelis Categorias Commentarium, ed. A.Busse, CAG,
Vol.IV (1), 1887) and its Bosnian translation, entitled Introduction of
Porphyry Phoenician, Pupil of Plotinus from Licopole (ISAGOGE) were
published in Sarajevo in 2008. The text was translated by Dr. Nijaz Ibrulj,
fulltime professor of logic and methodology at the Sarajevo Faculty of
Philosophy [Ibrulj, 2009: 1-50]. Almost 17 centuries after Isagoge was
written and after Muslim and Catholic scholars of Bosnia and Herzegovina
wrote studies about it in Arabic and Latin, this work has been translated
from Classical Greek into Bosnian.20
The translation of Porphyry’s original text, written in Classical Greek,
was complicated by the fact that at least three interpretations are possible.
In that sense, one could present the claim of Anthony C. Lloyd who states
in the book The Anatomy of Neoplatonism that a special kind of semantics
functions in the works of Porphyry. According to Lloyd, one semantic
level exists in PORPHYRY’S COMMENTARY ON ARISTOTLE’S
3'&.1(5 2), in which
CATEGORIES ( (2 3 2 ) 1(23.3$5+.42
expressions are related to expressions; while, in the text of ISAGOGE
( ()2 &6&'5), another semantic level functions, in which expressions signify
or represent conceptual agenda. [Lloyd, 1998: 53].
We could partially accept this claim and add: Porphyry uses the
semantic triangulation in his works in an undifferentiated manner. In his
text ISAGOGE, expressions such as gender (&$5-.2) and kind ($(#.2)
represent or are related to (1) the natural beings or natural kinds or genders,
(2) themselves as expressions about which a claim is presented in an
Introduction of Porphyry Phoenician, Pupil of Plotinus from Licopole (ISAGOGE),
a parallel edition of original text in Classical Greek and translation into Bosnian. Sarajevo, Dijalog 1/2008, p. 1 – 50. Edited and translated by Nijaz Ibrulj.
20
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utterance and (3) notions of gender and kind as parts of a well-defined
content of the notion (definitions). Thus, expressions in Porphyry’s
work represent either items or expressions or notions. However, the
very conception of Porphyry’s ISAGOGE depends on interpretation of
his semantics.
“One of the conceptions of interpretation of Porphyry’s text ISAGOGE
could be marked as ontological: genders and kinds are observed in the
meanings of genders and kinds of natural beings. That means that the
concept of identity is seen as the relationship between things or beings
or items, and then the predicative scheme is observed and interpreted as
the relation between beings (3. .-) and such characteristics or passivities
(/ 50' (#( / 50') that belong to it per se (3 3.4536 4/ 51".-3 * 0
) 43.5). To interpret all logical generalities as real genders or real kinds
of beings, not as parts of the predicate (* 3'&.1(5 * 3'&.1.4,$5-.-) and
as parts of the subject (4/.*$(,$5-.-) of an expression (+.5&.2 +.5&.2
)/.% -3(*.52) within a kind of the predicate, leads to ontological interpretation. Such interpretation is seen, for example, in translations by Eugen
Rolfes in German, Jonathan Barnes in English and, in part, Hans Günter
Zekl’s German translation.
The second conception of interpretation and translation is, in most
part, linguistic-analytical or rhetorical-grammatical: it is about citing
the terms or expressions and their usage in marking of genders, kinds,
characteristics of kinds, possessive characteristics and differences. It
is about the meaning of the expression for gender (‘a living being’) or
expressions which determine the kind (‘human’), difference, peculiarity
(of a kind), possessive (characteristic). Meaning of an expression is an
analytical hypothesis of, in this case, translation. The focus is on what, for
example, the expression ‘man’ means or to which expression (predicate)
that expression (subject) refers. Such is the example of Italian translation
by Giorgio Grigenti, as well as, in a large part, French translation by Alain
de Liber and Alain-Philippe Segonds. This kind of translation emphasizes
the use of language as means of description.
Third conception of interpretation is, in most part, formal-logical:
it is the division and differentiation between logical generalities, i.e. the
treatment of predicates as logical parts of a definition, their position in the
definition and mutual relationship. Such interpretation is seen in E.W.
Warren’s translation in English. Here, the basic principle of interpretation
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of ISAGOGE is emphasis on structure depositions/definitions and on
description of arrangement of its parts (subject and predicate). All predicabilities are interpreted from the standpoint of structural predication.
Model for this translation must have been the Boethius’ Latin translation
of ISAGOGE.” [Ibrulj, 2009: mns.].
It had been necessary to find one’s own way through the three key
interpretations, understandings and translations of this short work. One
curiosity should be mentioned at this point: so far, three English translations
have appeared (Warren, 1975; Spade, 1994; Barnes, 2003) in which three
different translations of the same text can be found! Translation of
Porphyry’s ISAGOGE by Nijaz Ibrulj is a part of his grand monograph
entitled Porphyry’s Legacy, which is in preparation. In that translation,
250 notes have been added, containing the relevant places of Greek and
Arabic commentators, namely, Alexander Aphrodisius, Ammonius,
Simplicius, Porphyrius (commentary of the Categories), Philoponus,
David, Elias, Iammblichus and Averroes and Avicena (Commentaria
in Aristotelem Graeca IV 3, Berlin, 1891).21
In preparation of his translation, Dr. Nijaz Ibrulj consulted many other translations
of this text into different European languages: Latin translation (Porphyrii Isagoge.
Translatio Boethii.Aristoteles Latinus. I 6-7,ed. L.Minio-Paluello, ad. B.G. Dod, BrugesParis. Desclee de Brouwer, 1966). German translation (1) Porphyrius Einleitung in
die Kategorien. In: Aristoteles Organon, übersetzt und erlautert von Eugen Rolfes.
Band I, Felix Meiner Verlag. Unveranderter Abdruck 1948, der zweiten Auflage von
1925. German translation (2) Porphyrios : Einführung in die Kategorien des Aristoteles
(Isagoge). In : Aristoteles Organon. Band 2 : Kategorien / Hermeneutik oder vom
sprachlichen Ausdruck. Griechisch-Deutsch. Hrsgegeben, übersetzt, mit Einleitungen
und Anmerkungen versehen von Hans Günter Zekl. Velix Meiner Verlag, 1998 p.
155-188. Italian translation (Porfirio Isagoge. Prefazione, introduzione, traduzione
e apparati di Giuseppe Girgenti. Testo greco a fronte. Versione latina di Severino Boezio.
Rusconi Libri, Milano, 1995) French translation (Porphyre Isagoge. Texte grec et
latin, traduction par Alain de Libera et Alain-Philippe Segonds. Introduction et notes
par Alain de Libera. Paris : Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin, 1998) English translation
(1) Porphyry The Phoenician Isagoge. Translation, Introduction and Notes by Edward
W. Warren. Teh Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto, Canada, 1975. English
translation (2) Porphyry the Phoenician, the Pupil of Plotinus of Lycopolis Isagoge.
Translated and Edited by Paul Vincent Spade. In: Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem
of Universals. Porphyry.Boethius.Abelard.Duns Scotus.Ockham. Hackett Publishing
Company.Indianopolis/Cambridge, 1994. English translation (3) Porphyry’s Introduction
by Jonathan Barnes. Oxford University Press, 2003.
21
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Academician Vladimir Premec, professor of ancient and medieval
philosophy at the Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy since 1976, commented
the Bosnian translation of Isagoge by saying:
“Unlike the Latin who, owing to Boethius, had a translation of
Porphyry’s tractate as early as first quarter of 6th century AD, peoples
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the entire region of South-East
Europe and beyond, with the exception of Hellas – Greece, had waited
for a Bosnian translation until early 2008. That is why Nijaz Ibrulj’s
translation is, per se, a manifold cultural and scientific fact and value.”
[Premec, 2009: 129].
What is the status of these “Bosnian commentaries” of Porphyry’s
Isagoge? One could say that they are commentaries of commentaries,
i.e. that the textual base of these commentaries are some of the Arabic
or Latin commentaries, written in Baghdad or Istanbul, that is, in Rome
or Padua, not only commentaries on Porphyry’s work (in any language).
Perhaps it would be best to say that the contents of this text has been
accepted as part of education in confessional communities, which functioned within curricula as an obligatory content of a textbook. “For example,
in the collection of manuscripts of the Sarajevo Institute for Oriental
Science, out of 5263 caudexes, about 300 manuscripts were in the field
of logic. It would be interesting to mention that, out of that number, about
80 manuscripts are either Al-Ebheri’s Isagoge (Isagugi), or commentary or
super-commentary of this work… This, in a way, shows which authors
in our area were most widely read.” [Ljubović, Nametak, 1999: 30].
What I have named in this text as Porphyrian isagogics or Porphyrian
classification of propaedeutic could also be named as Porphyrian
definitorium, an ability of determining meanings of terms and their
relations in a logical and linguistic sense, their ontological status and
use, characteristic of these commentaries. I will here mention only two
introductory sentences22 from his work Isagoge [Porphyrius, p.1]:
[1.1.] -3.; )- &* (5.4 142 .51($ * ( $(); 3'- 36<- / 1 ) 1(23.3$5+$(
* 3'&.1(6<- #(# 2* +(5 - 3.4< &-6<- ( 3(5 &$5-.; * ( 3(5 #( %.1 3(5 3$ $(#.;
* ( 3(5 (#(.- * ( 3(5 24,!$!'*.5; $(; 3$ 3'- 36<- .1(2,6<- )/.5#.2(- * ( .:+6;
$(); 3 /$1( #( (1$52$6; * ( /
) .#$(57$6; "1'2(5,'; .42'; 3'<; 3.4536- 0$61(5 ;
245-3.,.5- 2.( / 1 5#.2(- /.(.45,$-.; /$(1 52., ( #( !1 "$56- 6:2/$1 $)$()2 &6&'<; 31.5/6 3 / 1 3.(<; /1$2!43$51.(; $)/$+0$(<- 36<- ,$- ! 043$516)/$".5,$-.; 9'3', 536- 36<- # ) /+.423$516- 24,,$5316; 23." 9.5,$-.;
22
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“[1.1.] Since it is necessary, Chrysaorius, even for the doctrine of
Aristotle’s predicates, to know what is a genus and what a difference
and what a species and what a property <of an substance> and what an
accident [substratum] <in an substance>, and when reasoning about those
<terms> is useful for determining [defining] and, in whole, for division
<of terms> and for demonstration, I will try to briefly summarize, as is
suitable for an introduction, a short description of discussions of the
old <predecessors> sayings on those <terms>, refraining from complex
issues, still making judgments on the simpler ones.
[1.2.] For example, do genera and species subsist [exist] or are they
only creation of empty thought, and are they, if subsistent [existent]
corporeal or incorporeal, and, finally, are they are separate from or within
something sensible: these <questions> I avoid to consider, since such a
investigation is by far the deepest and requires some other, more complex
examination. I will try now to present to you discussions on these and
issues stated earlier by old <philosophers>, more prone to logical <way
of thinking>, especially the Peripatetics. [33, p. 2 ].”
Bosnian philosophical tradition had Porpyry’s Isagoge available in
Latin and Arabic, and today, it is available in Bosnian. Sadly, the ones who
knew Isagoge and used it in their lectures, both in Latin and in Arabic
(even in Turkish); both in monasteries and seminaries and in madressahs,
considered translating that work, even from those languages into Bosnian
(or into one of the languages spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina), unimportant.
The Period of Administration of the Austro-Hungarian
4. Monarchy in Bosnia and Herzegovina ( 1878 - 1918)
After the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878), the AustroHungarian Monarchy came across a social structure which had collapsed
[1.2.] 4)3(5* /$1( 36<- &$-6<- 3$ * ( $()#6<- 3. ,$- $(3$ 4%$523'*$$(3$ * ( $)- ,.5- (; 8(+ (<; $)/(-.(5 (; *$(<3 ( $(3$ * ( 4%$23'*.53 265, 3 5
$)23(- ' )265, 3 * ( /.53$1.- "61(23 ' $)- 3.(<; ()20'3.(<; * ( /$1(
3 4<3 4%$236<3 / 1 (3'52., ( +$5&$(- ! 043 53'; .42'; 3'<; 3.( 453';
/1 &, 3$(5 ; * ( ++'; ,$(59.-.; #$.,$5-'; $)7$3 52$6; 3. #)) ) .:/6; /$1(
4)36<- * ( 36<- /1.*$(,$5-6- +.&(*653$1.- .( / + (.( #($5+ !.- * ( 3.4536, 5+(23 .( $)* 3.4< /$1(/ 53.4 -4<- 2.( /$(1 52., ( #$(*-45- (
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from within because of the anarchy and corruption of authority in provinces.
On the other hand, the Monarchy introduced a new politically constructive
ideology and new patterns of institutional life. Firstly, Austro-Hungarian
monarchy had tried, for a long period of time and through their representative in Bosnia Benjamin Kalaj, to realize the project of Bosnian nationality (the process which continues to this very day!), but the resistance
of both Serbs and Croats, that is Orthodox and Catholics, was immense.
Secondly, the Monarchy considered Bosnia and Herzegovina a part of the
old Roman Empire and a part of Christendom, which is why it favored
Christianity, primarily Catholic Church. Thirdly, during a century-long
presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Monarchy failed to implement a
unified system of civil education and a unified legal system, but succeeded
in putting down all movements for religious-educational autonomy of
Serbs and Muslims [Kraljačić, 1987: 367-429].
TheAustro-Hungarian monarchy found highly developed confessional
schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as poorly developed civil
schools. By opening more civil schools, the monarchy tried to change that
situation. Such attempts were resisted by confessional communities in
different ways, although some of them, Catholic, for example and partly
Orthodox, were favored by the regime. In the early days of the AustroHungarian occupation, there were about 54 Catholic schools with 56
teachers and about 2.295 students [Papić, 1972: 30].
4.1. Clerical Institutes, Madressahs
and Ruzdijas in the Monarchy
Confessional schools were known as clerical institutes: Orthodox
and Catholic theological schools in Sarajevo and Sharia Law Judiciary
School.
East Orthodox Seminary opened in Reljevo, in 1882. The curriculum
was based on theological subjects. “Lower class students of this school, as
well as of Catholic theological schools, were granted special scholarships
by the National Government, because of their decision to enroll seminaries.
One can see from this example as well that the regime favored these over
other schools.” [Ibid.,151].
Roman Catholic Priest Seminary in Sarajevo was formed under the
influence of the Monarchy, which wanted to control activities and work
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of the Catholic Church from the Vienna Court and in that way decrease
the influence of Rome onto the local population. Bosnian Franciscans
were, in fact, constantly in opposition to such attempts because the act
of nominating the Vrhbosna Archbishop by Vienna deprived them their
parishes, while the Jesuit order supported the Archbishop and the regime
(in Vienna), not the Church authorities (in Rome). Prior to the opening of
the seminary in Sarajevo, the Catholic Archbishop High School in Travnik
had been formed in 1890. It is interesting that the curriculum contained,
apart from theological subjects, many courses in Oriental languages
(Hebrew, Arab, Syrian-Haldeic) and in philosophy.
The Sharia Law Judiciary School in Sarajevo was formed by the
National Government’s Decision in 1887 and existed for five years. Its
curricula contained, among other subjects, Logic, Rhetoric and Stylistic,
Dogmatic, European Law and Sharia procedural law.
Majority of ruzdijas that had been formed in the period of Ottoman
rule, and which had been financed from the meriaf-sanduk fund (adopted
and transformed by the Austro-Hungarian regime) ceased to exist, with the
exception of the reformed ruzdijas in Sarajevo, Mostar, Tuzla, Brcko, Bihac,
Banja Luka or Travnik. In 1906, a special, unified curriculum was
prescribed to these schools (religious instruction, Turkish, Arabic, Reading
of Quran, Arabic alphabet, Serbo-Croatian, calculus, geometry, calligraphy,
geography and history, natural sciences). Ruzdija had been founded in
the time of the Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a special kind
of school, or as “a peculiarity in education of Bosnia and Herzegovina”
[Ibid.,156], that is, as a preparatory school for madressah, characterized
by a more secular curriculum. However, in 1906, a new curriculum was
introduced, giving these schools a more confessional character, an increased
number of lessons in oriental languages and Islamic religious instruction.
In 1913, the National Government passed an order on the abolition of these
schools and their transformation into regular primary schools, open for
pupils of all denominations. [Ibid.,157 ].
Madressahs were financed from the local foundations (Tur. vakuf),
while the National Government showed no interest in their work, treating
them exclusively as confessional schools. “The majority of madressahs
existed in and around Sarajevo and Tuzla and the least in and around
Mostar and Bihac. Gazi Husref-bey’s Madressah in Sarajevo was the best
organized. This school is peculiar because it has been continuously open
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for over 430 years, which is rare both in this country and in the world. In
its time, it was an institution of higher religious education. In the same
way as Catholic teachings dominated the curricula of Western higher
education schools in the time of their forming, so has Islamic teaching
dominated the curriculum of this, in a way the first higher education
school in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” [Ibid.,158 ].
4.2. Individual Works and Authors
Josip Stadler (b. 1843 – d. 1918) was appointed Archbishop of Vrhbosna in 1881. Stadler had previously been a professor of fundamental
theology and philosophy at Zagreb Theological Faculty. He graduated on
philosophical and theological studies in Rome, at the Jesuit Collegium
Romanorum. Upon arriving to Bosnia and Herzegovina, he developed good
relations with Benjamin Kalaj, whose children he secretly christened in
Ilidza, and it is largely thanks to him that the Catholic Church gained a
favored status.23
While still in Zagreb, Stadler translated Tongiorgi’s Logic, a textbook
about which he stated the following in his Foreword: “...believe me, you
will not find issues made clearer and better classified anywhere but in this
logic, known to the whole of Europe, in this book written by praiseworthy
Tongiorgi, un this book taught from at many a university. Because I am
personally assured by this book, I did not want to engage into writing
logic of my own (...). I felt obliged to add a note here and there and to leave
out something here and there, and to give other shape to some things”
[Stadler, 1904: 427]. Stadler’s (Tongiorgi’s) Logic consists of two parts:
LOGIC, PART 1. DIALECTICS. IN SARAJEVO: PUBLISHED
BY VRHBOSNA CHAPTER, 1904. In this part, Stadler deals with formal
or basic logic and methodology, focusing onAristotelian syllogistic, partially
amending it with knowledge related to medieval theory on properties
and roles of terms (proprietates terminorum). This part consists of four
books. Book One: On the First Activity of Our Mind, that is, On UnderJosip Stadler, the Archbishop of Vrhbosna, was accused in many controversial
cases of conversion from Islam into Catholicism. One such example was christening of
underage Fata Omanovic in Mostar, which triggered the national uprising of Muslims
in Herzegovina.
23
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145
standing; Book Two: On the Second Activity of Our Mind, that is, on
Judgment; Book Three: On Third Activity of Our Mind, that is, On
Conclusion and Its Meaning. Book Four: On Proving and Scientific
Method. In a way, Stadler (or Tongiorgi) implicitly follows the structure
of Aristotle’s Organon, starting with Porphyry’s tree and Aristotle’s
Categories, through meanings of words and sentences (On Interpretation),
discussion on syllogism (The First Analitics), discussion on errors in
concluding (Sopist denial). It is unclear why Stadler named this entire part
of logic Dialectics.
LOGIC, PART 2.CRITIC OR NOETICS. In Sarajevo, Published
by Vrhbosna Chapter, 1905. In the second part of his logic, Stadler deals
with issues related to the theory of cognition in widest sense of the word,
from empirical, psychological and phenomenon-related, to cognitive and,
finally, theoretical aspect. This part consists of three books. Book One:
On Nature of Logical Truth and Security. Book Two: On Sources from
Which the Truth of Our Mind Is Drained or on Way It Is Achieved. Book
Three: On Meaning of Truth and Principle of Security. Unlike the first
part (Dialectics), in the second part of his logic, Stadler provides referent
names of authors cited. This part is mostly based on Descartes’ attitudes
presented in his manuscript Rules of Method [Stadler, 1905]. Stadler’s
Logic, as he himself said, is not an authorial work, but it is a valuable
compendium written in our language which could have been of profound
use for a student of theology to get acquainted with the basic concepts of
logic, theory of meaning, cognitive and theological nature of objects and
cognitional subject. In that sense, it was, in its time, a valuable work.
5. The Period of Socialist Regime in the Republic
of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1945 – 1992)
The University of Sarajevo was formed by a decree in 1949 and has
a rich prehistory.24
University of Sarajevo has a prehistory in pre-university forms of education in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are compatible with the institutions of the West. The
Bosniak sources state that “in 1531, Gazi Husref-bey founded Hanikah in Sarajevo,
which is a higher school of sufi philosophy and which was supplemented in 1537 by
an institution in which Islamic sciences were studied. In that sense, three disciplines of
24
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The Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo was formed on November 11
1950, by the Decision of the Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
Department of Philosophy and Sociology was formed in 1956, as the
Department Section for Philosophy formally became independent, and
the following subjects were taught: logic, dialectics, ethics, esthetics,
philosophy, sociology, methodology, etc. Logic, as an individual subject,
with its curriculum and certain number of classes, was introduced to the
curriculum. Muhamed Filipovic taught logic from 1962 until his retirement in 2002. From 1990, Nijaz Ibrulj has been teaching the subject,
together with analytical philosophy, language philosophy, cognitive science,
communication sociology. Since 2008, Kenan Sljivo has been an assistant
on the subjects of logic, cognition theory and cognitive science.25
In high schools throughout the country a significant number of
classes were provided for formal logic, philosophy and psychology.
Although the socialist regime favored the communist party and the idethe classic Catholic universities were fostered here: theology, law and philosophy, with
the addition of the university library. In the Austro-Hungarian period, more precisely, in
1887, the Sharia Law Judiciary School was founded as a five-year collegiate school. The
newer history of Sarajevo University started with opening of the first civic institutions of
higher education, just before and during the World War Two (Faculty of Agriculture
and Forestry, 1940; Faculty of Medicine, 1944 – its work had been revived in 1946;
Faculty of Law and Collegiate Pedagogical School also opened. In 1948, Faculty of
Agriculture and Forestry started working again. In 1949, Faculty of Technical
Engineering opened. On December 2 that same year, appointment of the first Rector
marked the beginning of University of Sarajevo. With the opening of Faculty of
Philosophy in 1950 and Economic Faculty in 1952, the initial stage of formation of
the Sarajevo University was completed.” (http://www.unsa.ba)
25
Kenan Sljivo has so far published a text Quine’s Ontological and Epistemological
Relativity (Sarajevo, Sophos, 1/ 2009). His other two texts are being edited: Intentionality
and interpretation (an essay on philosophy of mind); Representation and Communication. A research on Structural and Semantic Essences f Communication (an
essay in the field of philosophy of communication). So far, two of his translations have
been published: On Referring (P.F. Strawson), Dijalog, Sarajevo, 2008; The Mind –
Body Problem (W. G. Lycan), from Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind (2003),
Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, p. 47. – 65., published in the Sophos Magazine,
Sarajevo, 1/2008, p. 107. – 125. Another two translations of Kenan Sljivo will be
published soon: Entity and Identity (P.F. Strawson), from Entity and Identity (2000),
Oxford, p. 21. – 52., Dijalog, Sarajevo, 2009. Universalis, (P. F. Strawson), from Entity
and Identity, (2000), Oxford, p. 52. – 64., Sophos, Sarajevo, 2009 (in print).
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ological basis of Marxism – Leninism, from which all the dogmatic
frames of philosophy, logic and scientific theory were inserted into curricula; although the orthodoxy of such ideology brought to life forms
and contents of subjects taught in high schools, collegiate schools and
faculties (dialectic materialism, Marxism, etc.), this regime never
banned the formation and work of confessional schools, but had other
means of controlling them, and at other levels.
The Islamic Theological Faculty was founded in Sarajevo, by the
Decision of the Grand Assembly and the Grand Islamic Seniority of the
Islamic Community of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia in
1977. Today, logic is not taught at this faculty, unlike philosophy, psychology and research methods. The Franciscan Theology (Franciscan Theological Faculty)26 was formed in 1968 as part of the Sarajevo University.
The Catholic Theology of Vrhbosna, formed in 1890, is active today, in
full capacity.27
5.1. Authors and Works in Logic
In 1968, a comprehensive study on contemporary logic entitled
PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS OF CONTEMPORARY LOGIC
A Catholic source provides a description of prehistory of the university education.
“From the 14th century onwards, one can speak of the university-level education within
the Franciscan Provincial of Bosna Argentina. In the period after the Council of Trent,
Bosna Agrentina had several of its higher education institutions in Budim, Pozega,
Sibenik, Osijek and elsewhere. Bosnian Franciscans had also acquired education in
Italy and in the countries of Habsburg Empire. In 1851, higher education institutions
were founded in Fojnica and Kresevo, which marked the beginning of modern higher
education in Bosnia and Herzegovina in general. In 1905, in Livno monastery, theological
studies for the entire Bosna Argentina was unified. Theology moved to the St. Anthony’s
Monastery in Bistrik, Sarajevo. In 1942, theological faculty for all Croat Franciscans
was founded in Kovacici, Sarajevo. However, in 1947, the authorities nationalized that
building, so Theology Department was moved back to Bistrik. Since the conditions
there were not suitable for the study of theology, in 1965, construction works began for
the building of Franciscan Theology, in Nedzarici, Sarajevo. I 1968, the construction
works were completed and Theology Department started working in the new building.”
(http://www.wikipedia.com)
27
In the time of writing of this text (August 2009), Monsignor Vinko Puljić and
Rector Faruk Čaklovica held talks in Sarajevo about inclusion of the Vrhbosna Catholic
Theology in the system of Sarajevo University.
26
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THEORIES by Muhamed Filipovic was published in the Sarajevo Faculty
of Philosophy’s collection of works. The author, for the first time, presents
in the text facts related to the contemporary theories of logic, which primarily
developed from philosophy of mathematics and set theory, and then from
philosophy of language, predicate calculus and statement calculus seen
in Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In fact, the
text was written after a series of seminars on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
which Professor Filipovic held in the period of several years at Sarajevo
Faculty of Philosophy [Filipović, 1968].
Book entitled PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE – I by Prof. Dr. Muhamed Filipovic was published in Sarajevo in 1987. The book provides
a comprehensive insight into philosophical and theoretical discussions
on the essence of language from the point of view of ancient and medieval
philosophical theories on language; as well as an insight into the nature of
rational thinking, logical forms and connection between language and
forms, through questions on the essence of nature and mental world of the
man. The discussion on language mainly corresponds to philosophical theories of tradition and with development of modernist philosophical systems
[Filipović, 1987].
The first complete work on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy entitled
PHILOSOPHY OF LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN was published in Sarajevo, in 1978, and is a result of Professor Jelena Berberovic’s engagement
in doctoral thesis. In the period from 1965 to 2007, Jelena Berberovic taught
gnoseology (theory of cognition), at Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy’s
Department of Philosophy and Sociology. Her book encompassed all the
crucial aspects of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and philosophy of logic in
his Tractatus and in Logical Investigations (translation of this work was
published in Belgrade, containing an introduction by Professor Berberovic). [ Berberović, 1978].
Influenced by the ideas and mentorship of Academician Muhamed
Filipovic, an important siècle of researchers and authors formed in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, showing an enormous interest in research on heritage.
In 1984, Amir Ljubovic defended his doctoral thesis at the Sarajevo Faculty
of Philosophy, entitled THE WORKS IN LOGIC BY BOSNIAK
AUTHORS IN ARABIC, which was later (1996) published as a book,
translation of which was published in english in 2008, by the Bril publishing
house in Amsterdam. This monograph is the most important source on
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works in the field of philosophy and logic, written in Arabic in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Amir Ljubovic, together with Fehim Nametak, also wrote
two comprehensive monographs on Hasan Kafi Pruscak’s thought and
works.28 [Ljubović, Nametak, 1999].
In 1989, Nijaz Ibrulj defended his masters thesis at the Sarajevo
Faculty of Philosophy, entitled PHILOSOPHICAL CONTENT OF
GOTTLOB FREGE’S LOGICAL-MATHEMATICALAND SEMANTIC
RESEARCH. The author proved in his thesis the claim that logical,
mathematical and semantic research of the professor of mathematics from
Jena, Gottlob Frege, who is also considered the father of analytical philosophy, are undoubtedly characterized by philosophical content in questions
on sense and meaning of statement, in concept writing29 as language of pure
thought, in observing the attitude or statement as function, in contextual
definition, in differentiating the signe and signifie, in treating the true value
of a subject. This work, the first scientific account on Gottlob Froge
in former Yugoslavia, introduced for the first time the original text and
interpretation of the issue of logic and analytical philosophy, thus setting
aside the Marxist and dialectic research on logic (as the property of material)
of reflection [Ibrulj, 1989].
In the monograph edited by Ljubovic, Amir/Nametak, Fehim (1999): Hasan Kafi
Pruscak. Sarajevo-Publishing, authors state the following on p. 26 . 27: “The emergence
of first translations of Aristotle’s logical discussions and Porphyry’s Isagoge is mostly
thought to date back to the first half of the 9th century. However, some researchers
emphasize that Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. cca 757) was first to translate Aristotle’s Categories
(Al-Maqulat), On Interpreting (Al-Ibara) and Analitics (Al-qiyas).” Authors here
refer to Carl Brockelmann and his work Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, Vol. I,
Meimar 1898, p.158. At this page, Carl Brockelmann speaks of Ibn Al Muqaffi as
of a translator of Khalila and Dimna, works from Indian tradition (panchatantra).
29
It is interesting that a copy of Frege’s book Begriffsschrift appeared in Sarajevo
not earlier than 1989. The copy was brought to Sarajevo by the author of the masters
thesis, having found it in Zagreb, at School of Engineering. That was, at the time, the
only copy of this book in libraries of former Yugoslavia. After that, the author collected
and brought other Frege’s works from Germany and England. Until then, nobody had
written a monography on Gottlob Frege’s philosophy in former Yugoslavia. In 1989,
author’s translation of Frege’s study entitled Der Gedanke. Eine logische Untersuchungen, published in 1966 in a collection Logische Untersuchungen, edited and
published by Günter Patzig, was published in Sarajevo (Dijalog, 1/1989).
28
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6. The Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995 - 2009)
In the period from 1992 to 1995, the Yugoslav National Army of
the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia and local Serb
insurgents (chetniks) from Bosnia and Herzegovina, assembled around
a national party – the Serb Democratic Party, waged aggression against the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Socialist Republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina ceased to exist and the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
which had remained within its borders, was divided and reduced to a state
community of two entities, one of them being the so-called Republic of
Srpska, the authorities of which are continually conducting the policy of
separation from Bosnia and Herzegovina; while within the other entity
(Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the political leadership of the Croat
people are continually demanding the formation of a third entity, which
means Bosniaks and Croats should divide their entity in two parts.
6.1. Separate Educational Institutions
In late 1995, the University of Sarajevo (which never ceased to exist
or function formally) renewed its material activities at faculties and by
curricula. After the Dayton Agreement defined Bosnia and Herzegovina
as a state consisting of two entities, a number of ethnically clean schools
were formed in the Serb entity, while a phenomenon of separate educational
systems based on ethno-national programs (two schools under one roof!)
came to life in the entity in which Bosniaks and Croats share political
authority. Ethno-national and ethno-confessional schools and universities
were formed everywhere, as well as a significant number of private
universities in recent times.
During the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, on November
11 1994, the Catholic School Center “St. Joseph” was founded in Sarajevo
by the Archbishopric of Vrhbosna. Apart from this center in Sarajevo, the
Archbishopric of Vrhbosna also founded Catholic school centers in Tuzla,
Zenica, Konjic, Travnik and Zepce. As part of this activity 30, primary
Two schools have been formed within the Catholic School Center “St. Paul” in
Zenica, which opened in the fall of 1995. They are the Primary and General High School,
counting 545 pupils at the beginning of 2001/2002 school year. Catholic School Center
30
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schools have also been opened within the Catholic School Center, consisting
of 28 classes, as well as the general secondary school and Medical High
School, consisting of eight classes, with the purpose of preparing the
students for two vocations: nurse – technician and physiotherapeutic
technician.
As part of bilateral cooperation between Bosnia and Herzegovina and
the Republic of Turkey, a significant number of joint educational institutions
in Bosnia and Herzegovina has opened. Thus, the Turkish – Bosnian
College was formed as a private educational institution which exists and
acts within the Bosna – Sema educational institution, founded in 1996,
with the aim of providing assistance to education institutions in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In the course of several years and within this institution,
the Sarajevo College, the Una – Sana College, the International Primary
School of Sarajevo, the International Primary School of Tuzla and Zenica
were founded. At the fourth year of studies, one school hour of logic is
planned in the curricula of the college and international schools. Two school
hours are reserved for philosophy and sociology. Half of the teaching
staff is from Turkey and lessons are held in Turkish and English.
After 1995, several new universities have been formed in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, both “state” (cantonal, almost municipal) and private. Apart
from that, a number of new departments have been formed at universities
which had formed earlier. In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(the bigger entity), University of Bihac, University of (West) Mostar (there,
at the Department of Philosophy, logic is taught as a subject: Logic I and
Logic II), University of Zenica, which also consists of Islamic Pedagogical
Academy (Zenica), Faculty of Philosophy (Tuzla), Faculty of Humanities
(East Mostar). University of East Sarajevo, which consists of a significant
“St. Francis” in Tuzla was formed in the fall of 1995. Then, the general High School
was opened and in 2001 the Primary School was also formed. In 1998, the Catholic
School Center “Peter Barbaric” in Travnik was fromed and is still active in the building
of once widely-known General High School of Travnik. Teaching process is conducted
in two schools: Primary and General High School. Along with the General High School,
a seminary was opened for priest candidates, as well as a boarding school for pupils
from other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Catholic School Center “Don Basco”
in Zepce was formed in 1999. It consists of Vocational School, attended by cca 250 pupils,
General High School with about 240 pupils, and the General High School branch in
Usora with about 100 pupils and about 40 professors.
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number of faculties (Faculty of Philosophy, where Logic I and Logic II with
Methodology are taught), University of Banja Luka, which also consists
of a number of faculties, including Faculty of Philosophy, have all been
formed in the smaller entity. Interestingly, simultaneously with the formation
of universities in Bosniak cantons, the Faculty of Islamic Science (Bihac)
and the Islamic Pedagogical Academy (Zenica) have been also formed.
Apart from the universities mentioned, a number of private universities and schools of higher education have opened.31 Not a single of the
universities mentioned is characterized by a systematic treatment of
any of the branches of logic as science, while the subject Contemporary
Philosophy provides only the basics in the field.
However, in spite of the developments, there are still parts of the
society and institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina that remained multicultural and multinational, both in the sense of the policy of enrolment
and curricula. University of Sarajevo is one such institution, especially
Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy, with all its departments. That enabled the
works of Aristotle and Porphyry to be studied in Greek; as well as the study
of mathematic (symbolistic logic) in works of Cantor, Frege, Russell, Gödel,
Carnap, Wittgenstein; the study of philosophical logic, philosophy of
languages and analytical philosophy in the original works of Quine, Austin,
Strawson, Davidson, Putnam; the study of cognitive science in the works
of Searle, Churchland, Dennet, Block, Minski, Fodor; all regardless of the
pressure of nationalists and apartheid followers, who seek ethnically clean
education, based on their (by genocide or by ethnical cleansing conquered)
territory, and in spite of the demands to teach, for example Arabic logic.
Private institutions of higher education in Bosnia and Herzegovina are: International University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, American
University in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faculty for Public Management, Sarajevo;
International University of Central Europe, Sarajevo; the Philip Noel-Baker International
University, Sarajevo; Sarajevo Graduate School of Business, Sarajevo; Franciscan
Theology, Sarajevo; the Aperion University, Banja Luka; Faculty of Communication
Sciences, Banja Luka; Faculty of Business Engineering and Management, Banja Luka;
Faculty of Cosmetics and Esthetics, Banja Luka; Faculty of Safety and Protection, Banja
Luka; University of Business Studies, Banja Luka; Faculty of Entrepreneurship and
Business, Prijedor; the „Janjos“ College for IT and Management, Prijedor; The
„Singerija“ University, Bijeljina; Faculty for Faculty of Service Management, Doboj;
the Gradiska College for Business Management; the „Slobomir“ University, Bijeljina.
31
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6.2. Authors and Works in Logic
In 1999, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC by Nijaz Ibrulj was published
in Sarajevo. The book raises a number of questions in a new way on logic
and its three main fields (starting from of ontological and epistemological
presuppositions): (I) the field of ontological or metaphysical concept of
logic (the basic concepts of pre-Socratic henologic, Plato’s dialogism/
dialectics, Aristotelian syllogistic and Porphyrian isagogics); (II) the
field of atomistic concept of logic (the basic insights into symbolic logic
of Gottlob Frege, Rudolf Carnap, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Alfred Tarski), and (III) the field of holistic or holophrastic concept of logic
(logic and philosophy of logic of Quine, Austin, Strawson, Davidson,
Putna). In this book three different critical and analytical idioms are put
in relation at the way of problematising the question of the representation
of the multyple logical generalization.The fourth part of the book is entitled
Principle of the Logical and is the author’s heuristic analysis of the problem
of conceptual scheme description.32 [Ibrulj, 1999].
In that period, and as a result of such initiatives, interest of researchers in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the issues of epistemology
and methodology increased, thus the status of logic in contemporary
philosophical and scientific research also. One extraordinary work should
be emphasized at this point, namely, RATIONALITY, LANGUAGE,
COMMUNITY: THE TRADITIONAL MODEL OF KNOWLEDGE VS.
PLURALISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY by Senadin Lavic, PhD, methodology
professor at the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo. The work was
published in 2004 in Sarajevo and it represents a significant contribution
to the study of role and status of logic in methodological and epistemological
field [Lavić, 2004].
In that part, the author proposes several new views: principle of the logical is an
ideal matrix of identification and re-identification of the logical principles (identity
and contradiction need to permanently be identified in each sentence); it serves for
detection of logical stereotype in every construction of thought and language. Logical
sequences (if – then) of the stereotype stimulate the language sequences of its expression.
The stereotype is realized as a network of intra-conceptual, inter-conceptual and extraconceptual aspects of content and true values that are determined sequentially. By
multiplication of the notion content, by generalization and individualization of its
form, we reach orthonimy, orthology and orthography of a logical stereotype.
32
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In the seventeen chapters of the book entitled PHILOSOPHICAL
RESEARCH: LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY, LANGUAGE, Academician
Muhamed Filipovic33 presented the internal relation between logic and
history of logic, history of problems of logic and its relations with other
fields of science, primarily its relation with philosophy to which it
necessarily belongs. In the Preface, Filipovic situates logic as a philosophical
discipline and its place in the system of education in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
influenced by the Ottoman culture and language, noticing that logic of that
period was tied to the theological discourse (exegesis) in both Catholics
and Muslims. On the other hand, the connection between logic and other
disciplines, primarily mathematics and linguistics, resulted in the detachment of grand flows of philosophical thinking and logic [Filipović, 2005].
As part of research within the European Programs (6 EURP) a
monograph by Nijaz Ibrulj entitled A CENTURY OF REARRANGING:
ESSAYS ON IDENTITY, KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIETY (Sarajevo,
2005) was published. The book is dedicated to conceptual research on
logic of social triangulation which consists of identity, knowledge and
social ontology. The essays selected in the monograph deal with interaction
of the basic logical notion, the notion of identity and knowledge in logical,
linguistic, scientific, technological, social, metaphysical, mathematical,
ontological and literary area.34 The book mentions for the first time the
importance of Zadeh’s fuzzy logic and soft computing in the sphere of
cognitive and psychological research, and, for the first time also, nanotechnology and nanoscience are brought into connection with philosophy,
metaphysics and social ontology, via their connection with logic and artificial
intelligence, Computining with Word and Computining with Perception
[Ibrulj, 2005].
In 2005, at Sarajevo Faculty of Engineering (Information Technology),
Nedzad Dukic defended his dissertation EQUIVALENCE OF FUZZY
FUNCTIONAL AND FUZZY POLYSEMIC DEPENDENCIES WITH
Academician Muhamed Filipovic, professor of philosophy and logic at Sarajevo
(from 1967 to 2002) is an author of numerous texts and books in the field of philosophy,
sociology, historiography and political science.
34
Several basic and new conceptual syntagms have been introduced in the essays,
such as: “knowledge-based society”, “intelligence space ambience”, “programmable
substance”, “information technology”, “tolerance-lead society”, “transnational identity”,
“century of rearranging”.
33
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FUZZY LOGIC. Author of this doctoral dissertation set a task of finding
equivalence between the parts of two fields: the fuzzy relation bases on the
one hand and a part of fuzzy logic on the other. He achieved his goal through
formulas in fuzzy logic, by conjoining certain fuzzy formulas with the fuzzy
dependencies, that is, he proved that if fuzzy functional dependency is
true, then it meets the conditions of the conjoined fuzzy formula and vice
versa. Furthermore, the author of this doctoral dissertation proved that
“if from one set of fuzzy dependencies follow some other dependencies,
than it follows that from that set of fuzzy formulas some other, suitable
fuzzy formula follows and, of course, vice versa.” [Dukić, 2005: vi].
A group of researchers, assembled in the society Academia Analitica,
showed interest in artificial intelligence, cognitive science and fuzzy
logic. The book FUZZY LOGIC IN ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS by
Zikrija Avdagic (Sarajevo, 2008) represent such interest. Zikrija Avdagic
is a professor at the Sarajevo Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Informatics, where he teaches artificial
intelligence and bioinformatics. Focus of his research is methods and
algorithms of fuzzy computing, neuron networks, evolutionary computing,
biomedical engineering and real time systems.35 The book Fuzzy Logic in
Engineering Applications focuses, in the form of technical-technological
handbook (or university textbook), with complex issues of techno-rational
procedures, description of methods and techniques of operating with
phenomena of logical designing and informational production of intelligent
systems and with logic and mathematics, which support that description
by offering representative evidence for them. The author speaks of origin
and application of the fuzzy logic, on rules of concluding and approximate
reasoning, on fuzzy models and algorithms, on fuzzy management, on
computer modeling, on fuzzy control in different technological applications
[Avdagić, 2008].
Since 1995 onwards, international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has several times attempted to establish an educational system based
Professor Dr. Zikrija Avdagic realized, through international cooperation (UNCC
Charlotte - U.S., Erlangen-Nuernberg-BDR, Paderborn-BDR, Bristol - UK), a number
of researchs, the results of which have been published in collected papers, journals and
books, all indexed at referential databases (IEEE - Explorer, Inspec, Ebesco, Mathscinet,
ACM Digital Library and Eurographics).
35
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on the principles of constitutionality and equality of peoples, languages,
confessions and cultures in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Attempts made
through the non-governmental organizations and their interventions
(assistance) in the process of creating common basis and standards in the
field of primary, secondary and higher education have been futile, in part
because of the (inner) obstruction of the concept of peoples’ constitutivity.
Both governmental and non-governmental organizations have contributed
delegitimation of the educational concept, for they engaged, each for their
own reasons, various “experts” for writing student textbooks, who lacked
the elementary academic education (research papers, expert papers, masters
thesis, doctoral thesis) and who simply rewrote old and stale, someone else’s
textbooks (which is an incredibly spread phenomenon in the academic
life of Bosnia and Herzegovina!).36
Conclusion
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is not only one truth or theory, true
of false, on anything, including education and development of individual
sciences. That fact is not, by itself, negative, but has not been accepted or
realized as a need for radical interpretation of identity37 of the other and
of the different; an interpretation which would open a possibility for
interpreting the other identity the way it interprets itself and to re-interpret
it in intercultural coexistence. The study of logic in different ideological
and political systems, in the environment of confessional and cultural
differences, within differently based and oriented traditions and educational
paradigms, could not have offered more than the local (“ejalet-like”,
“provincial”) adoption of some regional forms and contents, that were
adjusted to the local milieu and educational system defined by a ruling
regime.
If some compatible elements have ever existed in educational agenda
and form in any period of time, in an interactive reaction such was the
medieval period in Europe, in Mediterranean, in Byzant and Near East in
“Authors” of those “textbooks”, even the ones that concern logic, are not worth
mentioning in this text.
37
On radical interpretation of identity, see N. Ibrulj (2008): Radical Interpretation
of Identity (http://www.academia-analitica.org)
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157
the time of the Middle Age, or in the midst of differently composed matrix
within a culturally, ethnically, politically, nationally, linguistically diverse
and interactively formed “geographical” bolster such is Bosnia and Herzegovina and its history, then Aristotelian logic (syllogistic) and prophyrian
propedeutic classification (isagogic), as part of the ancient heritage, played
a significant role in the educational base, which, again, was used differently
in the process of development of ethnical and confessional identities through
education, giving, in the end, different civilization results. One could
conclude that Aristotelian logic (syllogistic) and prophyrian isagogic,
which were primarily discussed here, had influenced the development
of Christian and Islamic culture in general, to a greater extent than the
Christian and Islamic culture contributed the development of logic and
classificational isagogic (logical propedeutics).
The basic insight into education, into the content and forms of
education in the Ottoman period in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1463 – 1878),
shows that the paragon or paradigm for all ethnical and confessional
communities was in a culture and in a political system of a regional
character; while those paradigms were implemented locally, under cultural
and political conditions of a territory in which members of ethnical and
confessional communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina lived. That was the
situation in education as well, and with the development of logic: works
on logic written by Islamic authors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Arabic,
were extracted from the Arabic logic, or, better yet, from the Islamic logic,
which consisted of Al-Kindi’s, Ibn Sina’s or Al-Farabi’s comments of
Aristotle’s or Porphyry’s manuscripts that were transferred to Bosnia and
Herzegovina through comments of those comments; more precisely,
through works written by Sadudin Taftazani, Al-Fenari, Al-Ebheri, AlUrmevi, Al-Kazvani (all pupils and followers of Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd).
Those works were available to Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during
their schooling in Istanbul / Constantinople.
In the same way, works on logic written in Latin by our people
(Franciscans, lecturers, philosophy professors) had a paradigm of their
own, namely, in the works studied in Rome, Vienna or in Venice; works
that were also written by commentators of Aristotle and Plato, or works of
medieval scholars like Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Lombard or
Peter of Spain, all of whom wrote summe and summulae logicales. Those
were mostly textbooks, notes, systematizations, thesis, syllabi for lectures,
rather than the original and author works in the field of logic.
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One can only conditionally speak of originality and authorship of the
manuscripts written in both Arabic and in Latin. Those are compendiums,
textbooks, notes of lecturers or student notes and transcripts from books.
Their only purpose was in the teaching process in Bosnia and Herzegovina
at the time. However, they are an important testimony on the kind of
educational agenda available to the people in education. Apart from that,
the existence of these manuscripts, both in Latin and in Arabic, testifies of
a significant advantage of studying logic compared to the other branches
of philosophy and (non-theological) science. It is possible that this
focusing on logic (syllogistic) and its application in the frame of theological
issues, contributed the interruption of development of Islamic sciences,
while the Renaissance and humanist issues outside that circle of questions
contributed the development of modern positivistic sciences, as well as
humanistic and social sciences in the Western world, with logic playing
one of the leading roles both then and today.
As we can see from the above-presented account, one cannot trace an
individual development of logic and authentic contribution to the science
of logic in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although the fact that logic had
become a part of the teaching process in both confessional and state schools
is very important. Rise of interest in logic in today’s time (works on logic
written in the Bosnian language and translations of works on logic from
Classical Greek) are more of an exception to the rules of scholars of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, whose interest has been higher in confessional than
in expert activities, in historical, metaphysical and speculative knowledge,
confessional dogmas and political practice; in other words, in ideology
which has always been a speculative structure (structure of the structure
of the society) within which there is a possibility of realization of a society
which would contain social groups or individuals who are beyond the
effect of social principles they themselves defined as valid.38
Contrary to some authors’ claims, the society of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not
divided, nor is the state unstable. The society is irrational (which does not mean nonrational) and that is why the state is dysfunctional. A society is irrational if it is inconsistent and incoherent because it systematically endangers the principles it had, by
itself, defined, which altogether leads to the loss of fact of the set of norms and rules and
deontic values upon which the objects, facts and processes of social and political ontology
are based (social and political institutions and their decisions). And because it does
all that consciously.
38
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159
The regimes that would come and go in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
whose origin has almost always been regional, beyond the country itself,
favored one confessional or political community and subordinated schools
and cultural institutions of the community by the decrees and activities in
the field of education: the Ottoman empire favored the Islamic confessional
community with mektebs, madressahs and ruzdijas; Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy favored the Catholic confessional community and, in part, the
Orthodox community, encouraging the work of seminaries and divinity
colleges; Socialist Republic favored the Communist party, whose programs
(dialectical materialism) were used to derive university and school curricula
and their secular (once secularist) orientation. The Dayton Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the territory of which, as a whole, does not have a single
regime or ideology, has opened a Pandora’s box in the field of education:
satisfying single-national, confessional paradigm in its territory, under the
authority of its own, without any criteria and at any cost.
In the end, what can be said of works on logic written in Arabic and
on manuscripts from the Bosnian monasteries written in Latin? What can
be said about the philosophy of language, the philosophy of logic, about the
fuzzy logic and about Bosnian translations from Classical Greek and works
on logic written in the Bosnian language? What should the relationship
towards heritage and what should the relationship towards the contemporary
times be like? They are a part of our culture and a part of our intellectual
and spiritual world, showing by their mere existence that Bosnia and
Herzegovina is capable of interaction with forms and contents that appear
and disappear within the world, global, civilizational community of the
peoples who, apart from the periods of mind depravation, know of the great
eras of humanistic, spiritual and social development in which logic plays
a decisive role.
Bosnia Porphyriana is not a heretic metaphor for Bosnia and Herzegovina, although the biggest heresy in the country is to claim that civic,
multinational and multicultural society is possible. That is neither a
Unitarian metaphor, which centers one people and one identity as the base,
through a privileged national monologue or through a privileged counterfact
historiography. It is rather a call for an interactive (constitutional)39
See more in: Nijaz Ibrulj, National Dogmatism or Logic of Consociation?,
Pregled, 1-2, Sarajevo, 2006. Some authors in Bosnia and Herzegovina have come to
39
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participation in a civilization favoring freedom as the goal and rationality,
ethics of responsibility, tolerance, radical interpretation of identity and
transnational socialization as means; all this regardless of confessional and
ethnic affiliation; all at the same time and in the same territory. Bosnia
Porphyriana is a cultural metaphor for an open source country; the
source which should be kept open for all the people, whether Christian,
Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, atheistic or for any other “language” of today’s
time. Neither of them is foreign or alien and neither is incomprehensible
or beyond understanding and interpretation. In spite of all, or because
of all, this text emphasizes that part of the heritage and that moment of
contemporariness of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which logic was or is
a part of philosophical educational agenda and in which the work of
Porphyry, ISAGOGE, was taught at schools and is taught at universities
today, by all ethnic and confessional communities. That is why I am of
the opinion that the syntagm Bosnia Porphyriana should become a part
of the index of notions which characterize this country.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
1887
[1] ΠΟΡΦΙΡΙΟΥ ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ ΤΟΥ ΦΟΙΝΙΚΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΜΑΘΗΤΟΥ
ΠΛΩΤΙΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΛΥΚΟΠΟΛΙΤΟΥ . [in:] Porphyrii Isagoge et in
Aristotelis Categorias Commentarium, ed. A.Busse, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol.IV (1), 1887.
understand the concept of consociation as the concept of congregation (myth – 1), not
as the concept related to the peoples’ constitutivity and primordialism of an individual,
the issue of private ownership, human rights and liberties at the same territory in the
same time and for any concept of the society and state. Others have left the concept
of constitutivity of peoples seeing it worng and are now representing the concept of
primordial status of a people for the past and future of Bosnia and Herzegovina (myth
– 2). I think both opinions are wrong and that Bosnia and Herzegovina needs a rational
and functional state model, not the model of ideology formed on a myth – 1 or myth
– 2, that is, the one made in either political geography or political historiography.
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1891
[2] Ammonius. In Aristotelis Categorias Commentarius. Commentaria
in Aristotelem Graeca IV 3 (Berlin, 1891).
1904
[3] Stadler, Josip. Logika. Dio 1: Dijalektika. Sarajevo: Kaptol vrhbosanski, 1904.
1905
[4] Stadler, Josip. Logika. Dio 2: Kritika ili noetika. Sarajevo: Kaptol
vrhbosanski,1905.
1965
[5] Ćurić, Hahrudin. Školske prilike Muslimana u Bosni i Hercegovini, 1800-1878. Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 1965.
1968
[6] Filipović, Muhamed. Filozofski problemi suvremenih logičkih
teorija. Sarajevo: Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu. Radovi. Knjiga IV,
1966 /67. Poseban otisak, 1968, pp.229-263.
[7] Peters, Francis . Aristotle and the Arabs : the Aristotlian tradition
in Islam. New York : New York University Press, 1968.
1972
[8] Papić, Mitar. Školstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini za vrijeme austrougarske okupacije. Sarajevo:Veselin Maselša, 1972.
1974
[9] Smith, Andrew. Porphyry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition. A
Study in Post-Platonian Neoplatonism. The Hague: Martin Nijhoff, 1974.
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1978
[10] Berberović, Jelena. Filozofija Ludwiga Wittgensteina. Sarajevo:
Svjetlost, 1978.
1987
[12] Kraljačić, Tomislav. Kalajev režim u Bosni i Hercegovini
(1882-1903). Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1987.
[13] Filipović, Muhamed. Filozofija jezika I. Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1987.
1989
[14] Ibrulj, Nijaz. Filozofijski sadržaj logičko-matematičkih i semantičkih istraživanja Gottloba Fregea. Magistarski rad. Sarajevo: Filozofski
fakultet u Sarajevu, 1989, p.147.
[15] Ljubović, Amir: Da li jeAl-Abharijevo djelo »Īsāġūğī« adaptacija
Porfirijevog “Eisagoge”. Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju. Orijentalni institut
u Sarajevu.Sarajevo 1989. Vol.38. Str.217.)
1995
[16] Augustin, Aurelije. O državi Božjoj. De Civitate Dei. Latinski i
hrvatski tekst. S latinskog izvornika preveo Tomislav Ladan. Drugo izdanje.
Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1995.
1996
[17] Ljubović, Amir. Logička djela Bošnjaka na arapskom jeziku.
Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut, 1996.
1998
[18] Hrkać, Serafin . Filozofijski manuskripti na latinskom jeziku
u Bosni Srebrenoj. Mostar: Ziral, 1998.
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1999
[19] Ibrulj, Nijaz. Filozofija logike. Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing,
1999.
[20] Kasumović, Ismet. Školstvo i obrazovanje u bosasnkom ejaletu
za veijeme osmanske uprave. Mostar: Islamski kulturni centar Mostar, 1999.
[21] Ljubović, Amir / Nametak, Fehim. Hasan Kafija Pruščak. Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 1999.
2004
[23] Handbook of the History of Logic. Volume 1. Greek, Indian and
Arabic Logic. Edited by Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods. Elsevier, North
Holland, 2004.
2005
[25] Filipović, Muhamed. Filozofska istraživanja: logika, filozofija,
jezik. Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 2005.
[26] Dukić, Nedžad . Ekvivalentnost fuzzy funkcionalnih i fuzzy
višeznačnih zavisnosti sa fuzzy logikom. Doktorska disertacija. Sarajevo:
Elektrotehnički fakultet. Odsjek za računarstvo i informatiku, 2005.
[28] Ibrulj, Nijaz. Stoljeće rearanžiranja. Sarajevo: Filozofsko društvo
Theoria, 2005.
[29] Berchman, Robert M. Porphyry Against the Christinans. Leiden,
Boston: Brill, 2005.
2008
[30]: Handbook of the History of Logic. Volume 2. Mediaeval and
Renaissance Logic. Edited by Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods. Elsevier,
North Holland, 2008. pp.281-346.
[31] Šljivo, Kenan. Quineov ontološki i epistemološki relativitet. Sarajevo, Sophos, 2008, br.1, pp. 9-25.
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[32] Avdagić, Zikrija. Fuzzy logika u inžinjerskim aplikacijama.
Sarajevo: Sarajevo Univerzity Press, 2008.
[33] UVOD PORFIRIJA FENIČKOG UČENIKA PLOTINA IZ
LIKOPOLA. ISAGOGE. Isagoge. Paralelno grčko-bosansko izdanje teksta.
Priredio i sa starogrčkog izvornika preveo dr. Nijaz Ibrulj. Sarajevo, Dijalog,
2008, br.1. pp. 1-50.
2009
[34] Premec, Vladimir. Kulturnoznanstvena vrednota. Sarajevo,
Dijalog, 2009,br.1, pp.128-132.
[35] Ibrulj, Nijaz. Porfirijevo naslijeđe. Sarajevo, 2009 [rukopisna
građa].
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Borjana Miković
Faculty of Political Sciences
University of Sarajevo
UDK 364.63-027.553 : 328.34 (497.6)
FAMILY VIOLENCE LEGISLATION IN THE FEDERATION
OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Summary
This paper provides an outline of family violence legislation in the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as defined by the Law on Protection
from Family Violence, Family Law and Federal Criminal Law, together
with the definition of violence and its forms. Prohibition of violence on
the basis of sexual orientation in “private” and “public” life, as defined
by the Law on Gender Equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, passed at
the state level, thus in force in both entities, is also partially discussed.
Critical analysis of legislative acts has clearly shown a discrepancy
between the above-mentioned laws, both in the sense of determining
mechanisms and in the sense of ways of protection against family violence.
For example, the Law on Protection against Family Violence defines family
violence as a criminal act, under the jurisdiction of the regular courts, and,
at the same time, it determines security measures issued by courts for
criminal offenses. Apart from lack of experience at courts for criminal
offenses, which almost sporadically issue the sanctions, difficulties in
implementation of security measures determined by the Law are also
present in implementation of the measures issued, which is followed by
a number of other difficulties. Inexistence of institutions for protection
and help to the victims of family violence, as well as institutions for
obligatory recovery and treatments of abusers, inexistence of alimony
funds for temporary help to the victims of family violence, are only some
of the indicators which show not only the lack of long-term solutions,
but also the lack of complementarity between the legal acts and their
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167
implementation possibilities, as well as the insufficient engagement of
the state in solving the problems related to family violence.
Key words: violence, family, victim, abuser, law, protection, sanction,
help, prevention.
1. Definition and Forms of Family Violence
Family violence, a problem probably as old as human society, became
subject-matter of scientific research and a part of social concerns as late
as the second half of the 20th century. Constant disintegration of the once
dominant, traditional nuclear family in the majority of contemporary
societies and the increasingly present awareness on human rights,
especially concerning the rights of separate groups, for example, children,
women and the elderly, who are, at the same time, members of the so-called
nuclear, that is, expanded family1, slowly lead to a change in understanding
of the generally-accepted myth that “the family is a paradise in the merciless
world” (Milić, 2007: 39).
Various contemporary studies (Unicef, 1999: 80-83; Nowakowska,
1999) have shown that the family, apart from providing emotional, social
and material safety to its members, may also be a setting in which one or
more of its members are exposed to different kinds of violence and abuse
from closest relatives.
Several definitions of family violence have been provided in literature.
One common characteristic of all the definitions is that the very act of
violence is marked by the behavior of the abuser, through a display of power
and control over the victim, as well as through the use of force, intimidation
and manipulation, which create a feeling of fear, insecurity and dependence
on the part of the victim and always include the infliction of physical or
psychological pain and suffering on the victim.
Nuclear family is a family group consisting of a mother, a father (or one of the two)
and children supported by their parents.
Extended family is a group consisting of close relatives, not only a married couple
and their children, who live in one household or in a close and uninterrupted relation
(Gidens, 2003: 714, 716)
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At the international level, Recommendation REC (2002) 5 of the
European Committee of Ministers to Member States on the protection of
Women against Violence (20002: 5) defines family violence as “violence
which occurs in the family or domestic unit, including physical or mental
aggression, emotional or psychological abuse, incest, rape between spouses,
regular or occasional partners or cohabitants, crimes committed in the name
of honor, female genital or sexual mutilation and other traditional practice
harmful for women such as forced marriages.”
In naming different kinds of family violence, that is, violence among
“cohabitants” (physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, etc.), this
definition does not particularly emphasize the segment of financial and
labor exploitation, as an extremely complex form of violence which can,
in the broadest sense, be subsumed under the term of physical, that is,
psychological violence, since the majority of forms of family violence
are entwined. This said, it is possible to distinguish even sometimes very
subtle nuances of certain forms of family violence against women, children
and elderly persons, groups which most frequently fall victims to family
violence.2
Trust which a victim feels towards the abuser, prior to the very act of
violence, is a common characteristic of family violence, alongside tolerance
of violence which is related to social norms and values, as well as stereotypes about family life, especially against children and the elderly.
In literature (Ajduković, Pavleković, 2002: 12), causes of family
violence, which can be related to the increase of the rate violence in the
The Bejing Platform (1995) defines violence against women as any act of genderbased violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological
harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occuring in public or private life.
One of the most frequently-cited definitions of (especially physical) abuse of children
in the family (Gil, 1973: 115) is: Physical abuse of children is a deliberate use of physical
force or deliberate omission by parents or caretakers to perform certain actions in interaction with the child during its upbringing, which aims at hurting, injuring or destructing
the child.
World Health Organization (2002) defines abuse of the elderly as individual or
recurring act, or lack of certain activities, which occur in any form of relationship of
expectations or trust and which cause damage, pain, troubles and/or affliction to an
elderly person.
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169
society, are most frequently explained through interactive effects of several
factors, most important of which are:
Subjective-psychological characteristics, of both the victim and the
abuser, that is of a member or members of the family who suffer the violence
(structure and characteristics of a personality, problems in emotional
maturing and development, adopted values and convictions, etc.).
Socio-cultural characteristics in which family plays a key role, together
with economic relations and situation (economic insecurity, unemployment), characteristics and norms of the local community, laws and their
implementation.
Family characteristics (dynamics, roles and patterns of behavior
between family members and in relations between partners) are, to a greater
or lesser extent, reflected on children.
In the family, a child will develop the sense of trust or mistrust towards
the environment, depending on whether his/her basic needs, emotional and
physical, are satisfied. For example, a child which is abused during the early
years of life will show, besides insecure devotion to parents, difficulties in
the establishment of trust towards other people. By growing up, that child
will slowly develop a negative image of the world and of him/herself and
will understand the world in accordance with what he/she has experienced
at home (Killen 2001:75) That is why violence experienced in childhood
often results in violent behavior in adulthood. Data on incidence of intergenerational transfer of violence, as a model of upbringing and behavior
towards children, are varied indeed. Estimates on victimization in childhood
among the population of parents range between 7 to an incredible 70 per
cent (according to Ajduković, Pećnik, 2000: 69, Spatz-Widom, 1989).
Different studies (Nikolić-Ristanović, 2008; Petrović, Meško, 2008)
have shown that family violence is a criminal act which in most cases is
not reported because of the following reasons: aggressive behavior in the
family is considered to be a private problem, the act of reporting such
an act is seen as violation of dignity and a disgrace, fear of revenge, etc.
2. Legal Protection from Family Violence
in the Federation of BiH
The constitutional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina – two entities
(Federation BiH and RS) and Brčko District – has imposed a separate
institutional legal frame, so that the entities and the District are able to
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develop their own separate policies and pass laws, which need to be
harmonized with higher legal acts and with the Constitution.
According to the obligatory adjustment of BiH legislation to different
international documents on human rights, which are mentioned in theAnnex
I of the Constitution, including the UN Convention on Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women, Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted
the Law on Gender Equality in BiH3in 2003.
The Agency for Gender Equality, popularly called “the state gender
mechanism”, has been formed in accordance with this Law and for the
purpose of monitoring its implementation (Act 22). Apart from the
Agency, the Federation BiH and the RS gender centers also monitor and
supervise the implementation of the Law (Act 24).
Act 17 of the Law on Gender Equality in BiH states: “Any form
of violence in private and public life on the basis of gender is forbidden.
Relevant authorities will take appropriate measures to eliminate and
prevent gender-based violence public and private spheres of life, as well
as provide protection instruments, help and compensation to the victims.”
This legal act placed gender-based violence in both “private” and
“public” life in the focus of social interest for the first time, obliging the
state to take appropriate measures and activities on providing protection
to the victim, in most cases a woman.
It can be concluded in this context that by placing a ban on violence
in “private and public life on the basis of gender” this law also addresses
a special segment of family gender-based violence known as marital, that
is, partner violence. In that sense, relevant authorities are obliged to take
preventive measures against gender-based violence, especially in education,
in order to eliminate prejudice, traditions and all other forms of discrimination based on the idea of inferiority or superiority of any gender, as well
as the superior roles of men and women.
The Law on Gender Equality in BiH was passed prior to the Federation
BiH Law on Protection from Family Violence and the Family Law. That
Law determines sanctions related to violence, harassment and sexual
harassment, defining them as criminal acts carrying a prison sentence
of six months to five years (Act 27).
The Law on Gender Equality in BiH was published in the „Official Gazette“
No. 63/2003.
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Apart from the Law on Gender Equality which is not directly related
to the protection from family violence and which was passed at the state
level, making it obligatory for both the entities, in the Federation of BiH,
laws that are to a greater or lesser extent related to the protection from family
violence are: the Law on Protection from Family Violence, the Criminal
Code and the Family Law.
2.1. Law on Protection from Family Violence
The Law on Protection from Family Violence4 establishes a special
mechanism of protection from violence which defines the term family
violence, persons considered members of a family, 5 ways of their protection
and the purpose of security measures, which are in most cases issues against
the perpetrator of violent acts.
According to Article 4 of the Law, family violence is defined as “any
action that causes physical, psychological, sexual or economic damage and
suffering, as well as the threat of such actions or failing to take certain
activities which seriously prevents family members to enjoy their rights
and freedoms on the equality principle in public or private sphere.”
The same article determines activities that are characteristic of family
violence: use of physical force or psychological coercion, behavior which
may cause physical/psychological pain and economic damage, causing
of fear or injury to the dignity of a member of the family through blackmail
or some other kind of coercion, physical and verbal assault and insult, sexual
harassment, stalking, causing of damage to common property, absence of
attention and failure to offer attention and protection to a family member,
in spite of a legal and moral obligation. This Law is specific because it
The Federation BiH Law on Protection from Family Violence was announced
in the „Official Gazzete“ No. 22/05, with a 6-month delay in implementation from
the day of its taking effect.. The Law was published on April 6, meaning that it was
put in force on 6. October 2005.
5
According to Article 5 of the Law on Protection from Family Violence, a family
consists of: marital and common law partners; relatives living together: blood relatives
and relatives through the full adoption in the first line without limitations and in the
lateral line concluded with the fourth degree; adopter and adoptee from the relationship
of partial adoption; in-laws concluded with the second degree; guardian and ward;
nursing parent and child; former maritat and common law partners.
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defines family violence as a criminal act that remains under the jurisdiction
of regular courts, while restraining orders are issued by magistrates’
courts which are also obliged to urgently solve such cases (Article 3).
Apart from health and social workers, teachers and other educators,
the following persons are also obliged to report cases of the family violence,
if noticed while performing their duties: medical, educational and other
institutions, as well as nongovernmental organizations, but also family
members, especially in cases when the victim is a minor (Article 7).6
In passing this act, the legislator probably had in mind the previous
prevailing experience when the majority of professionals used to hide
behind the professional secret and limited themselves solely to providing
expert assistance to the victim of family violence, without reporting the
instances to the police, prosecutor’s office and court, whose jurisdiction was
persecution and punishment of the perpetrators, as well as protection of
victims of family violence as prescribed by the law.
The legally defined obligation of reporting family violence excluded
the possibility of invoking the professional code and ethical principles,
that is, keeping the professional secret of the aforementioned experts, who
had previously remained silent to established cases of family violence by
failing to report them.
In prescribing ways to realize protection from family violence, with
the aim of preventing violence, acting towards the abusers to prevent them
from perpetrating violence, and eliminating consequences of the violence
committed, the Law introduces security measures as forms of sanctions
and protection against family violence.7
Five out of the six prescribed security measures are related exclusively
to the perpetrator of violence,8 and only one measure concerns ensuring
According to Article 20, any public service employee who fails to report instances
of family violence will be fined in the amount ranging from 1.000 to 10.000 KM or will
be imprisoned for at least 50 days.
7
According to Article 9, security measures that can be issued against the perpetrator
are: 1. removal from the flat or other living space and a ban on the return to the flat, house
or some other living space; 2. restraint orders; 3. providing protection to the person
exposed to violence; 4. ban on disturbing or stalking the person exposed to violence;
5. obligatory psychological treatment; 6. Obligatory treatment for addictions.
8
A violent person who fails to act in accordance to the orders will be fined in the
amount ranging from 2.000 to 10.000 KM (Article 21).
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protection of the person exposed to violence. This measure, however, is
issued in cases when the victim’s life is threatened (Article 13). Implementation of this measure, ordered by the magistrates’ court, ensures that the
victim is offered temporary shelter in social-protective or other institutions
(shelter homes), or in some other family, with a right to temporary support
from the alimony fund.
Difficulties surrounding the implementation of this protection measure
are made even more complex not only because of the non-existence of
alimony funds, but also state institutions providing temporary shelter to
victims of family violence who are in most cases women and children.
Only centers for social care provide primarily advisory and other forms of
expert and material help to the victims. That is why the implementation
of this legal obligation is mostly left to the female NGOs, that is, safe
houses that NGOs open and that are financed by foreign donors in the
majority of cases.9
Besides the person exposed to violence, the request for imposing
security measures can also be submitted by his/her attorney, police,
prosecutor, guardian, governmental and nongovernmental organizations.
Also, the request may be submitted in the line of duty, while the restraining
order is issued in the line of duty.
In the process of issuing security measures10, the magistrates’ court is
obliged to provide an adequate measure, both in the sense of its purpose
and efficiency. However, there is a possibility of replacing one measure
with another. The magistrates’court is also obliged to control the execution
According to data of the Open Society Institute, in 2006, seven shelters for victims
of family violence and human trafficking existed in BiH, with a capacity able to
accommodate 120 persons.
An example of good cooperation between governmental and non-governmental
sector is the Sarajevo Canton, where the „Local Democracy Foundation“ NGO signed
the Agreement on Cooperation on Protection from Family Violence with the police and
the Cantonal Social Care Center.
The second example is non-institutionalized cooperation (center for social care
requests help in temporarily taking care of victims of family violence because it lacks
resources), in the area of Zenica – Doboj Canton, between „Medica“ NGO, the center
for social work, the police and the prosecutor’s office.
10
All security measures are issued for the period from one month to two years
(Article 18).
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of the issued protective measure, through reports submitted (at the latest
within six months, or earlier, if demanded by the magistrates’court) by social
centers, which also keeps records of the issued protective measures, monitor
their implementation, propose termination, extension or replacement of
one protective measure with another.
In cases when it becomes evident that the victim of violence should
be protected, the magistrates’ court may issue an appropriate protection
measure as an individual minor offence sanction after questioning the
perpetrator. In such cases, it is not necessary to wait for the completion
of a minor offence or criminal procedure. (Article 19).
Experience in the field, in the process of implementing security
measures in the Federation of BiH, in spite of criteria defined by the law
and fairly good normative-legal regulation, unambiguously shows that the
legal acts are not being implemented entirely, this primarily due to a
lack of funds, non-existence of the necessary additional capacities, i.e.
institutions for implementation of the security measures determined by
the law.
2.2. The Family Law
In most cases the family is a social group, i.e. a community in which
relations are characterized by mutuality and solidarity of the members.
Mutual assistance and solidarity within a family community, that is, among
its members, is most frequently entwined by love, trust and closeness,
especially between parents and children and martial partners. Sadly, in
certain number of families, which is by far smaller than families living in
harmonized relationships, family environment for some of the members is
frequently a place in which they are exposed to different kinds of violence
by their nearest relatives.
The prevailing understanding in most countries today is that the
family violence is social, not a private problem. Prosecution of especially
difficult forms of family violence is becoming increasingly present in
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Family Law of the Federation of BiH11, besides defining the family
The Family Law of the Federation of BiH was announced in the „Official Gazzete“
No. 35/05; 41/05.
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175
and relations within it, and defining the extra-marital community12, also
clearly bans violent behavior of a marital partner or of any other family
member by defining violent behavior (citing the BiH Law on Gender
Equality) as any form of violation of physical and psychological integrity
(Article 4).
By defining the conditions and the procedure, contraction, termination,
annulment of marriage and divorce, the Family Law does not separately
highlight in any of the articles family violence as a possible reason for
termination of marriage, but some acts of the Law do contain some
indications, for example, “annulment of a marriage contracted in fear
caused by a serious threat” (Article 40, Item 1) or “divorce in cases when
marital relations are heavily and permanently disturbed.” (Article 41)
The most important provisions of the Family Law that are related
to child protection are presented in Item C: Rights and Duties of Parents
and Children.
In this part of the Law, rights of the child are specifically listed,
especially right of the child to protection from all forms of violence, abuse,
maltreatment and neglect in the family (Article 128). In the provisions
that determine duties and rights of parents, the provision on the obligation
of parents to take care of the child, satisfy its needs and protect the child
from all forms of violence, injuries, economic exploitation and sexual abuse
by others, together the obligatory control of the child’s behavior, depending
on its age and maturity (Article 134), is especially prominent.
Measures for the protection of children, victims of family violence,
are under the jurisdiction of social care centers and courts.
Family is defined as “a living community of parents and children and other blood
relatives, in-laws, adopters and adoptees and persons outside a marital community
if they live in the same household.”
Relations in the family are determined on the following: protection of privacy of
family life; equality, mutual assistance and respect between family members; obligation
of parents to ensure protection of interests and wellbeing of the child and responsibility
in upbringing and educating the child; obligation of the state to ensure protection of the
family and child; providing foster protection to children without parental care and adults
incapable of taking care of themselves, their rights, interests and property (Article 2).
Common law marriage is defined as „a community of life between a man and a
woman who are not married or in a non-marital community with someone else,
and which lasts at least three years or shorter, provided that a child is born in that
community.“ (Article 3).
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A social care center may issue the following measures: warnings
concerning failures in parental care (Article 151) and appointment of
supervision of parental care (Article 152).
The role of the court is to take away the exercise of parental care,
in an extrajudicial procedure, in cases when parents abuse their rights
or severely neglect their duties. The specifically listed reasons for the
implementation of such a measure also included cases of physical and
psychological abuse of the child (Article 154).
The aforementioned provision of the law shows most concretely the
span of intensity of possible family violence against the child, as well as
measures that can be taken to protect the child, depending on the intensity
of violence. In that context, one can conclude that warning measures
concerning failures in parental care, as well as supervision measures, are
in essence aimed at changing the behavior of parents towards children and
their education, that is, prevention of physical punishment of children.
In Article 150, the Family Law prescribes the obligation of all
authorities, organizations and individuals to notify, without delay,
information on violations of the rights of the child to a social care center,
especially in cases of violence and abuse.
This article clearly distinguishes violence and abuse, which largely
contributes to the easier sanctioning of physical punishment of the child.
Although failure to report family violence is, according to the
provisions of the Law on Protection from Family Violence, a punishable
act and in direct relationship with the violation of right of the child to
protection from violence, data from social care canters show that not many
cases of violence are reported.
Several provisions of a special section of the Family Law (Chapter 10:
Special Procedures) standardize the procedure of protection from violent
behavior in families. However, since the Law on Protection from Family
Violence was adopted at the same time as the Family Law, besides the
mentioned marital, and extramarital partners, family members who have
a right to protection from violent behavior, the responsibility of physical
and legal persons to inform relevant police structures about violent behavior,
as well as the obligation of the police, social care centers and magistrates’
courts to provide protection to the victim of violent behavior, Article 381
standardizes only the obligation of the police to, immediately on being
notified, remove and place in an appropriate institution the individual
behaving in a violent way or which poses a threat of violent behavior.
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By identifying the procedure of protection from violent behavior
as urgent, the Family Law (Article 322) states that it will be regulated by
a special law of the Federation of BiH (Article 382).
2.3. Criminal Code
Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina13, which
had taken effect before the adoption of the Law on Protection from Family
Violence, established certain sanctions related to acts of violence in the
family, which are in most cased defined byArticle 6 of the Law on Protection
from Family Violence, determining them as a criminal act.
Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina determines by its provisions (Chapter 20: Criminal Acts against Marriage,
Family and Youth) also criminal acts against the family, which include,
among other, family violence as well (Article 222).
For the purpose of respecting the requirement of describing the nature
of a criminal act, the Criminal Code also defines the notion of family,
i.e.o its members (Article 2, Item 20).14
Article 222 stipulates that the criminal act of family violence, of which
the perpetrator and passive subject may only be a family member, contains,
apart from the basic, five other acts of violence, classified as serious.
According to Item 1, the basic form of such an act is the case when a
perpetrator threatens peace, physical integrity or psychological wellbeing
of the family members by violence and rude behavior.
The abovementioned item relates to different forms of physical,
psychological, emotional and spiritual violence, which lead to a threat to
peace, physical integrity or spiritual wellbeing of the passive subject
(victim).
Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was announced
in the „Official Gazzete“ No. 36/03.
14
This law states that members of the family are: marital and extramarital partners,
blood relatives in the first line, adopter and adoptee, relatives in lateral line concluded
with the third degree and in-laws concluded with the second degree.
Broadening of the notion of family, beyond the circle prescribed by the Family Law
(Article 2), has been conditioned by the specific nature of this incrimination.
13
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Sexual violence is often present in cases of such violence, but cannot
be made a part of this incrimination because it has been incriminated in
criminal acts from the group against sexual freedom and moral.
A violent act is determined alternatively as: violence; rude and ruthless
behavior.
Violence is most often displayed by the use of physical force, for
example, hitting, pushing, slapping, tearing hair by roots, inflicting minor
physical injuries. Apart from this, a violent act, which never represents an
isolated act that is, form of violence, also implies performing psychological,
emotional or spiritual violence which disrupts the peace, physical integrity
or social health of the family members. “Violence exists not only when it
is aimed towards people, but also towards things in a way that the violent
acts are seen by the passive subject, i.e. family member, as coercion and
evil” (Tomić, 2007: 140).
Rude or ruthless behavior implies any kind of behavior which largely
stands out from the usual behavior in family relations, for example, insults,
threats, intolerance, humiliation and other harsh, frequently intolerant
forms of behavior that are inappropriate in normal communication and
respect of normal values of life in the family. A fine or a one-year sentence
is prescribed for the basic form of violence in the family
Item 2 defines the first, more serious, form of criminal act of violence
in the family which exists if the criminal act is committed in relation
to a member of the family who shares the household the perpetrator. By
committing this act in relation to the most immediate family member
– spouse or extramarital partner, children or parents, the perpetrator also
undermines the existence and integrity of the family as a social group.
A fine or a three-year sentence is prescribed for this, more serious,
form of family violence.
Item 3 defines the second serious form of family violence, which exists
when a perpetrator uses a weapon, a dangerous instrument or other item
capable of inflicting bodily injuries or serious disturbance of health.
In this Item, weapons are defined as different firearms and cold
weapons, and the term “dangerous instruments” refers to objects that are
used for different purposes but may also serve to inflict serious bodily
injuries or death. Such weapons are, for example, axe, hay-fork, spade,
shovel, hammer, etc. The term “other items” capable of inflicting bodily
injuries or serious disturbance of health are refers to, for example, stone,
glass bottle, baseball or golf club, etc.
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179
Imprisonment for a period of three months to three years is prescribed
for this criminal act.
Item 4 determines a grave form of family violence which exists if
a family member sustains injuries as described in items 1 to 3, or his/her
health is severely threatened, as well as in cases when the previous three
acts of violence are committed against a child or a minor.
With this form of criminal act, the criminal responsibility of the
perpetrator for the consequences, especially when the victim is a child or
a minor, as such violence may jeopardize their psychological and physical
development with negative consequences for their further proper development and socialization, is dealt with in accordance with the rules on
responsibility for grave consequences.
Perpetrators of such acts will be punished with one to five years
in prison.
According to Item 5, the criminal act of family violence exists if death
of a family member is caused by the perpetration of one of the criminal
acts mentioned in items 1 to 4. In this case, it is irrelevant whether death
came as a consequence of the perpetrator’s activities, or because of the
victim’s activities. For example, this form of criminal act exists in cases
when a victim commits suicide in a desperate attempt to protect himself/
herself from violence.
Imprisonment of two to fifteen years is prescribed for this form of
family violence.
The most severe form of criminal family violence is described in Item
6 and it is committed when the perpetrator murders a family member
whom he/she had previously molested. This, most severe, form of family
violence is also characterized as a form of grave murder, which, due to
specific position of the perpetrator and the victim and their relationship is
covered by this incrimination. The victim is a family member, previously
molested by the perpetrator, which should include all the activities presented
in the basic form of this act.
This, most severe form of family violence, carries a sentence of
imprisonment for ten years or long term imprisonment, just like in cases
of other forms of grave homicide.
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3. Conclusion
The prevailing attitude in the world today is that the family violence
represents a breech of human rights. That is why every individual member
of the family has a right not only to protection from different forms of
violence in the society, but also to protection from family violence.
In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, protection from family
violence has been prescribed by special legislation. First concrete activities
on administering institutionalized protection from family violence were
taken when the Law on Protection from Family Violence was passed, and
when several other provisions were added to the Family Law of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the purpose of enabling protection
from violence. The Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina also defines family violence as a criminal act which in most cases
carries a prison sentence.
In a broader sense, according to the classification of violence based
on gender and the equal approach to protection from violence in “private”
and “public” life, the Law on Gender Equality, which has been passed at
the state level, can also be related to a segment of family violence which
is most frequently called spousal, i.e. partner violence.
Normative regulation of protection against violence in the Federation
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which explicitly proscribes that the family
violence is a criminal act, has proven problematic in practice. For example,
implementation of provisions of the Law on Protection from Family
Violence has still not become operative, the reason being that courts rarely
issue security measures, although they are aimed at providing urgent
protection to the victim. This is because a consistent implementation of
the issued security measures is almost impossible in practice, both due to
the non-existence of necessary institutions for protection and providing
assistance to the victims of violence and due to the impossibility to provide
obligatory treatment to the abuser, but also due to a lack of funds for
providing temporary assistance to the victims of violence.
Since the Law on Protection from Family Violence, or other provisions
that have followed, fail to mention in a single article where the abuser is
to be moved to, the victim of violence who is, in most cases a mother with
children, is moved from home or flat, which only causes additional trauma.
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181
Restraining orders, which are also rarely issued have proven an
insufficient guarantee in practice as a form of prevention of repeated
victimization, which is also one of the reasons why victims, because of
their safety, are most frequently moved to shelters on secret addresses.
However, even this kind of victim protection fails to fully protect the
victim, for, in our conditions, the abuser frequently discovers the shelter,
which results not only in additional transfers of the victim, but also puts
shelter staff in harms way.
The fact that the majority of shelters in the Federation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina are still financed by international organizations, and that the
amount of funds they provide is smaller every day, indicates the possibility
that these institutions could be closed unless the state defines a standardized
way of their organization and financing.
Implementation of the provisions related to protection from family
violence is additionally complicated by: the lack of considerable experience
and judiciary practice in implementation of provisions of the Law on
Protection from Family Violence; insufficient education of participants in
the implementation of regulations in this field; insufficient number of staff
and funds in social care centers; insufficient media promotion of legislation
which regulates the issue of family violence; insufficient prevention
measures, especially in education institutions; lack of coordination between
judicial institutions, the police and social care centers; non-existence of a
unified statistical database, etc.
All the aforementioned facts indicate several problems and a degree
of confusion caused, besides by the lack long term solutions, also by the
lack of complementarity in relation to the existing laws and available
capacities for their implementation. That is why, under such conditions,
in which a clear state strategy is lacking, it is not realistic to expect the
non-governmental sector to take over the entire process of rehabilitation
and protection of victims, as well as finding permanent solutions.
Prevention of family violence requires the implementation of a
specially designed education campaign, for the purpose of informing the
public that family violence is a violation of basic human rights, but also in
order to highlight the fact that the state has made a commitment, by signing
several international documents and agreements, to act on preventing
family violence. This even more so as experiences from different countries
indicate that without serious state intervention and engagement, as well
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as of the non-governmental sector and female organizations, satisfactory
results cannot be achieved in the process of long term reduction of family
violence. That is why efficient legal protection from family violence is the
main precondition for both primary and secondary prevention of this
social problem.
Bibliography:
1. Ajduković, M., Pavleković, G. (Ur) (2000): Nasilje nad ženom
u porodici, Društvo za psihološku podršku, Zagreb.
2. Četvrta svjetska konferencija o ženama (1995). Pekinška deklaracija, u: Međunarodna dokumenta, Gender centar FBiH, Sarajevo.
3. Gidens, E. (2003): Sociologija, Ekonomski fakultet, Belgrade.
4. Gil, D. (1973): Violence against Children, in: Hans Peter Dreitzel
(ed.): Childhood and Socialization, Macmillan, London, pp. 111-137.
5. Killen, K. (2001): Izdani, Društvo za psihološku pomoć, Zagreb.
6. Milić, A. (2007): Sociologija porodice, Čigoja, Belgrade.
7. Nikolić – Ristović, V. (2008): Preživjeti tranziciju, Službeni glasnik,
Belgrade.
8. Nowakowska, U. (1999): Violenece against Women: International
Standards, Polish Reality, Journal of Communists Studies and Transition
Politics, 1, pp.41-63.
9. Open Society Institute (2006): Nasilje nad ženom – Je li vlastima
u BiH stalo – pregled činjenica, Sarajevo.
10. Parlament FBiH (2003): Krivični zakon FBiH, „Sl. novine FBiH“,
br. 36/03.
11. Parlament FBiH (2005): Porodični zakon FBiH, „Sl. novine
FBiH“, br. 35/05.
12. Parlament FBiH (2005): Zakon o zaštiti od nasilja u porodici,
„Sl. novine FBiH“, br. 22/05.
13. Parlamentarna skupština BiH (2003): Zakon o ravnopravnosti
spolova, u: „Sl. glasnik BiH“, br. 16/03.
14. Petrović, B., Meško, G. (2008): Kriminologija, Pravni fakultet,
Sarajevo.
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15. Preporuke REC-a (2002): 5 Odbora ministara državama članicama o zaštiti žena od nasilja, u: Međunarodni dokumenti, Gender centar
FBiH, Sarajevo.
16. Tomić, Z. (2007): Krivično pravo II, Pravni fakultet, Sarajevo.
17. UN (1979): Konvencija o ukidanju svih oblika diskriminacije
žene, u: Čitanka ljudskih prava, (2001), Centar za ljudska prava, Sarajevo.
18. Unicef (1999): Women in Transition, The MOONEE Project
CEE/CIS/Baltics, Regional Monitoring Reports, No. 6., Florence, UNICEF
Internationale Child Development Center.
19. WHO (2002): The Toronto Declaration on the Global Prevention
of Elder Abuse. World Health Organization, Geneva.
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UDK 130.2
Željko Škuljević
Faculty of Law
University of Zenica
PLEASURE AND MIND
Prior to all, Plato opened hostility towards the body.
M. Onfray Le gai savoir hédoniste
Despite the title’s strong allusion to Epicurus, his hedonism will be
discussed somewhat later; we will begin with Plato’s Philebus: what is Good
and how should people live if they wish to achieve that notion (engaged
in dialogue discussing this issue are Socrates, Philebus and Protarchus).
Philebus claims that good life consists of enjoyment and pleasure while
Socrates counters this with his intellectual principle according to which
practical wisdom (frónēsis), thinking and recollection are much more
beneficial for everything. How can one enjoy a musical piece, the sight
of a work of art, but also food and drink; is enjoyment really an ideal one
should strive towards? As neither enjoyment nor the mind constitute Good
without the rest, the dialogue raises the issue whether there is something
else, a third element, besides what Philebus and Socrates mentioned. In
contradicting Protrachus’ claim that all things pleasurable are Good,
Socrates insists on the consideration of the notions of prudence (frónēsis),
knowledge (epistēmē) and mind or intellect (nus) in order to define with
certainty what Good, pleasure or prudence are. We shall now cite a piece
from Plato’s Philebus, part eleven titled Union of Pleasure and Mind in Life:
«Protarchus: And what is this life of mind?
Socrates: I want to know whether any one of us would consent to
live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things,
but having no sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and
the like feelings?
Protarchus: Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, or is likely,
as I should imagine, to be chosen by any one else.
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Socrates: What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or
to one that was made out of the union of the two?
Protarchus: Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and
wisdom?
Socrates: Yes, that is the life which I mean.
Protarchus: There can be no difference of opinion; not some but all
would surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in
addition to them.
Socrates: But do you see the consequence?
Protarchus: To be sure I do. The consequence is, that two out of the
three lives which have been proposed are neither sufficient nor eligible for
man or for animal.
Socrates: Then now there can be no doubt that neither of them has
the good, for the one which had would certainly have been sufficient and
perfect and eligible for every living creature or thing that was able to live
such a life; and if any of us had chosen any other, he would have chosen
contrary to the nature of the truly eligible, and not of his own free will,
but either through ignorance or from some unhappy necessity.
Protarchus: Certainly that seems to be true.
Socrates: And now have I not sufficiently shown that Philebus’1
goddess is not to be regarded as identical with the good?
Philebus:. Neither is your “mind” the good, Socrates, for that will
be open to the same objections.
Socrates: Perhaps, Philebus, you may be right in saying so of my
“mind”; but of the true, which is also the divine mind, far otherwise. However, I will not at present claim the first place for mind as against the mixed
life; but we must come to some understanding about the second place. For
you might affirm pleasure and I mind to be the cause of the mixed life;
and in that case although neither of them would be the good, one of them
might be imagined to be the cause of the good. And I might proceed further
to argue in opposition to Phoebus, that the element which makes this mixed
life eligible and good, is more akin and more similar to mind than to
pleasure. And if this is true, pleasure cannot be truly said to share either in
the first or second place, and does not, if I may trust my own mind, attain
even to the third.
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Aphrodite serves here as a metonymy for enjoyment.
Protarchus: Truly, Socrates, pleasure appears to me to have had a
fall; in fighting for the palm, she has been smitten by the argument, and
is laid low. I must say that mind would have fallen too, and may therefore
be thought to show discretion in not putting forward a similar claim. And
if pleasure were deprived not only of the first but of the second place, she
would be terribly damaged in the eyes of her admirers, for not even to
them would she still appear as fair as before.
Socrates: Well, but had we not better leave her now, and not pain her
by applying the crucial test, and finally detecting her?
Protarchus: Nonsense, Socrates.
Socrates: Why? because I said that we had better not pain pleasure,
which is an impossibility? » (21 e – 23 b).
Giving preference to the mind, not without irony however, and in
constant distress not to upset delight, the Platonized Socrates again returns
to the issue of Good: if it is neither frónēsis nor hēdonē, what else could
it be then? The fact that good needs to be complete and self sufficient
excludes the possibility of pleasure and prudence mixing. If either of the
two was Good, then nothing should be lacking from them, otherwise it
could not be the real Good (tó óntos agathón). However, according to
hedonists those who have pleasure do not need anything else, not fronezis,
not the mind and not judgment.2 Even Savater’s fictional Philebus says
that the enchantment of love has nothing to do with thinking. Nothing
besides pleasure is important. You have met me as such, «always in search
of pleasure, with content for everything that cannot be expressed through
caresses or the delightful spasm of a shuddering body».3 As Philebus
Plato’s criticism of hedonism (at two different levels in Gorgias and Philebus) for
the first time develops the notion of true and false need, i.e. true and false pleasure…
The starting point for the criticism is the important connection between pleasure and
displeasure: every pleasure also contains displeasure since pleasure is the removal of
deficiencies, which are experienced as pain. Consequently, pleasure cannot be “good”
and happiness because it contains its own opposition, unless some kind of “unmixed”
pleasure significantly separated from displeasure can be found. H. Markuze Kultura
i društvo (O kritici hedonizma), BIGZ, Belgrade, 1977, p. 101.
3
An original and witty literary-philosophical fiction in which Philebus seduces
Plato and spends three days and three nights in lover’s embrace with him during which
the Academy was closed. After all of this, Philebus continued to attend his lectures, but
tormented by one dilemma. Namely, «I would like to discuss with him one issue which
I just cannot understand. That issue is: What is pleasure, Plato, what is pleasure? »
F. Savater, Platonova škola (Šta kaže Fileb), Rad, Belgrade, 1998, p. 56-59.
2
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187
continues to insist that pleasure would not be perfectly good if she were
not infinite in quantity and degree, Socrates introduces the notion of mind,
which is the «king of heaven and earth». Even though it appears that the
union of hedone and nous, i.e. the combined life of pleasure and prudence,
is that sought after way, the advantage is given to the mind, and this not
without Platonic reasoning. Even in this combined life one should strive
more towards nous than pleasure, consequently the second position that
was sought for belongs to the mind. As prudence is more dominant than
pleasure in the domain of good, that solution, despite the union, favors
prudence and knowledge. Not even describing pleasure as a source with
honey and prudence as clear and healthy natural water, or claiming that
their combination provides the true value is able to help here. Despite
Philebus’ insistence on pleasure as Good, Socrates will stress that the
«mind is better than pleasure and more useful in human life » (66 e).
He also states meticulously that, according to the estimation produced by
the discussion, pleasure can do no better than fifth position (67 a – b), and
even convinces Protarchus to agree with him. The final lines of Philebus,
or an ethnical dialogue on pleasure, stress that only based on knowledge can
true hedone be revealed.
Nietzsche’s description of Epicurus as moderately voluptuous4
immediately raises suspicion of a Cyrenaic basis to his ethics. This
suspicion is further strengthened by an excerpt from his Letter to
Menoeceus. This is how he explains his position:
«When we say that pleasure is the telos, we do not mean the pleasures
of the profligates and those that lie in sensual indulgence… We mean
rather that one suffer no pain in one’s body and no disturbance in one’s
soul» (Men. 131). In another fragment from his work On Choices and
Avoidances, but also in his paper On Moral Ends, as well as in his letter
to philosophers in Mytilene (D.L. X, 136.) he says that the absence of
suffering and disturbance are Katastematic pleasures. Therefore, when
Epicurus says that telos is pleasure what he actually has in mind is «Katastematic pleasure»: the absence of suffering represents the Katastematic
«Yes, I am proud of perceiving the character of Epicurus differently from anyone
else perhaps, and of enjoying the happiness of the afternoon of antiquity in all that
I hear and read of him… never before was there such a moderation of voluptuousness»
(Epikur, 45). F. Niče Vesela nauka, Grafos, Belgrade, 1984, p 75-76 (translated by
M. Tabaković).
4
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pleasure of the body, and the absence of disturbance represents the Katastematic pleasure of the soul. However, a fragment from his work On the
Telos or the Purpose of Life he introduces something which appears as the
addition of one more form of pleasure. Epicurus, just like members of the
Cyrenaic School of Philosophy, calls it «pleasure in motion», or as some
modern scholars would put it «kinetic pleasure». The fragment reads:
»For I at least cannot conceive the good if I take away the pleasures due
to tastes, the pleasures due to love (sex), the pleasures due to sounds, and
the pleasant visual motions due to shape…» (Athen. 546 E; Cic. Tusc.
d. III, 41). Athenaeus, one of the sources for this fragment, presents it as
evidence that «not only Aristippus and his followers embraced kinetic
pleasure, but so did Epicurus and his followers» (XII 546 E). Epicurus’
differentiation of static pleasures (absence disturbance and suffering) and
moving pleasures (happiness, joy) both confirms and denies him as a
member of Cyrenaic school. The understanding of “life according to nature”
as life according to pleasure stems from Cyrenaic sensualistic hedonism,
however, the description of pleasure as the absence of suffering contradicts
that Cyrenaic principle. By distinguishing corporal and spiritual pleasures
(D.L. X, 136), and by equilibrating between them, his philosophy reminds
of a «syncretic combination».5 At one end is this corporal, «good behavior
of the body», and in describing it he uses words such as flesh, belly etc.,
and at the other end is the spiritual pleasure which consists of thinking,
even though it too depends on the feeling of corporal pleasure.6 Spiritual
pleasures are greater than corporal, because we can only feel the present
and what is present with the body, while we can feel both the past and the
future with the spirit (corpore nisi praesens et quod adest sentire possumus,
anima autem et praeterita et futura, fr. 439). While some internal
impression is the vessel of corporal pleasures, Epicurus calls it dianoia and
Lucretius anima, an aggregate of fine fiery and aerial atoms distributed
through the entire body, the vessel of spiritual pleasure is a specific
«Epicurean philosophy is taken as a syncretic combination of Democritean physics
and Cyrenaic moraility…» K. Marks Razlika između Demokritove i Epikurove filozofije prirode, Kultura, Beograd, 1963, p. 7.
6
This dependence is revealed so that «besides the immediate pleasures there is
also the anticipation of future pleasures, and even stronger than that, the memory of
the past pleasures» (Plut. Mor. 1088 C, sf 1096 CF).
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combination of atoms, logicon, the true organ of thinking, which Epicurus
places in the heart, and which is capable of organizing sensory impressions
into memories.7 Spiritual pleasures are greater than corporal, Epicurus
would say, just as spiritual pains are greater than corporal (D.L. X, 137).
However, «not being hungry, not being thirsty, not being cold are all voices
of the flesh. Those who have this and can hope to have it in the future can
compete even with giants in pleasure» (Gnom. Vat. 33, cf Ael. Varia historia
IV 13, Cic. De. fin. II 88). Absence of spiritual disturbance, ataraxia,
represents the greatest happiness and pleasure, which again requires
separation from the external world, from one’s desires, passions, pains, lists.
Epicurus’ elevation of the pleasures of mind is, according to Guthrie,8
the main reason for the conflict of Aristippus’followers with his hedonism.
Are the possibilities of mental pleasure being transformed into their
impossibility? Is it even possible, as in the case of Epicurus, to create
pleasure from mind or to make pleasure cerebral within hedonism? Even
though Epicurean hedonism insists that pleasure is the greatest good,
it also insists on a certain type of pleasure as the “true” one and opposes it
to all other pleasures. The pleasure of the current need is often connected
to a greater displeasure accompanying it and we therefore need to make a
differentiation of individual pleasures.9 There are needs and desires which,
when they are satisfied, cause pain, constantly stimulate new desire and
destroy spiritual peace. We often decline pleasures if we know that their
consequence will be some form of displeasure. «Not even boozing and
cheerfulness, not even rowdy wandering provide a pleasant life, just
like inclination towards men or women doesn’t provide it, or fish and
other nice things…» Pleasant life is provided only be the mind (or by
«sober thinking» as Đurić translates it), which critically evaluates and
weighs reasons for choosing or rejecting, and which rejects wrong views
that «represent the main cause of mental disturbances and anxiety».10 It is
the mind that allows man to indulge in moderate pleasure; its «insurmountable limitation» contradicts Philebus’ limitlessness of pleasure, both in
quantity and degree. According to Marcuse pleasures are distinguished
Đurićev Predgovor Epikurovim Osnovnim mislima..., XXII – XXIII.
W.K.C. Guthrie History of Greek Philosophy, p. 476
9
H. Markuze Kultura i društvo, cit. izd., 97.
10
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 130 b – 132 a.
7
8
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on the basis of the level of security and satisfaction they can provide. The
principle of this so-called negative hedonism is primarily reflected in the
dissatisfaction that needs to be avoided, rather than in the enjoyment that
should be sought.11
Epicurus’ exploitation of the mental peace of the «wise man» denies
within itself both the notion of pleasure and the notion of the wise man:
«It is then that the ideal of the wise man indulged in pleasure is created, an ideal consisted of pleasure, but also of mind devoid of its sense.
The wise man would then be the one whose mind (as well as pleasure)
never goes too far, to the end (because he would then reach knowledge
denying pleasure). His mind would be limited in advance and capable
only of calculating risk and a mental technique of seizing the best from
everything. Such a mind renounces the right to truth…»12
Even though hedonism represents the opposite end of the philosophy
of mind, Marcuse finds both teachings, as well as the principles they
support, incompatible. Both approaches establish, only abstractly, ways
directing towards a truly humane society. As the notion of mind aims at
generality within which the antagonistic interests of «empirical» individuals
are relinquished, its practical realization of the individual, its happiness,
equally remains something foreign, external…There is no harmony between
the mind and happiness as the general and special interest. Believing in
the harmony of both interests makes one a victim of the «necessary
life-saving deception»: the mind outwits individuals.
Unlike Cyrenaic pleasure, which is positive and active, Epicurean
pleasure is negative and reactive: it simply consists from the evasion of pain.
One side considers the “insensitivity of the dead”, while the other considers
the abundance of life. Epicureans wish to quell within themselves passions,
longings, the trials of enjoyment: «their model is a corpse which knows
From Marcuse’s mentioned book, excerpt O kritici hedonizma, p. 98.
Fortune remains something exclusively subjective for hedonism, that connection
to individualism, as well as deep relativism (inability of hedonism to apply the category
of truth to fortune) does not prevent it to hold a correct judgment on society: «It can be
derived from the antagonistic relations of labor that indulgence in sensual pleasures,
not the ability of the mind, becomes the source of happiness. They are the true expression
of the achieved level of the human mind, it is within them that the decision on possible
freedom and possible happiness is made» (Ibid, 99).
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nothing of hunger and thirst, of cold and warmness, of want and concern».
They like physical suffering (and moral), they need pain to vividly show
that they can overcome it. The Cyrenaics love energy that infuses them,
they aspire to health by making vitality their ally, «the gay knowledge
of hedonism».13 Aristippus loves existence, “an Epicurean feast would
be no more than an appetizer for the Cyrenaics…»
Aristippus unquestionably knew Socrates, the Sophists, and, of course,
Plato, with whom he spent a lot of time at the court of Dionysius of Syracuse. He was also familiar with his teachings, the Theory of Ideas, in which
he saw «universal suspicion launched against the body and pleasure».
Diogenes of Sinope, his lamp and plucked chicken, albeit in the form
of an anecdote, show how a Cynic philosopher defends a nominalistic
position against Ideas:
«In search for Man, an Idea of man according to Plato, nothing is
found, not even with a lamp in broad daylight. It is the same with trying to
define that category or trying to reduce to a handful of words the types of
two-footed featherless animals. The plucked chicken thrown by Diogenes
to his feet will force Plato to add: a two-footed featherless animal, undoubtedly, but with broad nails… No one doubts that Aristippus also thinks
against Plato et vice versa...»14
As Diogenes of Sinope, a Cynic Cyrenaic, used body language to
present his philosophy, he considered bodily functions the best evidence of
his own thought. Peter Sloterdijk considered him the founder of so-called
pantomimic materialism,15 because of the fact that Diogenes used animal
qualities of the human body as an argument. Seeing his life as a method
of philosophizing, he often stressed that bodily functions are something
entirely natural. As they were merely a form of language16 for him, he often
used the body as an efficient means to show to collocutors that their reliance
M. Onfray L’art de jouir(Le gai savoir hédoniste), Bernard Grasset, Paris, 1991,
233- 300.
14
M. Onfray L’invention du plaisir(Une machine de guerre antiplatonicienne), cit.
izd., 31.
15
P. Sloterdijk Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main,
1983, 207.
16
D. Marić Kinici i metafizika (Tjelesna retorika ili Diogenesova majeutika),
Hijatus, Zenica, 2000, 139- 142, 145.
13
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on theory alone in fact represents their descent into tyfos (arrogance, vanity).
The body alone «grants nature’s approval to his behavior» (Branham) no
matter how scandalous or labeled as «scornful shamelessness» it may be.
Diogenes thought that people felt embarrassed by entirely wrong things,
by bodily things, things that are a part of their nature, while instead they
should feel embarrassed by blind faith in inherited values, greed for
wealth and power, lies etc.17 The departure from tyfos provides life in
accordance with nature; achieving atyfia requires exercise which liberates
our mind from the generally accepted «values», customs and opinions,
and rids our body from unnecessary things thus making it more resilient.
Even though Onfray says that he was the first to declare hostility towards
the body, Plato certainly dealt with it, and, of course, dwelt within it. In
The Symposion, as he draws a distinction between celestial and earthly
(demi)gods (180d), Plato writes that the common or earthly Eros, as well
as the common or earthly Aphrodite inhabit the souls of common people
(181 b). And they equally love women and boys, they care more about the
body than the soul; ultimately, the basic goal for these «common people»
is to achieve certain erotic pleasure, and in order to achieve that more
easily they turn towards senseless creatures (181 b). This common, carnal
or bodily love considers the beautiful irrelevant…18 Deliberately leaving
aside the modern perception of the so-called correct paiderastia (211 b
5), Diotima’s messages of love to Socrates, in bodily terms, represent
only the first step on the path to improvement and achieving perfection
at eroticism (211 c). Therefore, the conception of love is now not based
on depictions of sensual pleasure, Pavlović says, but on a different form of
pleasure, pleasure arising from contemplation. Sensuality is depreciated
The philosophic meaning of Cynic shamelessness is largely concealed in darkness,
says Maric, because of the Platonic and Christian tradition, «which saw nothing but
incident in the exposure of the body» (Ibidem).
18
Plato’s Pausanias discovered friendship as a higher form of love, and then
allegorically connects this ennobled love with the heavenly Eros and the heavenly
Aphrodite. Heavenly Eros, according to him, does not participate in the feminine,
but only in the masculine, and therefore those osessed by them choose paiderastia
and love what is by stronger and wiser by nature (181 cd). Only that and such love,
Pausanias claims, creates permanent and firm bonds of friendship (182 c), only it at the
same time represents lover towards wisdom (???) – philosophia (183 a). B.U. Pavlović
Platonova erotika, 22-23 (Predgovor u Platon Gozba, BIGZ, Belgrade, 1983).
17
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here as an independent element of pleasure and is left to act merely as
a mediator between the mind and the object of intellectual contemplation.
The object of contemplation (theory) in Plato’s reasoning is always
some form of beauty resp. good, however, not even the mediators dwell
in expanses of ugliness. It is no accident that the path towards perfection
in eroticism, ennoblement of love, begins with watching a beautiful body.
The next steps include the marking of two or more beautiful bodies, and,
ultimately, the discovery that all beautiful bodies are only one form, the
lowest, in which beauty makes itself manifest (211 c). Be that as it may,
platonic contemplation also begins with the understanding of corporal
beauty as such.
Even though Epicurus argued that spiritual pleasures give rise to
greater joys than the carnal ones, a point we have just demonstrated, he,
nevertheless, refuses to accept any pleasure that is not a product of direct
sensual pleasure. At one point he even ridicules the preachers of false
virtue in the Epistle to Anaxarchus: «I for my part incite and call you to
continual pleasures, and not to vain and empty virtues, which have nothing
but turbulent hopes of uncertain fruits» (Plut. Mor. 1117 A). The body and
the bodily simply cannot be removed from the structure of pleasures, as it,
being cerebral contains the highest possible and most lasting of pleasures.
Or, in the words of Epicurus, «good condition of the body and firm reliance
on its future contain the highest and most lasting pleasure for those who
think correctly» (Plut. Mor. 1089 D). He does not even shy away from
Cynic candidness when, in his opposition to all «constructive ethics», he
teasingly emphasizes the carnal by using words such as meat (sárks) and
stomach: «The beginning and root of all good is the pleasure of the stomach,
even wisdom and culture must be referred to this» (Athen. 546 F; cf. Plut.
Moralia 1098 D, 1125 A). The source of all good lies in the body, that
is the basic law, that is the rule, the order of things.19 Metrodoros, in his
Epistle to Timocrates, also said that the root of all good and beautiful is
the stomach, «that it is the measure of everything related to bliss, that there
is no point in working on the prosperity of Helens and earning wreaths
from them as a reward for wisdom, instead one should eat and drink, but
do so by not harming the stomach and in a way that will bring pleasure»
Fontem omnium bonorum in corpore esse , hanc normam, hanc regulam, hanc
praescriptionem esse naturae, fr. 400 Us.
19
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(fr. 39 idd. Koerte). Some researchers do not see in this the celebration
of the bodily, but its eradication, disappearance. If pleasure represents the
absence of wishes, and the stomach is the place where wishes originate,
it is then possible to understand that wisdom dwells there and that this
is the place where the fires of passion need to be quelled. The stomach
is a miserable part worthy of content, disappearance and destruction.
Work on its destruction alone will bring pleasure and it is for this reason
that it will result in the achievement of atraxia or absolute peace of the
soul. It is precisely because of the principle, which Epicurus made so
notorious, that one should eradicate wish within oneself, that the tradition
of ascetic ideal attracted such strong following.20
Nietzsche in his Gay Science presents the opinion that the body plays
an important role in the life of a philosopher. None other than Nietzsche,
he who was aware of migraine, eye inflammation, nausea, vomiting, and
a number of other various illnesses, would say that every philosophy can
be reduced to the confessions of a body, the autobiography of a being in
pain. Thought, therefore, does not descend from heaven, but rises from the
body, emerges from the flesh and springs from the guts:
«What philosophizes in the body is nothing else but strength and
weakness, power and powerlessness, health and sickness, the great game
of carnal passions. In a different portion of the text Nietzsche talks about
the body as a Big Sagacity.»21
Since there is no philosophy without philosophers, and no philosophers
without a body, we wonder what kind of a body would suit hedonistic
philosophy? What embodiment should a lustful thought have, Onfray
asks, and what element should be at the core of subjectivity burning with
joy? If the body is a special place where maps of different worldviews
are drawn, it is then clear that it would be impossible to philosophize
without asking questions about the properties of that thinking matter.
Which body is that? Which I is thinking?22 In addition to one philosophy
Onfray said that prior to all, Plato opened hostility towards the body, and the
Epicureans and Stoics, Alexandrians and primitive Christians then followed: «they
would give death solid assistants, looking for a body to bend them to breaking point
and give them an inhuman shape» (M. Onfray L’art de jouir, cit. izd., 242-243).
21
M. Onfre Moć postojanja (Hedonistički manifest), Rad, Beograd, 2007, 63
22
M. Onfre Gastronomski um (U prilog jednoj filozofiji koja bi bila proširena na
telo), Gradac, bibliot. «Cveće zla», Čačak-Belgrade, 2002, 229-230.
20
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that would be extended to the body it is stated that it is, at the same time,
powerful and weak, strong and fragile, «because it is still the body of a
child which continues to search for answers, to ask why and because of
what? It also possesses a hypersensibility, which many consider an ailment:
«Refined enjoyments, fine pleasures, delicate feelings, subtle and philosophical hedonism would not be possible without sensual and emotional
abilities amplified tenfold.»23 The necessary corporality of philosophy, its
dependence on «physical constitution», the body and embodiment, blood
and lymph, engenders two different philosophical concepts. It is not the
absence of corporality that is the issue, this simply is not possible; there are
no philosophers without a body: skinny or gigantic, feeble or solar, open
to life or prone to death:
«A body dappled with lightning and rutted by flows, a volcanic body
bristling with energy, a body ablaze and on fire, excited and passionate; or,
rather, a body already charred by death and vengeance, a body covered
by slag and ooze, immersed into mud where it decomposes in pain.»24
Appropriate philosophies are derived from these two bodies: a hedonistic
angel fits the first one, while ascetic bodies fit the second. It is Onfray’s
neologism precisely hedonistic angel that attempts to incarnate the forgotten
body of philosophy. It is some kind of a spiritualized body which includes
both ethical and esthetical concerns, an «amendment of the soul.» Therefore, the body invoked by the «hedonistic angel» is a product of culture.
It is not a method of pure naturalness, some crude combination of atoms,
a senseless aggregate of matter. It is not materialism to which its opponents
wish to reduce it because of ideological reasons: a simplified, reductionistic
and bleak conception of the world…25 Yes, the hedonistic body is much
more than a «mere sum reducible to a physician’s manual of anatomy.»
Ibid,, 231.
Ibid,, 229.
25
V. Citot Razgovor s Mishelom Onfrayom, Europski glasnik (br. 8), HFD, Zagreb,
2003, 992
23
24
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Goran Behmen
Ministry of Foreign Affairs BiH
Sarajevo
UDK 340 + 342.3 (497.15) “04/14“
THE CHARACTER OF LAW AND AUTHORITY
IN MEDIEVAL BOSNIA
Summary
Understanding law and authority in Medieval Europe has been
deeply influenced by religion. In that sense, authority of the time was
theocratic. Such situation also prevailed in the Medieval Bosnian state.
Many documents and first-rate historical sources serve as testimony to
the understanding of authority and law. They are a formalized expression
of understanding of the authority and law, which, in the period of Middle
Ages in Bosnia, were based on the Christian vision of the world, as well
as on religious subordination of the vassal to his senior. That can be seen
in the example of intitulation of the Bosnian medieval diplomas and charters,
both in Cyrillic and Latin alphabet, as well as in formal characteristics
of the documents in the period of Middle Ages.
Key words: authority, law, Middle Ages, Christianity, feudalism,
charters, intitulation, Bosnian state, Dei Gratia (by the Grace of God)
formula
1. The Understanding of Law and
Authority in the Middle Ages
The class society of the Middle Ages did not have a uniform law
compulsory for all, and under such conditions legal equality was unattainable. Different social groups, despite being connected to comprise the
whole of a feudal society, enjoyed different rights and duties. For centuries,
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the legal system carried the traits of customary law, while written sources
of law appeared only in individual cases, often in the form of private
collections of customary law. These, so-called legal books, were prepared
at the initiative of people who required a good knowledge of legal matter,
such as court officials. With time, so-called privileges also appeared and
they included guarantees of certain legal relations. Under these privileges
certain subjects were provided a more favorable legal position, and the
subjects that were able to use this privileged treatment were both physical
persons and corporations. The Church was especially prominent in this.
Real codes, in the form of wide collections of legal standards declared by
the ruler, started to appear only later and did not always take root in practice.
The nobility also opposed written law because it threatened to limit their
authorities in the judiciary and, especially, the arbitrary creation and
interpretation of law in every individual case. Examples of such opposition
by the nobility against the ruler can be seen in the attempts by Czech kings
Přemisl Otokar II, Václav II and Karl IV to pass a general code. It was
exactly due to the opposition by the nobility that these royal initiatives
failed1. Despite such efforts to codify law in states during the Middle
Ages, there was an apparent lack of deeper theoretical work, scientific
understanding of the law, and only the Church was able to fill that void
as an institution that has struggled for centuries to achieve the spiritual and
worldly domination of the then known world. With its universalistic
tendencies it created a law which did not recognize the boundaries of
the then existing states and fiefdoms. The Church, acting in a legislative
and scientific manner, by modifying its own, canon law, had accelerated
the reception of Roman law and, in a way, the Romanization of legal
thought. For it was the Church that lived in accordance with the Roman law
– Ecclesia vivit lege Romana.2 However, the obligation of law (vinculum
iuris), required by jurisprudence, was inadequate for Christian ethics,
which required a pious obligation (vinculum pietatis). In addition, not even
the juridical values advocated by Ulpinian were acceptable for Christian
doctrine. Consequently, Christian teaching on the progenitorial sin, the
demand that man should tolerate abuse and forgive, as well as the command
of the evangelical world demanding asceticism and generosity, found
1
2
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SPOUNAR, 1995, 99, 100.
SPOUNAR, 1995, 101, 102.
themselves at odds with the legal principles and commands that every man
is good until proven otherwise, that men should defend themselves from
abuse and that they should protect their private property. Juridical egotism
thus gained a powerful adversary in the form of Christian altruism.3 The
Church, therefore, had a cautious approach to Roman law, even though it
too adopted it, and started to develop its own canon law that would be more
adapted to the Christian spirit. As a result, six centuries after Justinian,
canon law was codified in Gratian’s Decretum. Canon law significantly
changed the legal institutions that had existed to that moment: marriage
was elevated from the world of contractual relations to the level of spiritual
secret, in the understanding of crime the external element of created damage
was replaced by an internal element – the state of the criminal’s will,
the principle of service was introduced in public law. All these changes
were merely a legal-institutional expression of attempts to enoble civil,
common law, with a morally cleaner system: divine law (ius divinum).4
The relationship towards the state was also determined by theological
views and such a theocratic approach was justified by and based on the
Old Testament. The pure theocracy based on the Old Testament, in the
form of direct power from God with the Messiah receiving God’s laws at
Mount Sinai, also has its “moderate” variant: a mediator between God
and man appears, the monarch, the one who rules in accordance with the
Grace of God and is responsible before God, not the people. In the Middle
Ages the state is an instrument for the implementation of law and
according to Hungarian King Matyas Corvin the king is the “source and
protector of this just system”, and he is “not its slave, nor its instrument,
but stands above the law and presides over it”.5
During the coronation of Pippin the Short, the ceremony of sanctification is also introduced, which brings the ruler closer to clergy. He
not only carries the cross among the royal symbols, but acting out of
Christian humility he also assumes the title “king by the Grace of God”.
From this point, it is no longer the ideal of a king to be merely a person in
power who draws his power and strength from earthly fountains; instead,
his ideal becomes the implementation of the rules of God in this earthly
SPEKTORSKI, 1997, 97.
SPEKTORSKI, 1997, 97, 98.
5
LOVRENOVIĆ, 2006, 54.
3
4
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world, to rule based on Christian moral in a harmonious relationship with
the Church. According to that template, which Charles the Great inherited
as well, religion is, in fact, a state matter. According to that template only
those who belong to the Christian community belong to the human society,
and excommunication meant the same as being placed outside the law.6
2. The Influence of Christianity on the Legal System
Religiosity in Europe during the Middle Ages did not represent
solely the subjective sensitivities of an individual nor the exercise of
prescribed religious ceremonies, rather it represented a modus vivendi
and a foothold on the social ladder in a situation when Christianity was
entering all segments of social life making an impact on all standards,
institutions, customs, beliefs and practically all aspects of human life.
The Bosnian nobility not only accepted that social template, but
survived as the elite segment of the society because of it. Under confessional
conditions dominating medieval Bosnia and in an environment which,
at times, contributed to the turbulent political events in the Bosnian territory,
religion for the nobility was also an instrument of practical politics, the
basic element for preserving their position, i.e. mere survival, and had,
as such, infiltrated their ruling ideology.
Bosnian rulers had from the time of the first bans to the time of Stjepan
Tomašević built their image so as to portray themselves as “just rulers”
(rex iustus) and in doing so had fitted well the medieval understanding
of law and its origin.7 Bosnian kings pledged allegiance to the „свето
еванћелије“, „кр’ст часни“, which can also be seen from King Stjepan
Tomašević’s charter to the people of Dubrovnik dated 23. XI 1461. The last
Bosnian King, the charter states following expressions of loyalty to Christ,
is designated to rule and „творити ми правде и милости и даре“.8 In
such capacity he defines for the people of Dubrovnik „слободшине и
законе и увите“. Tvrtko II also confirmed the old charters9 to the people
of Dubrovnik by pledging allegiance to the Gospel and the Holly Cross,
PIRENNE, 2005, 46, 47.
LOVRENOVIĆ, 1997, 185.
8
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 485 – 488.
9
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 316- 318.
6
7
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just as the first Bosnian King Tvrtko had done earlier.10 Thus the rulers, who
ruled by the Grace of God in the earthly empire, had also implemented
laws and protected the order established by God. The order rested on
loyalty; vassals loyally serving their seniors, but also on fidelity of
Christians towards God and everything that is of God.
3. The State of Bosnia and the Crown of the Kingdom
Bosnian noblemen are referred to in documents as „великим
воеводом русага босан`скога“11, which can also be seen from the documents of Stefan Vukčić Kosača.12 The term „rusag bosanski“, as a
term denoting the state, was taken directly from Hungarian and the word
orszag was only slightly modified. At the same time the term „rusag
bosanski“, i.e. „sav rusag bosanski“ or “the entire Bosnia”, also stood
for the Bosnian nobility gathered in the state assembly.13 It was considered
in the 15th century that the crown owned the cities and revenues and that the
nobility owed their loyalty to the crown.14 “Rusag bosanski” was indivisible
and inherited with the crown. The idea of the crown as a transpersonal
symbol and the assembly of noblemen as constitutive elements of the state
allowed for the unity of Bosnia to be preserved in legal and political
understanding despite its deep and real divisions. Regional rulers remained
“rusag” gentry until the fall of Bosnia. Even though de facto divided, Bosnia
remained united in the field of political conceptions, this primarily
owing to the perception of the state which became dominant during the
rule of King Tvrtko I.
4. The Character of Authority in the Intitulation
of Documents in Medieval Bosnia
Since the 14th century, some members of the Bosnian nobility had
offices or scribes in charge of their correspondence. First-rate historical
sources were thus created providing a firsthand account of them and the
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 176, 187.
STOJANOVIĆ, 1934, 64.
12
STOJANOVIĆ, 1934, 62, 64. and in other places.
13
ĆIRKOVIĆ, 1964a, 224.
14
ĆIRKOVIĆ, 1964, 368.
10
11
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world of their religious and political beliefs. In these cases there could not
have been any deviations, attempts to conceal or gain favor, or perhaps show
things in a better light. Quite the opposite, things were shown exactly the
way they were. Documents are, in fact, formalized expressions of the
understanding of law based on the theological, Christian vision of the
world and the relations in it.
Intitulation in western charters was introduced by Charles the Great
after the year 800, imitating the Byzantine charters, as he tried to
show himself as the successor of Roman, and perhaps even Byzantine
imperators. He also made the devotional formula a part of the intitulation
thus demonstrating not only his personal relationship of humility towards
God, but also the political message that his power arises from God.15
Invocation so became a way to make a political statement on the character
and origin of power and a reflection of the ideological concept to the
Christian ruler.
Intitulation represents, as described by today’s terminology, the
constitutional and legal basis of a political order which invoked God for
its legitimization. We notice that the dei gratia formula is used both in the
documents of bans and royal documents.
4.1. Kulin, Ninoslav and the Kotromanics
Bosnian rulers, even prior to coronation, had demonstrated their sovereignty and position in universal relations of the medieval class society.16
The titulations of Bosnian rulers before the coronation of Tvrtko
in 1377 also stand as proof of this. Ban Kulin titulated himself „ја бан’
бос’н’ски Кулин“,17 while the documents of Ban Ninoslav from 1232/33
replaced the colloquial expression “ja” with the ecclesiastical “аз”, and
in the intitulation, as opposed to Kulin, the ruler becomes “раб божји”
and “велики”.18 In 1240, the same ruler also introduced the formulation “по
милости божие”.19 It is interesting that the charter of Ban Ninoslav
STANOJEVIĆ, 1913, 111.
MARJANOVIĆ – DUŠANIĆ, 1997, 34, 35.
17
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 2.
18
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 24.
19
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 7.
15
16
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Dubrovčanin from 1249, the work of a Bosnian scribe, added to the name
Matej that of Stjepan.20 Ban Stjepan II Kotromanić, in the charter from
1333, handing over Pelješac and Ston to the Dubrovnik Municipality,
titulated himself as “Mi gospodin Stefan po milosti božijoj ban Bosne
i Usore i Soli i gospodar Humske zemlje”.21 In the intitulation, Stjepan II
also used the name of St.Gregory, the saint who, until the Ottoman conquest
of the medieval Bosnia, was its patron: “Аз’свети Гр’гур а зовем’бан’
Стипан’”.22 However, St. Gregory is not mentioned in charters issued
to Dubrovnik, i.e. in communication with foreign political factors; the
name of this saint in intitulation pro foro interno23 was used instead. A
similar example can be seen in the use of the title of samodržac (despot) in
Rashka during the reign of Stefan Nemanja, which was used exclusively
in internal documents. Such use of St. Gregory’s name had demonstrated
the independence of Stjepan II from the Chatholic Church up until the time
when he accepted Catholicism, which happened under the influence of
the Franciscans.24 After declaring Bosnia a kingdom, King Tvrtko I stated
in the charter dated April 10 1378: “B’инчан’ бих’ богом’ дарованим’
винцем’ на кралиевство пр’родител’ моих јако б’ити ми от Христa
Исусa благовjeрному и богом’ поставлиеному Срефану краљу
Србљем’ и Босне и Поморју и Западним’ Странам’”.25 Tvrtko I, in
a deed of gift to Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić from 1380, mentioned an
important intitulation in the system of medieval patterns of rule and
ideology: “...Такоже же и аз Стефан Твp’тко по мил(о)сти господа
б(о)га краљ Србљем, Босни, Приморју, Хл’м’сци земљи, Дол’њим
крајем западним странам, Усори, Соли и Подренију к тому сподобљен
бих ц(еса)р ствовати на землљах родитељ и прародитељ наших...”.26
Tvrtko’s succerssor at the royal throne King Stejpan Dabiša also emphasized
his title, in a document dated May 17 1395 “Ми Стефан Дабиша по
милости господа бога, краљ Ср’бљем, Босне, Приморја, хл’м’сце
“Аз Мадеи Стипан′ по милости божије велики бан′ босен′ски”, MIKLOSICH,
1858, 32.
21
Codex diplomaticus, X, 79 - 81.
22
THALLÓCZY, 1906, 406, 407.
23
SOLOVJEV, 1949a, 89.; LOVRENOVIĆ, 2005, 199.
24
MARJANOVIĆ-DUŠANIĆ, 1997, 68; LOVRENOVIĆ, 2005, 200.
25
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 187.
26
JALIMAM, 1997, 61.
20
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земљи, дол’њим крајем’, западнем странам, Усоре, Соли и Подринију”.27 In a charter from November 20 1398 Stjepan Ostoja was titulated
“Аз’ Стипан’ Остоја, по милости господа бога блеговjерни крал’
Ср’блем’, Босне, Приморју, Хумсци Земли, Запад’ним Странам’,
Доним’Краем’, Усори, Соли, Подринију и к тому”.28 Besides this one,
King Ostoja also used the shorter title: “...бити ми ва Христа бога
благовирному и богом поставленому господину кир Стипану Остои,
краљу Срблем’, Босни и Поморију и всим‘ Западним’ странам’”.29
In certain charters, Tvrtko II Tvrtkovic put the devotional formula at the
beginning of the intitulation, thus the charter from March 2 1433 states:
“Милостију божиом’ Ми господин’ Шефан’ Твртко Твртковић,
краљ Срблем, Босни, Приморју, Хом’сци Зем’ли и к тому”.30
Intitulatioins of documents in Latin, namely Kulin’s charter from
1189 (Ego banus Culinus Bosne)31, those of Prijezda (Pryjezda domino
concendente banus Bosnensis)32, Ban Stjepan II Kotromanic dated June
23 1345 (Nos Stephanus, dei gratia banus Bosne, nec non terrarum Usure,
Salis, dolinne, Crayne, Rame ac totius Cholm princeps et dominus)33, also
show how political position affected titulation. While the predecessors of
Stjepan II, except Prijezda, do not use the dei gratia formula, Stjepan,
having strengthened as a leader, made it a part of the document-writing
practice. The Ban’s documents of Tvrtko, except for one written on February
13 135534, contain intitulations of several persons. The mentioned document
from February 13 1355 states: Tuerthko dei gracia banus Bossine, while
the titulation Tuerdico dei gracia Bozne banus una cum dilecto fratre suo
comite Vulk ac karissima matre nostra domina Helena35 appears in another
document of Tvrtko from March 14 1356. Unlike his ban’s documents,
Tvrtko’s royal charters contain another name, while both the ban’s and
royal charters contain the dei gratia formula. Tvrtko’s successors also
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 226.
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 231.
29
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 233.
30
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 374.
31
BRKOVIĆ, 1998, 183.
32
Codex diplomaticus, VI, 588, 589.
33
Codex diplomaticus, XI, 207, 208.
34
BRKOVIĆ, 1998, 185.
35
BRKOVIĆ, 1998, 185.
27
28
204
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used the ruling title Stephanus, like King Dabiša for example, who was
Stephanus Dabissa, dei gratia Rascie, Bosnae Maritimeque etc. Rex.36
4.2. The Pavlovics
The Pavlovics also used the titulation denoting that they bear their
status of dukes under the Grace of God, and add weight to their position
by invoking ancestry. On March 25 1397 Pavle Rađenović was titulated
“Ми кнез’ Павао, син’ светопочившаго господина и родитела ми
господина кнеза Радина Јабланића”.37 Radoslav Pavlović, the son of
Pavle, invoked the Grace of God, which is evident from his 1433 document
confirming peace reached with the people of Dubrovnik.38 From 1437
Radoslav Pavlović used a new initulation including a devotional formula,
mention of lineage, as well as an addition “и к тому”, probably adopted
from Bosnian charters.39 The intitulation from Radoslav Pavlović’s
charter dated January 31 1437 contains all the mentioned elements and
reads: “Ми господин’ воевода Радосав’, милостју божиом воевода
велики русага босанскога и к тому, а син’многопочтенога споменутија
славнога господина кнеза Павла”.40 In addition to “и к тому “, The
Pavlovics also started to use the term rusag bosanski in documents. In a
charter from 1439, Radoslav Pavlović, following the invocation, titulates
himself as “Ми господин’воевода Радосав’милс’тју божијом, велики
војвода русага босанскога а син много потченога споменут’ја
славнога господина кнеза Павла Раjеновића”.41 Starting with 1437, it
is possible to note significant similarities between the charters of Radoslav
Pavlović and Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, which can be explained either by
a strong mutual influence between the two offices or the use of identical
forms.42
Duke Ivaniš Pavlović, son of Radoslav Pavlović, confirms privileges
for the people of Dubrovnik in a charter from September 1442 and in
Codex diplomaticus, XVII, 596, 597.
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 229.
38
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 376.
39
STANOJEVIĆ, 1913, 135.
40
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 387.
41
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 398.
42
STANOJEVIĆ, 1914, 135.
36
37
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205
the charter he titulates himself “Милостију божиом Ми гдин воевода
Иваниш’ много почтенога споменутиа син` славнога и великога
господина Радосава а унук` и наследник` почтенога споменутиа
славнога господина кнеза Павла Раденовика..., а синовац почтенога
поменутија славнога господина воеводе Петра”.43
4.3. The Hrvatinićs
Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić used a variety of titulations, depending on
the political circumstances at the time of their use, but also his perceptions
and ambitions. This is also visible from Hrvoje’s self-intitulations which
include gospodin herceg splitski, knez Donjih kraja and veliki protoger
kraljevstva bosanskog44, duk splitski and veliki vojvoda kraljevstva
bosanskog45, as well as excellenti domino Hervoye, duce Spalati, Dalmatie
Croatieque regii vicemgerentis ac Bosne summi voyvoda necnon partium
inferiorum comes46, regnorum Rasie et Bosne summus voyvoda47, Inferiorum
Bozne parcium Wayuoda48, Supremus voyvoda regni Bosne49, vicarius
generalis regis Vladislavi et regis Ostoye50 etc. in Latin documents.
In the charter from March 12 1380, King Tvrtko I awarded the honor
of Grand Duke to Hrvoje51. The people of Dubrovnik addressed Hrvoje as
“славному и велиможному великому војеводи Xрвоју”52 , in a document
from 1400, assuring him that Turkish emissaries had not been prevented
from crossing the bridge at Drevi with their knowledge, and that those
responsible would be found and punished. On December 27 1403, the
people of Dubrovnik, besides addressing him as the Grand Duke of Bosnia,
also addressed him as the Herzog of Split.53
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 411, 412.
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 549.
45
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 455.
46
ŠIŠIĆ, 1938, 224.
47
ŠIŠIĆ, 1938, 183
48
Codex diplomaticus, XVII, 529, 530.
49
ŠIŠIĆ, 1938, 170, 171.
50
ŠIŠIĆ, 1938, 170, 171.
51
ŠURMIN, 1898, 91, 92.
52
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 448.
53
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 446, 447.
43
44
206
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In the agreement between Hrvoje Vukčić and the people of Dubrovnik
from 1404 on an alliance against King Ostoja, Hrvoje is titulated as “дук`
с”плицки и веоможани велики воевода кралеваств` босанског`”54,
while the people of Dubrovnik, in a document dated March 14 1404, which
praises reconciliation between Ostoja and Hrvoje, addressed him as
slavnim i velmožnim gospodinom Hrvojem, hercegom splitskim i velikim
vojvodom kraljevstva bosanskog55. As early as 1405, as well as in the
following years, they also addressed him as the Prince of the Lower Edges.56
On February 6 1406, the people of Dubrovnik titulated Hrvoje as By the
Grace of God Herzog of Split and Prince of the Lower Edges.57 Hrvoje
himself used the dei gratia formula in an agreement with Dubrovnik
against King Ostoja from January 15 1404.58 However, Hrvoje did not use
the dei gratia formula when he addressed the kings of Naples, Bosnia and
Hungary, because he was in a vassal position towards them and could
not express his own statehood in those addresses.59
In a charter from April 2 1412, Hrvoje is titulated as “Ми господин’
херцег сплитски и кнез’Долних’Краи и велики протогер’крелијевства
босанског”.60 The word “protoger” is of Byzantine origin and was used
to indicate the first among equals. Krstjanin Hval calls Hrvoje “urum”,
a form of address invoking lineage – a servant to his senior, i.e. having
the meaning of “my master”. One can assume that such Byzantine and
Hungarian influences are based on that fact that Hrvoje’s power extended
to Split, which was once the seat of the Byzantine Dux of Dalmatia and
Croatia, while the Hungarian influence came from the north, northwest
and west.61
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 455.
MIKLOSICH, 1929, 457.
56
MIKLOSICH, 1929, 461 – 474.
57
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 460.
58
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 455.
59
MRGIĆ-RADOJČIĆ, 2002, 102.
60
PUCIĆ, 1858, 1. c. I. 175, 176.
61
MRGIĆ-RADOJČIĆ, 2002, 102, 103.
54
55
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207
4.4. The Hranić – Kosačas
Duke Sandalj Hranić was titulated as “воевода Сандаљ Хранић
милостију божиом велики воевода босан’с’ки”.62 We see the same
intitulation in the documents of Stjepan Vukčić, Vladislav Hercegović
and other members of the nobility as well. In a charter from October 10
1435, confirming to the people of Dubrovnik earlier charters as well as
Konavle and Vitalina, Stjepan Kosača titulates himself as “Ми гдин велики
воевода русага босанскога и к тому Стипан Син’ и наслидник
многопочтенога поменут’је родителја ми славнога гдина кнеза вукца
Хранића, милостију божиом’ велики воевода русага босанскога и
к тому”.63 Stjepan’s intitulation is more extensive and elaborate than
Sandalj’s and was probably written on more forms.64 Stjepan Vukčić stressed
in charters his title of the Duke of Saint Sava and in one such charter from
July 5 1450 he is titulated as “господин Стјепан’, божиом’милосту
херцег’ од’ светога Саве, господар’ хумски и приморски и велики
воевода русага босанскога, кнез’дрински и к тому”.65 Several years
later, on July 19 1453, in a charter reconciling himself with his son Vladislav, Herzog Stjepan is titulated as “Милостију божиом’и господара
великога господина ми цара амир’ султан’ Мехмед’ бега, Ми
господин’Cтјепан’”.66 Herzog Stjepan’s title was thus adjusted to the new
political circumstances shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
on May 29 1453.
Vladislav Hercegović titulated himself as “господин кнез Владислав,
син господина херцега Стјепана”.67 Already on August 15 1451, in the
agreement on entering an alliance with Dubrovnik, Vladislav used the
expanded intitulation “Милостју божиом’Ми господин’кнез Владислав’, син почтенога и узможнога господина херцега Степана,
сина господина кнеза Вукца Хранића”.68 It is clearly visible from
STOJANOVIĆ, 1929, 29.
STOJANOVIĆ, 1934, 35.
64
STANOJEVIĆ, 1914, 138
65
MIKLOSICH 1858, 441.
66
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 448.
67
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 443.
68
MIKLOSICH 1858, 444.
62
63
208
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these formulations that the power of the nobility is not only given by
God, legitimized by the Grace of God, but also by noble lineage. It is not
before 147869 that Vladislav is for the first time mentioned in sources
as Herzog of Saint Sava, while his brothers, on the other hand, use this
impressive title much earlier. Vlatko Hercegović was titulated as Herzog
in 146770, while in a document issued with his younger brother Stjepan in
July 1470 he was titulated as “Ми господин’ херцег’ Влатко, херцег’
светога Саве и веће, и господин’ кнез’ Стипан’, брат’ реченому
господину херцегу Влатку, обадва синове и наслидници славнога
поменут’ја господина херцега Стипана и много гласитога господина
воеводе Сандала”.71 Balša, grandson of Herceg Stjepan, son of Vladislav,
was also named Herzog of Saint Sava and was titulated in October 1420 as
“Ми господин’Балша, херцег’светаго Саве, син гласитаго споменутија господина херцега Владислава”.72
In addition to the dei gratia formula, Herceg was titulated in Latin
charters from 1454 and 1455 as: “Nos Stephanus dei gratia dux Sancti
Sabe, dominus tere Hulminis, Maritimarum Partium ac comes Drine et
magnus Vayvoda Regni Bossine etc.”73 By doing so Herceg Stjepan also
tried to present through his titulation that his rule is powerful and legitimized
by the Grace of God.
Instead of a Conclusion
The legal system and concept of authority in the medieval European
society were conceived as an expression of the theocratic, Christian view
of the world. The structure of the feudal society itself led towards legal
particularism. Yet the Church, being a universal institution, accelerated
the reception of Roman law by modifying canon law. The understanding
of state and authority was also inseparable from the religious conception
of the world and society. Rulers, as early as the King of Franks Pippin the
Short, ruled “by the Grace of God”, which is an expression of indirect
STANOJEVIĆ, 1914, 141.
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 503.
71
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 502
72
MIKLOSICH, 1858, 502.
73
THALLÓCZY, 1914, 395 – 397, 175, 176.
69
70
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209
theocracy, in which law is a gift from God, while the ruler, whose
power has divine legitimacy, is responsible to God alone. Medieval
Bosnia was also not spared of this conception of authority and it too was
a land in which bans, kings and certain noblemen ruled “by the Grace
of God”. The concept of the Bosnian feudal state was maintained by the
institutions of medieval Bosnia: the crown of the kingdom as a transpersonal
symbol, the Assembly and State Council. Bosnian medieval documents,
both in Cyrillic and Latin alphabet, as formalized expressions of law,
show us how their authors viewed the world and authority. Intitulations
of Bosnian medieval charters, as formal characteristics of documents,
show that the rulers and noblemen in medieval Bosnia (the bans Kulin and
Ninoslav, the Kotromanićs, Pavlovićs, Hranić-Kosačas, Hrvatinićis)
accepted the legitimization of power by God’s will, but also by noble
lineage.
Sources:
1. MIKLOSICH, 1858. – Franjo MIKLOSICH, Monumenta serbica
spectantia historiam Serbiae, Bosnae, Ragusii, Wiennae.
2. PUCIĆ, 1858. - Medo PUCIĆ, Spomenici srpski od 1395 do 1423.
Pisma pisana od Dubrovačke republike kraljevina, despotima, vojvodama
i knezovima srpskim, bosanskim i primorskim, I, Beograd.
3. SMIČIKLAS, Codex diplomaticus IV, IX, X, XII, XIV, XV,
XVI, XVII, XVIII - Tade SMIČIKLAS, Codex diplomaticus regni
Croatie, Dalmacie et Slavoniae IV, IX, X, XII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII,
XVIII, Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1906/11/12/14/
16/34/76/81/90, Zagreb.
4. STOJANOVIĆ, 1929. – Ljubomir STOJANOVIĆ, Stare srpske
povelje i pisma, knjiga I/1, Beograd - Sremski Karlovci.
5. STOJANOVIĆ, 1934. – Ljubomir STOJANOVIĆ, Stare srpske
povelje i pisma, Srpska kraljevska Akademija, Beograd - Sremski Karlovci.
6. ŠIŠIĆ, 1938. – Ferdo ŠIŠIĆ, Nekoliko isprava iz početka XV
stoljeća, Starine, XXXIX, Zagreb.
7. ŠURMIN, 1898. – Đuro ŠURMIN, Hrvatski spomenici, I (11001499) Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Zagreb.
210
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8. THALLÓCZY, 1906. – Lajos THALLÓCZY, Istraživanja o
postanku bosanske banovine sa naročitim obzirom na povelje körmendskog
arkiva, Glasnik Zemaljskog Muzeja, XVIII, Sarajevo.
9. THALLÓCZY, 1914. – Lajos THALLÓCZY, Studien zur Gesichte
Bosniens und Serbiens in Mittelalter, Leipzig.
Literature:
1. BRKOVIĆ, 1998. – Milko BRKOVIĆ, Isprave hrvatskih narodnih
vladara i latinske isprave bosansko-humskih vladara i velmoža, Ziral
– Mostar.
2. ĆIRKOVIĆ, 1964. – Sima ĆIRKOVIĆ, Sugubi venac (Prilog
istoriji kraljevstva u Bosni), Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu
VIII-1, 1964 (Dinićev zbornik), br. 368, Beograd.
3. ĆIRKOVIĆ, 1964a. – Sima ĆIRKOVIĆ, Istorija srednjovekovne
bosanske države, Beograd.
4. LOVRENOVIĆ, 1997. – Dubravko LOVRENOVIĆ, Bosanskohumski mramorovi - stečci, Bosna franciscana, 7, Sarajevo.
5. LOVRENOVIĆ, 2005. – Dubravko LOVRENOVIĆ, Krist i
donator: Kotromanići između vjere rimske i vjere bosanske - I. (konfesionalne posljedice jednog lokalnog crkvenog raskola), Fenomen
¨Krstjani¨ u srednjovjekovnoj Bosni, Zbornik radova, Institut za istoriju,
Sarajevo, Hrvatski institut za povijest, Zagreb, Sarajevo – Zagreb.
6. LOVRENOVIĆ, 2006. – Dubravko LOVRENOVIĆ, Na klizištu
povijesti, sveta kruna ugarska i sveta kruna bosanska 1387 - 1463,
Synopsis, Zagreb - Sarajevo.
7. MARJANOVIĆ-DUŠANIĆ, 1997. – Smilja MARJANOVIĆDUŠANIĆ, Vladarska ideologija Nemanjića, Clio, Beograd.
8. MRGIĆ-RADOJČIĆ, 2002. – Jelena MRGIĆ-RADOJČIĆ, Donji
Kraji, Krajina srednjovijekovne Bosne, Filozofski fakultet u Beogradu,
Filozofski fakultet u Banjaluci, Beograd.
9. SOLOVJEV, 1949a. – Aleksandar, Vlasteoske povelje bosanskih
vladara, Istorisko-pravni zbornik, 1, Sarajevo.
10. SPEKTORSKI, 1997. – SPEKTORSKI V. Evgenije: Istorija
socijalne filozofije, Službeni list SRJ Beograd, CID, Podgorica.
11. SPOUNAR, 1995. – Pavel SPOUNAR, Zdeněk SMETÁNKA,
Jiří Rajmund TRETERA, Amadeo MOLNÁŘ, Jiří KEJŘ, Aněžka VIDSURVEY
211
MANOVÁ, Marie BLÁHOVÁ, Karel STEJSKAL, Jaromír ČERNÝ:
Kultura Středověku, Akademie věd Česke Republiky, Praha.
12. STANOJEVIĆ, 1913. – Stanoje STANOJEVIĆ, Studije o srpskoj
diplomatici, Glas srpske kraljevske akademije XCII, Drugi razred 54,
Beograd.
13. STANOJEVIĆ, 1914. – Stanoje STANOJEVIĆ, Studije o srpskoj
diplomatici, Glas srpske kraljevske akademije XCIV, Drugi razred 55,
Beograd.
212
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Senadin Lavić
Faculty of Political Sciences
University of Sarajevo
UDK 327 (4 : 497.6)
GREATER SERBIAN IDEOLOGY
IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN POLICY
TOWARDS BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Summary
The paper presents the view that barbaric methods and consequences
of the use of such methods must not be accepted as a basis for the future
of the new generations in the shape of legalized forms of political life
and state organization at the local and international level.
In order to protect victims from barbaric crimes and in order to punish
crimes and criminals, criminal acts and crimes need to be treated primarily
and solely within the province of law, i.e. in the province of judicial truth
and judicial method.
The victim must not be stripped of its rights by allowing the legal aspect
of efforts to address the problem to be abandoned, sabotaged or watered
down in its implementation, by allowing the problem to be redirected,
reduced or marginalized to moral lectures, debates and condemnations;
religious, academic and journalistic quibbling; delivery of humanitarian
assistance to the victim in the form of food, clothing, medicine, etc. – all
in the form of a surrogate, i.e. an extremely limited, painfully insufficient
exercise of rights provided to the victim under the international legal order.
In this case the victim is a full member of the Organization of the
United Nations (OUN), the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RBiH)
and its citizens. By strategically redirecting the resolution of its problems
- the perpetration of internationally defined and documented crimes against
it – from the field of law to mere moralizing, public debates, humanitarian
campaigns, etc., this victim of aggression, war crimes and genocide had
been cynically deceived. All along, unsanctioned by the local (constiSURVEY
213
tutional) and international legal order, processes carrying all the features
of aggression and uninterrupted genocide against the citizens of RBiH and
bringing a OUN member state to final and irreversible destruction had
continued, and are, in fact, still ongoing. Participating in that deception
are even those local politicians, who allegedly, according to their own
words, but not based on actions, represent the victim. All this is slowly
taking the shape of success of the Greater Serbian barbaric aggression
against BiH. Not even international factors are exempt from these sins
against the victim and the international legal order – primarily the removal
and sabotage of the legal method. On the contrary! Therefore the author
underlines in this paper the standpoint that legal thought is the initial, basic
element of political work, or, in other words, law in Bosnia and Herzegovina
represents the basis of politics in the resolution of problems. All discussion
with criminals should take place within courts, and under no circumstances
in “roadside inns”.
Key words: legality, law, crime, genocide, the state of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, negotiations, Greater Serbian ideology/matrix, Greater
Serbian barbarism, international community.
Introduction
A brief excerpt from one of the ICTY verdicts concerning crimes in
Visegrad states:
“The Trial Chamber has found that the Pionirska street fire and
the Bikavac fire exemplify the worst acts of inhumanity that
a person may inflict upon others. In the all too long, sad and
wretched history of man’s inhumanity to man, the Pionirska
street and Bikavac fires must rank high. At the close of the
twentieth century, a century marked by war and bloodshed on
a colossal scale, these horrific events stand out for the viciousness
of the incendiary attack, for the obvious premeditation and
calculation that defined it, for the sheer callousness and brutality
of herding, trapping and locking the victims in the two houses,
thereby rendering them helpless in the ensuing inferno, and
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for the degree of pain and suffering inflicted on the victims as
they were burnt alive. There is a unique cruelty in expunging all
traces of the individual victims which must heighten the gravity
ascribed to these crimes.”1
This is only one of many horrific examples from the creation of the
entity of Republika Srpska (RS). There is still hope among the victims
that this act of human monstrosity and perversity, this unprecedented crime
against the citizens of RBiH, will be sanctioned through the institution of
international law. It is on this basis that this paper approaches the Bosnian
issue as a political-legal issue. Genocide against Bosniaks represents the
foundations of the entity RS and this can never and under no circumstances
be concealed. We believe that without a drastic violation of international
law and the constitutional legal order of RBiH it would not be possible
to install the entity RS on the territory of a full UN member state. Both
domestic and foreign forces were necessary for that criminal enterprise!
Without a precise look into the mind of evil, the diluvial atavism and the
Greater Serbian ritualistic killing of victims, the structure of the criminal
thought, the victim will clearly begin to function according to the wishes
of the criminals and will never realize what its happening to it. It is therefore
necessary to contemplate evil and its results! The essence of evil in the
Balkans rests in the Greater Serbian ideology which has become the inner
matrix of the Serb attitude towards others.2 It is based on this matrix that
attempts to form a monoethnic state with an ethnically homogenous
substrate in a historically multiethnic community are being made – an
effort impossible without crimes!
1
This excerpt from the verdict for crimes against Bosniaks in Visegrad has been
taken from: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
Press Release, “Judgment summary in the case Prosecutor v. Milan and Sredoje Lukic”,
20.07.2009. (http.://www.icty.org/x/cases/milan_lukic_sredoje_lukic/tjug/bsc/090720
_sazetak_presude.pdf.)
2
Because of the existence of the RS the majority of Bosniaks do not wish or are
too afraid to return to their pre-war homes because fear is stronger than love for the
birthplace. This was perhaps the main objective of installing this product of genocide
on a half of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory, which has been stripped of
the attribute republic (a form of government besides monarchy) only for it to be given
to an entity created as a result of brutal violations of rights and interstate relations.
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The discourse which has been deliberately installed and encouraged,
and which has become the “standard” of political correctness in the postwar society of Bosnia and Herzegovina, consciously avoids important issues
concerning crimes, executors, responsibility, rights and trials (judicial
truths), and promotes relativization, equal distribution of guilt and absurd
compromises. Most ominous of it all is that explanations of the post-war,
Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina do not stress as important the fact that
a result of planned crimes (entity RS) and a project of Greater Serbian
expansionism and terrorism has continued to live within it. It is yet to be
seen where the achieved Balkan authoritarianism (candid irresponsibility,
mockery of civilization, racism, primitivism and Greater Serbian barbarism)
will take us. This Greater Serbian project and its genocidal creation are
again heating up the hegemonic demand “all Serbs in one state” to new
highs and threatening political practice. S. P. Ramet rightly notes that
“all nationalism, from the beginning to the end, is nothing else but a form
of illegitimate politics.”3 We even need to try, as A. Badiou proposes, to
raise the issue of nationalists (Nazis) and barbarians, i.e. to ask ourselves
what did the Greater Serbian barbarians think in their atavistic aggressiveness, even though we know what they have done/accomplished.4 It
is therefore important to think Srebrenica and the genocide committed
around it. Even more so, we need to think the Greater Serbian barbarism
in order to confront and defeat it!
Exposure of the Moralistic-Humanitarian Deceit
As Bosnia was being destroyed by the 1992-1995 Greater Serbian
aggression, several countries from the European region, primarily Britain,
France and Russia, dedicated special attention to preventing any possibility
of a military intervention by the international community against the
Sabrina Petra Ramet, Balkanski Babilon. Raspad Jugoslavije od Titove smrti do
Miloševićevog pada, Alinea, Zagreb, 2005, p. 440.
4
Alain Badiou, Stoljeće, Antibarbarus, Zagreb, 2008, p. 9. (The author goes so far
as to say that not thinking what the Nazis have thought prevents us from contemplating
what they have done, consequently it prevents any realistic policy on preventing the
return of such actions which have led to the extermination of European Jews)
3
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aggressor forces of the Yugoslav Army and Karadzic’s Chetniks.5 This
made it visible that no one wished to disturb the Greater Serbian regime
in Belgrade while it was building Greater Serbia on the ruins of former
Yugoslavia. As of May 22 1992 the state Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an internationally recognized United Nations member (as the
177th UN member state) and based on the UN Charter had the right to
be protected or to be allowed to exercise that right in order to oppose the
Greater Serbian expansionist rampage. It needs to be kept in mind that
the Greater Serbian conquerors had already in 1992 militarily occupied
70 out of 109 prewar municipalities in RBiH. All relevant factors in
the international community were aware of this. As if maps dividing the
country into ethnic territories had already been drawn at some institute
and they now only needed to be preserved!? As if blatant aggression by
the Greater Serbian regime needed to be given some other character!?
British diplomacy has since the shameful London Conference (August
26-27 1992) skillfully transformed the Bosnian legal issue into the Bosnian
humanitarian issue, i.e. an issue of opening corridors for delivering
humanitarian aid to the victims – so that Bosnians do not die hungry in
enclaves into which they had been herded by armed barbarians – with
besieged enclaves in East Bosnia suffering the worst fate. B. Simms is
entirely correct when he says that the London Conference was a pure scam
and an abandonment of the principles of international law.6 To replace
the mediator Carrington,7 who failed in his role, British Prime Minister
John Major appointed a new negotiator, British Foreign Secretary David
Owen – in spite of clear dissatisfaction of other European countries with
the fact that “Great Britain has practically monopolized both the work
of the peace conference and the selection of the key players.”8 All along,
the Greater Serbian invaders had unreservedly continued their war plans
and conquest on the ground in BiH, fully aware that they possessed diploCarole Hodge, Velika Britanija i Balkan, Detecta, Zagreb, 2007, p. 96.
Brendan Simms, Najsramniji trenutak. Britanija i uništavanje Bosne, Buybook,
Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava Srbije, Sarajevo, Beograd, 2003, p. 17.
7
In July 1992 Carrington monstrously claimed that peace would not come to Bosnia
“until a de facto division takes place”. By doing so this shameless man pressured the
Bosnian Government to sell its land for a sterile and uncertain peace, and encourage
the aggressor to capture as much as possible to the state territory of RBiH.
8
Carole Hodge, ibid. p. 92.
5
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217
matic cover for their crimes. In the meantime the Bosnian issue had been
transferred to Geneva. Carole Hodge offered a concise critical assessment
of the objectives of the London Conference, which reveal British diplomatic
egotism. She says:
“ […] The London Conference served to blur the contours of
international responsibility in resolving the conflict, at the same
time setting the framework for various tensions which were
to recur between states, and between and within international
institutions throughout the war.”9
Instead of the international community protecting its member from
open and destructive aggression by the Greater Serbian regime, the state
of BiH is offered negotiations that would be governed by Great Britain
and which would then successfully stop US demands for a military
intervention.10 Great Britain profited the most from the London Conference,
and Milosevic’s regime was given more maneuvering space. Allegedly,
everything was done under the UN umbrella, which meant that no one
specific was responsible and that everyone was responsible, while Great
Britain played the lead role, which through Bosnia and Herzegovina,
through the destruction of one state and its citizens, achieved its main
objective – it, namely, “established a new negotiating structure in which it
would continue to have a leading role. This would not have been possible
had the Bosnian government refused to negotiate.”11 The state of Bosnia
and Herzegovina was deliberately lured into negotiations, instead of
demanding that there can be no negotiations in a way that suits the
aggressor and that the international right of an attacked UN member state
must be respected. The British were able to move the conference to Geneva,
and in Belgrade Dobrica Cosic, then president of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (FRY), applauded the decision to establish a permanent
peace conference and “generously” proposed the demilitarization of Bosnia
Carole Hodge, ibid. p. 93.
Brendan Simms, ibid. p. 47. [When people working with J. Baker tried to do
everything in their power to start an intervention, which would mean starting a bombing
campaign of Serb positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this was opposed by a “very
harsh line in the British Embassy, which targeted precisely those people in the State
Department who advocated such action”. British diplomats tried to silence them at
all cost.]
11
Carole Hodge, ibid. p. 94
9
10
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and Herzegovina. This means that he realized that there would be no
military intervention by the Western countries and that the Greater Serbian
war machine could take all it wished!
According to British Defense Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, the British
undertaking, backed by French diplomatic activities,12 to reduce the
Bosnian issue to a humanitarian issue and several moralistic phrases was
not so much motivated by concerns either for humanitarian or military needs
as it was by objectives of British foreign policy, because the entire idea of
providing protective support for humanitarian assistance helped “keep
Great Britain in the first ranks of world diplomacy, but also remove
increasingly vocal demands for military intervention in the true sense
of that word:”13 UNPROFOR was given the task of implementing a
humanitarian mission, and the Greater Serbian barbarians had already
occupied seventy cities in RBiH, killed tens of thousands of citizens and
continued to do the same things. Nobody emphasized the right of RBiH to
defend itself or the commitment of the UN to protect its full member. International cynicism was at an all time high and is linked to the irresponsibility
of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its state of shock as a victim. “Great”
European philosophers in their little texts were wrapping this situation
into historical narratives. And all along, RBiH, in all its misery, needed the
right to defend itself from Greater Serbian aggression.
British diplomat Robert Cooper, in his book The Breaking of Nations,
partly touches on and describes the condition from which parts of the
international Western alliance acted in the Balkans. Naturally, we do not
have to agree with those views; however it is essential, after all that has
happened, to read these accounts of power. Cooper says:
“Western intervention has been above all in support of the
individual – humanitarian intervention began out of good postmodern motives. But it ran into the ambitions of Milosevic’s
thoroughly modern nationalistic state. The first major clash, over
Bosnia, was eventually handles more or less according to the
The arrival of French President F. Mitterrand to the besieged Sarajevo in 1992
represents the culmination of dishonor of French policy towards RBiH - it was aimed
to show that it is possible to live under siege and that a military intervention by the
Western military alliance in not necessary.
13
Carole Hodge, ibid. p. 97.
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219
recipe outlined above for Gulf War I – a mixture of limited force
and negotiation – with a certain measure of success.”14
It needs to be said that Cooper disregards the fact that British
diplomacy persistently prevented any military intervention of the Western
alliance with NATO forces. Cooper also disregards the fact that BiH had
the right to defend itself and that that it was prevented from exercising this
right. This helped give the Greater Serbian regime from Belgrade a strategic
advantage, which was made possible by diplomatic networks working on
preventing any form of military intervention. During this time the Greater
Serbian barbarians were given the maneuvering space to capture as much
territory as possible, to expel all other non-Serb ethnic groups which were
in most case barehanded, and to then humiliate and blackmail the Bosnian
government at the negotiating table. Only through such actions was it
possible to create the genocidal entity RS. Perhaps aware of his imprecision
concerning the intervention, which came too late for tens of thousands of
dead, Cooper says later in his text:
“Thus the initial Western response to the situation in the Balkans,
in Somalia or Afghanistan was a combination of neglect, halfhearted peace efforts, plus a humanitarian attempt to deal with
the symptoms, while steering clear of the (possible infectious)
disease.”15
It is necessary to cite an entirely different view and understanding of
narration on events in Bosnia after the 1992 London Conference. Namely,
B. Simms holds an entirely opposite view on British policy and actions in
BiH during the Greater Serbian aggression. Simms says:
“In the autumn of 1992 it was clear both that a negotiated solution
was not imminent and that the war would not end with an early
Serb victory. This forced the British government to rethink its
original strategy. Whereas ground troops had initially been firmly
ruled out, the growing humanitarian crisis now led to the dispatch
of substantial British forces to Bosnia as part of the UN Protection
Robert Cooper, Slom država. Poredak i kaos u 21.stoljeću, Profil, Zageb, 2009,
p. 77.
15
Robert Cooper, ibid, p. 84.
14
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Force (UNPRO – FOR) tasked with the delivery and protection
of international humanitarian aid. The political purpose of the
deployment was not stated, but quite transparent: to head off
demands for a politico-military commitment to the Bosnian
government by the pre-emptive dispatch of ground forces for
purely humanitarian purposes…
All this was a part of a strategy to relativize and depoliticize the
conflict and turn it into a purely humanitarian problem. Instead
of ethnic cleansing and aggression, the watchwords of British
statesmen were ‘ethnic strife’and ‘humanitarian relief’.According
to this reading Bosnia became no more than an inconveniently
conspicuous but essentially routine civil war and humanitarian
crisis…”16
Simms fully understands the logic of British political and diplomatic
activities concerning BiH. Therefore, when dealing with a humanitarian
problem, military intervention is not necessary, it is not necessary to stop
the Greater Serbian project on the territory of BiH, it is not necessary to
provide support and respect the right of the Bosnian government to defend
itself as a UN member state. This was the shape of the strategic involvement
of British politics in the Bosnian tragedy, which replaced international law
and the right to self-defense with humanitarian convoys for refugees in
the enclaves. “Humanitarization” of BiH turned out to be a strategy of
“depoliticizing” BiH, reducing a UN member state to a “flash-point” – loss
of political personality, and its citizens were reduced from political subjects
with rights and liberties to a biological mass which should only be fed
as if fish in a fish farm.
The idea of creating safe areas for Bosniaks (safe areas for Muslim
population in Bosnia17) was presented in the winter of 1992 by Cornelio
Sommaruga, then President of the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. The creation of such “protected zones” (safe areas,
safe havens, secure zones) across Bosnia and Herzegovina speaks volumes
about the intention of certain circles from the international community to
Brendan Simms, ibid. p. 18.
Jan Willem Honig/Norbert Both, Srebrenica. Record of a War Crime, Penguin
Books, New York, London, 1996, p. 99.
16
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221
prevent any valid defense of the state of BiH, and to turn it into a total
humanitarian issue, i.e. a catastrophe and tragedy.18 This masks the
responsibility of individuals and governments, representatives of the UN
and representatives of the great powers, many figures from the international
community, who had the commitment to respect the right of the state of
BiH to be defended and to allow it to exercise that right. Then the Bosnian
government was drawn into that cycle and a negotiating process ensued
in which the genocidal creation was imposed. It has been long since the
citizens of one state and institutions of the international community were
scammed in such a way as was done with the Dayton obliteration of BiH.
The responsibility is immense and it directly undermines the international
legal system and order, not only the Constitution of the Republic of BiH,
but also the UN Charter and the UN Convention on Genocide. When UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan presented the report on genocide in Srebrenica in November 1999 he acknowledged the responsibility of the UN, but
he then again played false by narrating about the objectives of the Greater
Serbian aggression against BiH and the failure to act on protecting BiH,
instead of punishing the Greater Serbian enterprise through the UN.
Speaking four years after the destruction of Srebrenica he said that a
“military-political solution” should have been undertaken and RBiH
saved from aggression. However, Annan’s report was partially sincere
– he acknowledged the responsibility of the UN for failing to fulfill its
obligations towards a member state. This sincerity exposes many and shows,
for example, how the Foreign Office and the British government prevented
efforts to help Bosnia and Herzegovina militarily and tried to force the BiH
government to an unjust peace. At the end of his mandate as Foreign
Secretary Douglas Hurd ordered the development of an internal report on
the management of the Bosnian case in the form of a strictly classified
document in order to prevent their dirty involvement in the destruction of
BiH and the wicked prevention of military assistance to a UN member
In this safe zone – a reservation under custody – similar to nature reserves
under the custody of different services responsible for providing food, breeding and
killing animals, UN forces in BiH care for biological units of an ethnic group which
represents the most drastic example of reducing BiH citizens to a primarily-biological
element, i.e. drastic exclusion from the political sphere and relegation to the “animal
kingdom” on the other side of good and evil.
18
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state under attack from seeing the light of day.19 This served the purpose of
preparing the ground for forcing the Bosnian government into accepting
an unjust peace and accepting an illegal genocidal creation on the territory
of the state of BiH. Simms reminds of a statement made by one of the
commentators that the word Bosnia would be engraved onto Hurd’s
headstone! This is the source of most of the problems BiH is facing decades
after the Dayton twilight of international law.
Dayton stopped the RBiH Army in its liberating push against the
Greater Serbian regime and the genocidal creation on the territory of RBiH.
The Dayton-Paris Agreement installed the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into three ethnic territories achieved by aggression.20 The causes
and results of the Greater Serbian barbarianism in BiH were of no real
interest to anyone.21 It appears, after all that has happened, that they
were taken into account from the start of the wars in the region of former
Yugoslavia. In the shadow of the siege of Sarajevo, for example, which
served to force the Bosnian government to compromise in accordance
with the wishes of the aggressors and the rebels, a horrific genocide was
carried out in East Bosnia, an area where Bosniaks were in majority until
1992.22 This is what betrays the key intentions of rescue-offering thought
of many authors today who, when speaking about the Dayton structure of
BiH, emphasize that it is a divided country, an unstable society, a dysfunctional state without civil participation in the development of the
democratic system, an ethnopolis, etc. That it is practically impossible! As
Brendan Simms, ibid. p. 1.
Brendan Simms, ibid. viii
21
The book edited and prepared by Sonja Biserko, Bosnia and Herzegovina –
the Source of the Greater Serbia Project (Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in
Serbia, Belgrade, 2006) is certainly a well detailed and valuable one. It provides numerous information on the horrific plan to destroy Bosnia by the Greater Serbia barbarians,
accompanied by the cynicism of the international community which from the start
of the aggression against BiH possessed relevant information indicating genocide
against the Bosniaks. Therefore, the military aggression against BiH was prepared
in advance, and this comes from the domain of thought. Every destruction of cities,
bombardment of civilians, killing of women and children, is thought up in advance
and implemented on the ground, thus, barbarism and evil are not devoid of logic and
human thought.
22
Sonja Biserko, Razaranje Bosne, u: Bosna i Hercegovina – jezgro velikosrpskog
projekta, Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, Beograd, 2006, p. 9.
19
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223
though it is necessary to definitely and finally accept this imposed evil
and injustice!? They constantly battle ghosts, the consequences, yet the
bulk of the Greater Serbian hegemonistic ideology remains untouched,
hidden, unpunished. At the same time none of the numerous, supposedly
concerned authors mention that a product of crime under the name RS
remained on BiH soil after the war, that it remained to exist as a result of
crimes against Bosniaks and Croats – as a testimony of evil of which we
need to think about. Many “impartial” commentators and experts see nothing
unusual in the genocidal creation! As if it is something completely normal,
as if a genocidal creation is a justified and common way of implementing
and achieving political ideas. As if legality and responsibility for crimes
never existed! As if ethno-nationalistic barbarism were a legitimate policy!23
They don’t even mention what led to the “divided society” (M. Kasapovic)
and the “impossible state” (N. Kecmanovic); yet, these supposedly
concerned authors pitifully rejoice unaware of their own anti-humanistic
misery and continue the discourse of dissolution of the Bosnian substance
as a continuation of hegemonic expansionism, which is entirely illegal.
None of them stress the position that the existence of the entity RS (as well
as of the dysfunctional entity Federation BiH) is an expression of an illegally
imposed condition on RBiH and the cause for the failure of the attempt to
install liberal democracy, a single economic space, ethnic-confessional
cooperation, and that the Dayton division of the country represents the
main obstacle for its development. Everyone knows and sees this today, but
they cynically remain silent and call for talks, negotiations, compromises!
After all the misery BiH has endured we still see two anti-Bosnian
models of interpretation of the Bosnian being at work: according to the first
model – Bosnia was dominated by centuries of hatred between peoples;
close to this view are those voices resonating the consociational mutilation
of history and the denial of certain historical developments, and according
to the second model – Bosnia went through a civil war, not an aggression
When the issue of legality in BiH is raised, then all its ethno-nationalistic
institutions, included the entity RS are brought into question, because they cannot
stand the test of legality (starting with the Constitution, Annex IV, and on). This is
why the international community is at such pains, because as it avoids to face the
questionable and illegal constitutional legal structure of BiH problems only multiply,
this naturally mostly at the expense of BiH citizens who remain hostages of the mad
and illegal state structure.
23
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(the Greater Serbian version of the war in BiH preserving Serbia from
responsibility). The task of both these models is to thoroughly and
irreversibly deny the Bosnian distinctiveness (Bosnian paradigm) and
relativize crimes carried out by Greater Serbian paramilitary elements in
BiH. This was accompanied by the policy of powerlessness of the international community, the wicked policy of handing over Bosnia into the
hands of the enemy through utter indolence, indifference and coldness
towards the suffering of innocent people. The denial of certain historical
and legal facts and their recomposition and reinterpretation, without any
valid arguments, rejects RBiH and denies its history, cultural distinctiveness
and status of a full UN member, the status of an internationally recognized
state – it appears as nothing more than an “artificial creation” which was
never a state, or, to put it in the harshest possible terms, the Bosnian Kingdom
never existed, it never had a special position within the Ottoman Empire,
it was never a corpus separatum within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it
was never a federal unit (republic) within Yugoslavia and the international
recognition from 1992 never happened. All these lies and insinuations cannot be accepted.24
Lacking a notion of what happened in Bosnia, i.e. without a thought
reflecting and showing that it is aware of what kind of scam, fraud and crime
is at issue, all moralizing narrations, humanitarian compassionate reflexes,
diplomatic games behind the screens of the international community, religious prejudices, serve the purpose of hiding the horror of the destruction
of BiH. This hiding of the horrific suffering of Bosnia equals its destruction.
By reducing BiH to a moral, humanitarian and religious issue, the Republic
of Bosnia and Herzegovina is removed from the field of international
law! It then faces an enormous risk of being abolished by the so-called
Dayton process which consists of a gradual – according to the UN Charter
and international law a prohibited, illegal, thus outside the field of law
– “voluntary”, “consensual” legalization of a creation defined in Annex IV
(Constitution) of the Dayton Agreement. This Dayton BiH is no more than
a temporary, loose union of two “states”, the Republic of Srpska and the
Federation BiH. To this, the RS is on the path to legalization by virtue
At the time when Bosnia and Herzegovina was being recognized by the EU in
April 1992 and by the UN in May 1992 (Serbia was an independent state from 1991)
and when it declared its independence, Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist.
24
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225
of the fact that it is “consensually” (“extrajudicially”) recognized by the
representatives of its victim, leaders-negotiators of parties in which citizens
loyal to RBiH participate. Alongside the stable, unitary and ethnically,
religiously, ideologically entirely formatted Greater Serbian RS, we also
have an unstable Federation BiH consisted of 10 mini states, cantons.
Bosnia, therefore, does not need a pat on the back, pity, false compassion,
charity or cans – Bosnia demands from civilization that its right as a UN
member state be respected.
Barbarism, Negotiations and Deception of Law
The special war against Bosnia and Herzegovina started in the late
1970s during SFRJ when Serbia began to show clear signs that it wishes
to eliminate the 1974 Constitution, which prevented it from achieving the
hegemonic position within the federal state as if Yugoslavia belonged
only to Serbs. Texts published in the NIN magazine during that time are
especially indicative. The special war against the Republic of BiH was
waged in 1992 as well. Concerns of BiH becoming a “new Vietnam” were
deliberately spread. US General Colin Powell, who was the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff at that time, was especially vocal in expressing such
fears. The fear of “Vietnamization” concealed and deliberately suppressed
a simple fact that the Republic of BiH as a member of the UN did not need
international troops (armies of other countries to defend it), but only the
right to defend itself with its own army from the aggressor – it was not
given that right by the international community. Great Britain and France
supported the arms embargo and rejected a military intervention. Thus,
they created damage to the state of BiH that can never be compensated.
The Bosnian government expected the international community to act
and militarily protect its member from apparent aggression; instead it
fell into the trap of the London Conference. The disgraceful spirit of the
London Conference was then continued by D. Owen in Geneva where the
aggressor and the victim were approached as equal, i.e. given identical
legal status, placed on the same plane; on one side an internationally
recognized state and a member of the UN and on the other a terroristinsurgent movement waging war against the state of BiH. The project of
placing the right of the victim, or the attacked side, onto the same plane with
the aggressor, the attacker, and by doing so to equate them as equivalent
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sides in conflict, i.e. “warring parties”, was prepared at the London
Conference.
However, it was shortly afterwards in Geneva that such a despicable
description of events on the ground was expanded with the addition of one
more warring party, the BiH Croats, thus “three warring parties” now
existed and Owen and Vance would lead BiH towards the dangerous zone
of negotiations.25 Through D. Owen’s “peace mediation” in Geneva the
concept of “three warring parties” was introduced and the path set
towards ethnic territorialization of the state territory of BiH.26 This meant
that the legal Bosnian government which defended against the Greater
Serbian aggression was equaled with the aggressors, i.e. it become just
“another warring party” in the eyes of the impartial British peace mediators.
BiH has been in a big and difficult mess ever since. Many believe that the
Vance-Owen maps directly inspired crimes committed by HVO against
Bosniaks and conflict with the RBiH Army. Warren Christopher sent a
letter to President Izetbegovic on August 19 1993 advising him to accept
the plan of Milosevic and Tudman on the division of BiH. Owen and
Stoltenberg also supported this.
The Dayton-Paris agreement did stop the genocide, persecutions
and the suffering of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the
further destruction of the state and society, and this was achieved largely
thanks to the US and its President William J. Clinton. However, the
agreement also stopped the liberation of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Greater Serbian aggressor, allowed the status quo achieved
in the war to be maintained, as it failed to lead to justice and allowed the
creation of genocide to be installed on the soil of an internationally
recognized state. The Dayton-Paris Agreement prevented the full liberation
Even if the war is “somewhat prolonged” it could be characterized as “civil war”
and it would then be possible to speak of “three warring parties” in BiH; as a result
the roles of Serbia and Croatia will gradually fade away and the ground would be set
for a three-way partition of BiH.
26
When the political-legal subjectivity of a state is broken up through “humanitarizuation” to its “subunits” – ethnic groups – a “logical” consequence is to come up
with a tripartite structure of the “new state” (from the “three warring parties”), as it is
important to preserve its territorial integrity because of the stability of the region. The
Dayton BiH is therefore a state with territorial integrity, but with practically no subjectivity.
25
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227
of RBiH by the RBiH Army and HVO. This is its paradoxical ambiguity
which the Greater Serbian propaganda and its political representatives
exploit. What is more, it awarded aggressors from Milosevic’s inner circle
and thus violated all moral, human and international principles in the recent
history of humanity. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina had been
“destroyed” and on its foundations a criminal creation “entity RS” has been
formed as an act of barbaric killing, destruction and atavistic primitivism.
It is from this initial injustice and manipulation that all post-war perversion,
immoral, twilight of humanity, international “naivety”, cynicism of Greater
Serbian politicians, crime, dehumanization of human relations, ethnic
distancing and hatred stem. All this represents an ocean of enormous
problems for a fragile democracy, which is in addition burdened by the
dysfunctional Dayton organization.
The existence of the mono-ethnic entity RS on the territory of the
state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was recognized under the name
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, a name it should be given
back under international law, is a result of a war for territories, a historicalpolitical game of the great powers (Britain and France) and cynicism of
the international institutions. Under the Dayton-Paris Agreement from
1995 Bosnia and Herzegovina was forcefully and illegally divided into two
entities: one consisted of ten cantons, which are all but states, something
that has totally decentralized that part of the state and rendered it dysfunctional, and the other, smaller part of the state, with one government,
president, parliament, unitary-centralistic authorities entirely dominated by
Serb politicians, a territory from which hundreds of thousands of Bosniaks
and Croats were expelled. This has effectively “recognized” the use of force
and the results of war on the territory of a UN member state.27 It therefore
needs to be said clearly that the entity RS on the territory of the state of
Bosnia and Herzegovina emerges as a result of wars waged by an organized
Greater Serbian political and military clique led by S. Milosevic and his
satellites in Croatia and Bosnia. Serbia created on the soil of Bosnia and
Herzegovina the mono-ethnic entity RS and this has still not been sanctioned
by the international community, because Bosniaks and Croats are unable
BiH citizens have never recognized the results of Greater Serbian aggression
against BiH, despite the fact that the entity RS had been installed against their will and
the Constitution (Annex IV) fraudulently made a part of the peace agreement.
27
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to do this by themselves. The name of the entity RS is a clear indication of
the expansion of Serbia to the territory of the state of BiH, a fact proved
by numerous secret and public deals and processes (privatization of the
telecom company in Banja Luka by Serbia). Many hardcore nationalists
in Belgrade think that the entity RS represents the “spoils of war” from
several failed wars of conquest, horrifying not only for other Balkan peoples,
but primarily for the Serb people itself.28 The Dayton-Paris project turns out
to be, summa summarum, a Tower of Babel, because it did not sanction the
Greater Serbian hegemonic project. However, this was not its intention in
the first place! With its built-in flaw of ethno-clerical separation, on which
it is based, it has merely opened the dangerous abysses of the existence
of the state of BiH. Every political option based on the idea of citizenry is
ignored within the Dayton framework; it cannot be implemented and is
not seen as favorable in the collectivistic approach to political issues.
The entity RS was not created accidentally or ex nihilo, it was created
as a result of a military invasion by the Milosevic’s regime against BiH. It
was carried out by the Yugoslav Army and the Precani Greater Serbian
rebels (a terrorist irredentist movement). The entity is a result of genocide
against Bosniaks in East Bosnia (from Foca to Bijeljina, and not only in
Srebrenica), Krajina (the valley of river Sana, Prijedor and Banja Luka),
and the persecution of non-Serbs from the territory conquered by war.
Allowing the RS to exist on BiH territory would mean to recognize genocide
as a legal method of achieving political objectives and monstrous ideologies
of the Greater Serbia project. The entity RS represents a horrible “misunderstanding” and disgrace of today’s humanity and its international
order. This is why the Bosnian issue is, in fact, a legal issue par excellence!
The genocidal creation is a projection of Milosevic’s regime in Serbia and
a result of military aggression by that regime (JNA which became the Serb
army). According to the 1991 census Bosniaks comprised a majority in
East Bosnia until 1992 when they were exterminated, killed and expelled
by the Greater Serbian aggressors. Since then cities in the Drina river valley
are considered “Serb” and this was exactly the objective of the Greater
Serbian war for BiH territories. This was the whole purpose of the Greater
Serbian barbaric destruction, policy and “wisdom” in the last two centuries
When Belgrade finally abandons the Greater Serbian ideology, new prospects
of existence will open up for the peoples in this part of Europe.
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(19th and 20th century). To kill the unarmed population of an area, brutally
abuse the powerless and then build a “heroic” myth and declare everything
“ancient” Serb land. A truly horrific “cultural” matrix in the core of which
lies the belief that efforts conducted against the non-Serb population of the
Balkans during the 19th and 20th century will finally be successful!
The guardians of the RS warn (develop Platforms, Warnings, Petitions,
Conclusions) that an indisputable territory belonging to the entity does
exist; however, it functions more as a dangerous undemocratic para-state
on the territory of the state of BiH. The Dayton-Paris Agreement produced
peace without human rights, or in other words, it did not end the Greater
Serbia project on the soil of BiH. The entity RS is neither a “constituent
entity” nor a “permanent category” as guardians of this genocidal creation
like to wickedly and imprecisely describe it, instead it is a creation of
shameless crime against the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina of Bosniak
and Croat ethnic descent – this cannot be concealed – and as a result this
entity can only be a “permanent genocidal category”29 The entity RS is
indisputable to the same extent as the lives of people in Podrinje, Semberija,
Hercegovina, Krajina or Posvaina were indisputable for the “founders”
of the genocidal grave who killed them in the most monstrous ways.
Present “guardians” of Radovan Karadzic’s (evil)doing are implementing
the same policy as the “founder”. Nothing will ever be able to hide its inception in crime – it lacks a moral and historical-cultural basis, legality
and justification of its existence. It is a result of human evil! The RS is
therefore a burden on the shoulders of the Serb people which constantly
presents it to others under the light of crime. The present generation of
“guardians” and “preservers” is perhaps unable to see this today, but the
bills of history always arrive without exception. It needs to be stressed that
the negation of the RS is not a negation of the Serb people; it is a matter
of respecting international law. Negation of the entity RS is, in fact, in
The premeditated Platform for the Indisputability and Integrity of the RS (2009)
represents a preparatory political game for further negotiations on constitutional changes
aimed at concealing the issue of its criminal, genocidal establishment on the territory
of BiH, i.e. its criminal and anti-state activities. The entire Greater Serbian strategy is
based on the position that “everything needs to be negotiated”, which means that
“nothing is true until we reach a political agreement”. This is why negotiations on the
survival of the state of BiH have also started as if it were some remote Serb village
and not an internationally recognized state.
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compliance with the UN Charter, international law, especially the Convention on Genocide and the ICJ verdict from February 26 2007. The
Verdict for genocide in Srebrenica clearly stated what the entity RS is
– Bosnian politicians need to request international institutions to ensure
that the Verdict is respected!
The Dayton Constitution (Annex IV) has in many ways institutionalized
injustice and inequality as the supreme law by allowing the name of this
criminal creation to remain. It is better to say that this Constitution is a
dangerous illegal deception, not a Constitution of an internationally recognized state. It does not show what the form of government in the state
of BiH is, while one of its entities is a republic?! It also needs to be kept
in mind that the Republic of BiH and its Constitution were “overthrown”
by military force used by the Greater Serbian aggressors. This “overthrow”
was later only confirmed by the Dayton-Paris Agreement – an entire group
of so-called international mediators had worked on this before Dayton
and they made no effort to hide their ethnocentric and imperial-Eurocentric
prejudices against Bosniaks and Islam. They are responsible (together
with the Bosnian side which accepted negotiations beneath all level) for
taking BiH out of the framework of international law and into the dangerous
field of bargaining, discussions and political gambling with a state. The
disruptive mechanism of destabilization and disorder has been installed
into the system of the state of BiH itself – this, of course, is the genocidal
entity created as a result of Greater Serbian barbarism.
It has become clear that the state of BiH needs to be transformed
into something civilized, human, normal, antifascist and democratic. A
metastasis of evil has continued to function on its soil! The entity RS
is not a “remnant of a remnant of Serb ethnic territory”, as M. Ekmecic
maniacally reiterates, nor is it a “Serb state west of Drina” – it is a place of
shame for the Serb people. Bosnia craves for justice and order, in other
words law really needs to be upheld in the case of Bosnia – not fairytales
of moral, not humanitarian charity and pity, not leaders, not ranting of
fanatics, not clerical fundamentalists, not ethnical leaders, not High
Representatives as guardians of the Dayton ethno-clerical anti-democracy30
The following High Representatives have pleasantly served in Bosnia: Karl Bildt,
Karlos Vestendorp, Wolfgang Petrich, Paddy Ashdown, Kristian Schwartz Schilling,
Miroslav Lajcak, and, most recently, Valentin Inzko. They are the guardians of the
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and similar scams. Bosnia needs strong government institutions and rule
of law, levers of power mentioned by Cicero in the ancient days. It is high
time to put an end to attempts at dividing Bosnia as an empty country, space
territory, or wilderness. The state of BiH has become a hostage of the entity
RS, which has by persistent obstruction and ethno-nationalistic policy led
to a crisis in the functioning of the entire system of authority and hindered
all possible progress of the state and its institutions. Citizens have become
disenfranchised in the collectivistic system of representation, a herd
mechanism without responsibility, a system in which it is possible to
commit wrongdoings and escape justice. No one respects the will of the
citizens expressed at the Referendum on March 1 1992 when they clearly
stated what they want – this is ignored instead of respected. Greater Serbian
barbarians rose up in arms against it because they never recognized the
fact that BiH is a state. Nobody asks the citizens anything anymore – we
now have leaders who, being the know-it-alls they are, make wise decisions
“in the name of the people”. Democracy is thus transformed into the
self-will of individual leaders, consociative rule by a cartel of elites.
“Settling of the Ground”, Genocide and
Hostages of Greater Serbian Barbarism
The backwardness of Greater Serbian exclusiveness, this ill-fated
discourse of isolationism in the spirit St. Sava’s legacy, the one R. Konstantinovic speaks about in his book The Philosophy of the Province, has
been put as a straightjacket not only on the Serb people in the Balkans, but
also on all its closest neighbors, regardless of what the ruling nationalistic
Serb establishment may think about that. Therefore, independent of what
monstrosities the Greater Serbian discourse is preparing for Bosnia in the
future – Bosnia was and will be the paradigm of European pluralism, an
anticipation of the community of European peoples who have chosen
antifascism, peace and prosperity.31 The united Europe promotes the
Dayton division of BiH, not of its historical multilateral essence. They seem to support
the idea of letting the war “cleanse” old, ancient hatreds (the myth of ancient hatred
and antagonism of ethnic groups in the Balkans).
31
We are witnessing a detailed revision of historical processes concerning Chetniks
and Partisans. In brief – historical reinterpretations that could represent Chetniks as
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historical essence of Bosnianhood, of the Bosnian cultural being, which
is historically constructed as pluralistic.
A campaign against Bosniaks started in the 19th century – an epoch of
persecution of Bosniaks, and unfortunately culminated with the genocide
in Srebrenica. It represents the greatest tragedy of the Bosniak people
and the greatest disgrace of the Serb people. Concerning the genocide in
Srebrenica Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both first tried to offer a detailed
interpretation of the “battle” for Srebrenica between July 6 and 11 1995 and
of the ensuing deportation and mass killings following the fall of the city
into the hands of Mladic’s murderers; second, explain why Mladic’s Chetniks
attacked the UN safe area Srebrenica and systematically killed so many
citizens, and, third, analyze why the international community failed to
prevent these acts.32 In addition to the Greater Serbian barbarians as the
main culprits of the genocide in Srebrenica and the betrayal by the international community, which had control over Srebrenica as a “safe area”,
the responsibility of the Bosnian side, people who held senior political and
military positions in 1995, will also have to be established one day – it
cannot be that no one is responsible for the catastrophe of an entire people.
At the beginning of the 21st century continuators of the Greater Serbia
project are trying to minimize all talk of the Greater Serbia project by trying
to present it as no more than a fantasy and myth. They are trying to accuse
the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy of making up that project. As if the Greater
Serbian political ideas in the period between 1989 and 1999 were the ideas
of Martians, not of Serb invaders in the region of former Yugoslavia who,
under the slogan “all Serbs in one sate”, destroyed, killed and persecuted
antifascists, democrats and humanists simply do not exist. It is enough to look at their
program documents, directives, letters of ideologists and war reports to realize that they
are no more than cutthroats, pagans, murderers, savages. Lacking a brave and humane
vision of the future, the Greater Serbian anti-Bosnian Leviathan rehabilitated the Chetnik
ideology and tried to present it as an anti-fascist one. However, it needs to be stressed
that the Greater Serbian military-political orientation from the XIX century is the
source of all problems and miseries among the peoples of former Yugoslavia. In their
programmatic-ideological texts others are portrayed as objects against which to vent
“Serb anger” because of the centuries-long subservience to the despised conquerors.
Bosniaks, Albanians and, to an extent, Croats represent those others.
32
Honig, Jan Willem & Norbert Both, Srebrenica. Record of a War Crime, Penguin
Books, New York, London, 1996.
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non-Serbs. This is a phase described by Greater Serbian architects as settling
of the ground – a time when the events of war need to be “civilized”, responsibility for war equally distributed, and a return to international relations
ensured. The failure of the project of returning displaced people to their
prewar homes in part wraps up and completes the aims of the Greater
Serbian aggression against the Republic of BiH.33 But not even this is
enough to fully implement the project. “Settling of the ground” requires the
legalization of what has been achieved by war, crimes and genocide in
the name of the Greater Serbian mythomaniacal project at the expense of
Bosniaks, Croats and others. And for this to happen it needs to be recognized
or signed by the victim!
Serbs have become hostages of Greater Serbian barbarism at the
beginning of the 21st century in Europe. This is a result of the Serb mythomaniacal-ideological template from 1790 in Temisvar to 1992 and the
aggression against BiH. Milorad Ekmecic, and this is a man in comparison
to which Milosevic and Karadzic, together with their killers, appear as
no more than foolish barbarians, would probably agree with me on this
assessment. Fortunately, this does not mean that all Serbs are supporters of
Greater Serbian expansionism. Serbs are in a difficult position today because
they need to free themselves from primitivism and barbaric destruction
of everything that is civilized, different, non-Serb, European. There are
Serbs who are unable to come to the forefront from the criminals within
their ranks. But we need to believe that they will be able to change things
one day and show a different face of the Serb people, a people which is
not inherently criminal. Zoran Dindic started this process! The Serb people
(and their policy) have become hostages of Greater Serbian expansionism,
prisoners of provincial hyperbolas which they share with Bosniaks and
One of the first persons to return, Muharem Murselovic, said after spending ten
years as a returnee in Prijedor: “I was among the first to return to Prijedor, I encouraged
these people to return and I therefore feel great responsibility and guilt because none of
our expectations have realized. We were perhaps naïve to believe that the same people
who threw us out of our homes would allow us to live normally once we had returned,
but also to expect more support from the international community and the state institutions in the reintegration process… Bosniaks here are no more than tourists who
are welcome as long as they pay utility services and taxes and I wonder how long
will it be before they start charging them a sojourn tax. This is a horrible condition.”
(Oslobodenje, Sarajevo, June 1 2009, p.5.)
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Croats. They cannot remain in this condition for long!34 However, Greater
Serbian expansionism, brutal and vile in its essence, is reflected in the fact
that Greater Serbian politicians think that they have reached for themselves
and “their people” in BiH indisputable “Serb territories” on which only they
can live, rule and be free. This entails that the “achievement” of Greater
Serbian barbarism is indisputable. The entity RS is therefore a genocidal,
monoethnic creation on the soil of the internationally recognized Republic
of BiH. Namely, Karadzic’s para-state (de facto government) was transformed into a “Dayton entity” in 1995, and the successors of this genocidal
creation wish to transform it into a legal “Serb state” today. The only thing
they do not know is what the consequences of such an attempt would be!?
Bosniak Agony and the Achieved Creation of Genocide
On the other hand, Bosniaks are being pushed into so-called religious
radicalism in order to ensure equal distribution of responsibility and provide
justification for the committed crimes. These scams with religious radicals
cannot be applied to any people rejecting them and which through history
has never shown an affinity towards radical political expressions. The
Greater Serbia project counts on fabricated religious fanatics among
Bosniaks which it would then use for its own ends. What suits it the most
is the reduction of Bosniaks to a “religious group” which has turned its back
on the “religion of its forefathers” and should therefore be eradicated.
Njegos in his The Mountain Wreath programmatically speaks out about
this. Bosniaks have also become prisoners of disorientation and undefined
political objectives leading them towards the dangerous field of existence
at the beginning of the 21st century. It needs to be stressed that without
Bosniak cynicism and the complex of inferiority it would be impossible to
install a creation of genocide on the soil of the internationally recognized
RBiH. Ultimately, politics is a supreme skill and activity – it is not a matter
of “defending a group of like-minded people” and honorable religious
feelings. Bosniak politics is terribly reduced to a small group of people
Roughly said, there are three ideologies on the political stage in Serbia today:
radical, social-democratic and liberal. The radical option, especially, has an effect on
parts of BiH in which the entity formed by genocide exists and it serves the purpose
of maintaining pressure on Bosnia and the barbaric readiness for new “campaigns”.
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acutely unfit for the time of post-genocidal existence of the Bosniak people
at the beginning of the 21st century. A small group of petty politicians are
making decisions concerning the fate of an entire people and state – this
is where the real danger lies. These petty politicians lack intellectual and
moral qualities necessary for the general interest of the state of BiH and
meeting the challenges of this complex historical-political period. This
poses an absolute threat to Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. the people and
the nation. A policy promoting the idea that one political party should
represent one people leads nowhere. This represents true anti-politics,
a destruction of the anthropological experience of existence in a state as
a common and general good of the people, i.e. its citizens. Skepticism also
needs to be expressed towards a common habit that “the leader” can
represent an entire people – this can only be the case in an authoritarian
nightmare. The freedom of thought cannot be stopped by anything, not
even by fabrications, stigmatizations, meaningless qualifications, collective
representations, clerical narrations on issues they alone are unable to
understand without philosophers, inquisitions, lies, old Greater Serbian
tricks (make an accusation and then let them explain themselves), intimidations, etc.
Bosniak politics had been conducted between religion and fatalism in
the agony of the last decade of the 20th century. It has continued in a similar
vein in the first decade of the 21st century. It has still not reached full
responsibility of political activity, because it is unable to free itself of its
“quasi political” source. Bosniak politics since 1991, and this needs to be
stressed, has been conducted as a symbiotic simulation of political activity
on the premises of a religious worldview. Since the staged trial of so-called
“Muslim intellectuals” in 1983, Bosniaks were being “prepared” to fit a
religious image of the world and a take on reality corresponding a feudal
time in which the ruler and clergy determine the content of narratives on
life. Therefore, an unrealistic and thoroughly apolitical take on life.An abuse
of Islam for miserable political aims has also occurred along the way.
Those that prosecuted the so-called “Muslim fundamentalists” were able
to forge an apolitical infantilism that would in the 1990s appear as a political
subject of the “Muslim historical circle” without a clear understanding
of the state of BiH. The two-sided unpreparedness and inadequacy to meet
the challenges of modern political activities has been in effect since then.
It is best seen in the replacement of positions – discussion on political
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issues is dominated by moralizing on the religious view of the world, while
religious issues (or issues of the theological and eschatological position of
man in entirety) are politicized to the extent of miserable abuse of common
sense. This is, and let there be no mistake about it, a common feature
of both the Serb and Croat politico-religious abuse of ethnic and religious
sentiments.
All of them (priests and politicians) were familiar with the narrations
about “ethnic territories” and “humane displacement of people” – they
are only pretending to be naïve today! Sadly, in 1991, Bosniaks did not have
a developed national (state) politics – as if they were not up to the historic
moment.35 Today, bureaucrats or political representatives at the state
institutions who loaf about, that is, who do not want and do not know how
to work, represent the pinnacle of Bosniak cynicism. They radiate nonintellectualism and simulate political activities while unconsciously
roaming the complex space of the political maze, etc. – their activities
are not politically constructive and they are not accountable to anyone.
In short, they are a projection of ignorance… That is why the key and
overwhelming issue is: In the name of which Bosniaks was the Bosniak
policy of the 20th century, especially in the period of the 1990s, created?36
We should mention at this point that only Bosniak cynicism is worse than
anti-Bosnian cynicism, for it has been equivalent to the international cynicism since the first day of the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina…
Bosniaks have been brought to such a situation because of the
irresponsible, passive politics, in which, on issues concerning the state
and its future, they do not have attitudes and positions of their own. Their
cynicism is – an enlightened false consciousness – because they, among
other, let the international community be “in charge” of the important
Bosniaks could not have had a national or state politics, because immediately
after the first multiparty elections they took the ethnic (particular) perspective – they
tied their own flag onto the other two particularistic-ethnical flags and only focused on
negotiations on the maps for demarkation of the ethnicities in a multicultural state.
That shows that Bosniaks failed to develop a national politics in the right moment,
for they were only treated like Bosniaks – that is, like an ethnic group, whereas the
Bosniak national politics formula can only be in favor of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
36
The same question can be asked for Serbs and Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina!
In the name of which collectivities does one, for example, kill members of other
collectivities?
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postwar affairs which directly determine their fate. Bosniaks constantly
exhaust, justify and prove themselves in issues that are not important
(Santa Clause and the like), and do little on the development of consolidation! Serbs are even in a worse situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
– few may raise their voice against “their leaders” and emphasize some
other possibilities of living. People are mostly silent and are used to
living their difficult lives of the Balkan paupers accustomed to the life
in herds. They have started living a fluid life, that is, “an unstable life in
the conditions of constant uncertainty”.37 In fact, that is deconstruction of
life and its humane content. All the eschatologies and grand projects have
failed in the era of global information capitalism. That is what brought
Bosniaks and Serbs, together with Croats, Albanians and Montenegrins,
to being probably the most underdeveloped peoples in today’s Europe,
although they embellish themselves with the insignia they do not possess
in reality. These peoples have not yet elaborated the primary modernization,
let alone the reflexive modernization (U. Beck). Those who speak of the
reflexive modernization are looked at with surprise! Priests and politicians
who perceive their peoples as herds trapped in folds, convincing them
that it is the purpose of human existence, are to blame.
All is possible in the confusing, fluid society which is constantly
undermined but, paradoxically, also sustained by ethno-clerical hatred and
destructive mentality. Thus, people who live and represent the Greater
Serbian ideology may represent themselves as humanists, liberal thinkers,
democrats, just judges of the civic interests, fair people. Answer to the
question of how the RS was formed will shape the future discourse. That
means that one civilizational – political, legal and, in part, theological
question is: was the RS formed by immaculate conception or “somehow
differently”? Many humanistically-oriented intellectuals in Bosnia and
Herzegovina are keen to know whether Bosniak cynicism is capable of
discussing this issue separately from Greater Serbian ideology which
tries to characterize it… Again, in more precise words, one of the most
challenging issues in the Balkans is: Is it possible for the RS entity to
survive as the result of a horrible crime of genocide? Existence of the
RS entity shows that not all people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are equal.
However, it should be emphasized that Bosniaks have the Verdict for
37
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Zygmunt Bauman, Fluidni život, Mediteran, Novi Sad, 2009, p. 10.
Genocide in Srebrenica, but are not using it at all as a means of defense
of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The verdict states that the RS
army and police committed genocide, which is a completely valid base for
Bosniaks to echo their urge for implementation of law before the International Community. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the US Constitution,
he had presupposed that “all men are created equal”. All who swear to
the American democracy and freedom obviously forgot about that in
Dayton! The very territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was occupied
by war and the crime of genocide, reminds us that such criminal act of
violation of international legal order and such source of immense injustice
and of all future disasters in this area of Europe cannot become and has
never been the Serb land. Yes, Serbs have lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
but together with Bosniaks, Croats, Albanians, Montenegrins, Jews and
others. The fact that the Greater Serbian conquerors killed and banished all
others and seized half of the country (49%) does not stand as the complete
or definite solution. That obviously creates enormous problems in future
perspective to the Serb ideologists and politicians. There is no other solution
to the crime than justice and law (judiciary truth that is not politically
agreeable or negotiable).
Answer to the question of formation of the RS in the territory of
the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina means a lot more than mere
pointing the finger at the RS entity. What is important for our critical
discourse is to bear in mind the difference between the Serb people and
the Greater Serbian expansionist project – the two notions should not
be made equal. Within that distinction settled a possibility of opinion,
which ensures us the recognition and hope that the Serb people may one
day rise above the primitivism to which it was pushed by the religious
and political representatives in the last decade of the 20th century. Serbs
in Bosnia and Herzegovina have not yet come to understand, or refuse to
understand, that their national issue in the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina
is – absolutely of Bosnia and Herzegovina! The state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a national frame of the Bosnian Serbs. That is why one day they,
as citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will need to build, develop and
respect their country – Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is the base for a
normal existence, for only then will it become clear to them that by
accepting their own country (the mother country of Bosnian Serbs is Bosnia
and Herzegovina) the Greater Serbian expansionist frenzy will disappear.
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This is because Bosnia has absolutely never been a part of Serbia.
US Senator Robert Dole recently warned in his article entitled Bosnia
and American Exceptionalism, published in the Wall Street Journal (dated
October 22 2009) that “Today, Bosnia is again under threat. This time the
threat is not from the brutality and immediacy of genocide. Rather, it is
a more subtle menace: the prospect of a state weakened to the extent that
it dissolves; leaves its people in separatist, monoethnic conclaves; loses
all hope for democratic development; and validates ultranationalism. This
is happening not on battlefields, but at the negotiating table. It is happening
because, rather than strengthening state powers and drawing the recalcitrant
Bosnian Serbs back into Bosnia, representatives of European Union
member nations led by former Bosnia chief negotiator Carl Bildt are
walking back parts of the 1995 Dayton Agreement that had put an end to
the three-and-a-half year war that had torn the country apart.“38 It is obvious
that Dole notices that we are moving in circles – whether we are aware
or not of that! That circle is highly dangerous for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The growing relativization of the crime and leveling of evil prepares the
ground for new irresponsibilities in which monsters may appear. All
attempts of relativization of the crime of genocide over Bosniaks in Bosnia
and Herzegovina are only continuing the horrible genocidal practice.
Genocide had been well-prepared and executed without mercy, especially
in the UN-protected zone – Srebrenica (in July 1995). About 25 000 people
participated in the crime. The mass participation of the Serb people in that
crime tells us that it was not a coincidence and that it was not an unorganized criminal enterprise similar to hundreds of those that occurred
in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the aggression. That tells us that large
parts of a collectivity may be trapped inside a dangerous and endless
ideology which will bring about nothing good. Genocidal intention and
a criminal plan existed for the aimed extinction of the Bosniak people
(orders exist for execution of genocide and formation of concentration
camps). The main leader of the project, Slobodan Milosevic, „participated
in a joint criminal enterprise, together with the Bosnian Serb leadership,
whose aim and intention had been a partial destruction of the Bosnian
Robert Dole, “Bosnia and American Exceptionalism” published in The Wall Street
Journal on October 22 2009.
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Muslims as a group“.39
International Community’s Premeditated Debacle in Bosnia
It is obvious that the international community does not have a unified
narrative on Bosnia today. In 1995, J . Baudrillard ironically noted in The
Liberation that the whole problem rests upon “persuading Bosniaks that
they are to blame for their own misfortune.” Many who participated in
undermining the future of Bosnia are now skillfully concealing their traces.
They are writing books and present their impressions and contributions to
democracy, peace and prosperity. In an article,40 Roger Cohen mercilessly
ironized David Owen’s morbid statement in his book The Balkan Odyssey
(1995). Cohen says: “But after the Serbian concentration camps at Omarska,
Trnopolje, Susica and elsewhere, after the execution and ‘disappearance’
of tens of thousands of Bosniaks in the first six months of the Bosnian
war, after the relentless bombardment of Sarajevo, after the all-toopredictable denouement on the killing fields of Srebrenica, Owen does
feel qualified to venture that Karadzic may have violated the Hippocratic
oath.” Cohen warns of David Owen’s indecisiveness and “cynical
ignorance” related to the issue of Karadzic’s war crimes: “Owen, who got
to know Karadzic and his methods well during thirty-two months as the
European Union’s chief mediator in the Balkans, is not prepared to say
whether the Bosnian Serb leader is a war criminal.” He also added that
“Balkan Odyssey is the chronicle of a lacerating failure - that of its author
to settle, or to grasp, the worst war in Europe since Hitler’s war.” Owen
has become a symbol of hypocrisy and international debacle in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. His book is supposed to conceal that – not by coincidence
and not in ignorance. Owen played the role of “bias observer”, for Bosnia
and Herzegovina had been drawn into extrajudicial and out-of-court
settlement and negotiations (conferences on Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Apart from Owen’s book hoax, there are other examples as well –
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the Prosecutor’s
words in the case against Slobodan Milosevic, in Decision upon the Motion for the
Entry of Judgement of Acquittal, the hague, June 16 2004.
40
This article, entitled “Peace in His Time” was published for the first time on March
11 1996, in The New Republic.
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241
namely books by Florence Hartmann,41 Carla Del Ponte, who skillfully
concealed evidence on the participation of Serbia in aggression against the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Brendan Sims, S. Woodward, P.S.
Ramet; as well as the collection of texts edited by Rabia Ali and Lawrence
Lifschultz42 and Christopher Bennet’s book43 which, like dozens of others,
offers a completely different insight into the dissolution of Yugoslavia
and Greater Serbian attempts to form Great Serbia on its basis.
Years after the imposition of the illegal, unjust and dysfunctional
Dayton-Paris agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethnoclerical
mechanisms disable the country’s progress and are in circulation just
as they had been in the early days of Greater Serbian aggression. Efforts
aimed at reaching an extrajudicial “agreement” on state property and the
misuse of the entity voting system, which has been turned into ethnic,44 are
only some of the most prominent examples of such mechanisms. Elimination of the entity voting45 is a necessity because it is an obstacle for the
adoption of state laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the entity veto places
Florence Hartmann, Mir i kazna, Buybook, Sarajevo, 2007.
Rabia Ali & Lawrence Lifschutz (ed.), Why Bosnia? Writings on the Balkan War,
Pamphleteer’s Press, Stony Creek, Connecticut, 1993.
43
Christopher Bennett, Yugoslavia’s Bloddy Collaps. Causes, Courses and Consequences, Hurst & Company, London,1995.
44
Those defending the state position of Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot give, hand
over, present, misappropriate, etc. the state property (property of internationallyrecognized state of Bosnia and Herzegovina), to an entity aiming to destroy the country.
Giving away the property of Bosnia and Herzegovina means signing its death penalty.
Legally, property of Bosnia and Herzegovina has clearly been defined. That issue is
not “politically” negotiable. That is the worst form of betrayal. What is a country like
without its property? All who advocate that are working on the destruction of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and should be held accountable for their acts. This especially concerns the
Bosniak politicians who have partaken in frauds and negotiations to the extent that they
not “do not know” where they are going and what they have been doing from Dayton
to Butmir. An entity is not the form of state governance and as such does not need ownership over property – an entity may merely use the state property, that is, it may be a
user of the state property under the conditions prescribed by the state. A state region is
always subordinated to the state and cannot bargain with it, contrary to the practice
of today’s Greater-Serbian politicians coming from the Dayton entity of the RS.
45
The European Commission clearly emphasized in its October 14 2009 Progress
Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina that the entity voting, which is at the disposal to the
41
42
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the state into a subordinated position, that is, the state becomes blocked
by a region which behaves in a monotheistic fashion, refusing to recognize
Bosniaks and Croats and others in the territory which was turned into a
special region by crime and was imposed in an extrajudicial way onto the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Dayton Agreement which was
made official under the title The General Framework Agreement for Peace
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, planted in the Constitution (Annex IV), in an
attempt to regulate the constitutional issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina for
which a detailed procedure had already been in existence. Everything that
occurs outside that procedure is unconstitutional, illegal and Bosnia and
Herzegovina should be, in such cases, protected by the UN and international
courts. An unseen “public” aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina
is taking place; an attempt to destroy BiH has been taking place since
1992 – the Greater Serbian savages are mere executors of that dangerous
undertaking. Nobody has tried seriously to prevent such continual, public
aggression. Most of the war criminals from Bosnia have found refuge
in Serbia, where they hide from justice. Milosevic boasted about how
they had, for the first time, realized the goal – creation of a “Serb state”
west of the Drina River. That should be stopped by all legal (judicial) means
of international law and UN decrees. The radicals trying to destroy the
state need to face trial for the crimes they committed. However, their work
cannot survive, regardless of all the Greater Serbian frauds, mythologies,
lobbying, threats, bribery, conditioning and lies. Those who adhere to
Karadzic’s RS also adhere to all the initial reasons of aggression against
the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is why the international
community needs to help free Bosnia and Herzegovina of all the criminal acts, intentions, content and quasi-state forms.
Negotiations on Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted not in safety and
progress of the state; rather, they brought the country in grave danger.
Namely, Bosnia has been pulled out of the LEGAL framework (starting
from the London conference in which “two waring parties” participated;
RS, is the key obstacle for the development and further European and world integration
processes of Bosnia and Herzegovina. High representatives have made no attempts to
change that circumstance, while the domestic politicians use it in their exchanges and
useless outwitting. Misuse of this model of voting enables obstruction of the legal
constitution of the state and cynicism of International community representatives. That
even enables the Greater Serbian ambitions to undermine the legal contents of the state.
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through the Geneva conference where “three waring parties” appeared;
the Dayton meeting of 1995, the Prud meeting, to the Butmir meeting of
2009) and has been pushed into the voluntaristic world of dangerous,
secret NEGOTIATIONS (in which Bosnian government representatives
performed rather poorly, which initiated the display of cynical mentality
and which has lasted for almost twenty years and can also be seen in the
current Bosniak politics). The Bosniak cynical spirit “matches” the ideology
of Greater Serbian representatives. It is an indescribable danger, directly
causing damage to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for it moves the
country away from the light of the international legal stage and UN decrees
and drags it to the dark paths outside civilization; to the “law of the jungle”,
to roadside inns in which leaders gamble with the lives and destinies of
their peoples. That is a peculiar deceit set for Bosnia and Herzegovina,
which the Bosniak politicians still have not recognized or understood.
That is why Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to be brought back to the
framework of INTERNATIONAL LAW and the country’s right to be a
UN member should be claimed. For fifteen years Bosnia and Herzegovina
has been outside the legal framework and has been, as such, at the disposal
of aggressors and suspicious mediators-negotiators which can be bought
at a price. Bosnia is a captive of foreign will.
Legal theory is familiar with the concept of de facto government.
It is a group of people who aspire to governance or a kind of dominance and
are not recognized as legal by law and who “rule” in a certain part or in
the entire territory of a country on the basis of military, or some other kind
of potential. That happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, once the insurgents
lead by Radovan Karadzic refused to recognize the results of the democratic
referendum of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. With the
help of Milosevic’s army and foreign paramilitary formations, they had risen
against the democratic results and will of the majority of BiH citizens.
They had started a journey outside the law; they had started a barbaric
aggression by the use of force and crime, in an attempt to annex Bosnia and
Herzegovina and make it a part of the failed Yugoslavia. The aggressors
were able to turn the de facto government into an entity in Dayton and
this entity is now trying to become a state. Of course, all that would have
been impossible had there not been for the Bosniak helplessness and
support of the Russian, French and British diplomacy. That is how an
insurgent, illegal government in the occupied territory of Bosnia and
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Herzegovina became the RS entity in the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
That entity has been understood by Milosevic’s followers and Karadzic’s
murderers as a transitional solution until the formation of Greater Serbia.
Law as the Base of Political Activities
The issue of whether the RS, in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a result of immaculate conception or crimes is not an issue of
theology but an issue of law, the implementation of which Bosnia and
Herzegovina should demand, because, legally, the RS entity is a result
of the crime that was committed and was illegally (by war, genocide,
force, terror) imposed in the territory of the internationally-recognized
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has been proven that the entities
– Federation of BiH and the RS – have taken Bosnia and Herzegovina
away from LAW and into talk of an AGREEMENT between “waring
parties”, where all have been made equal; that is, the aggressor and the
victim are brought to the equal (negotiating) position. That is not law
– on the contrary. It is cynicism, deceit and danger. That is why stressing
the necessity of agreement at all cost is dangerous and has been used by
the aggressor to the extent of sadistic perversion. The aggressor wants
to negotiate everything – even the issue of whether “a man should walk on
two feet”. In that sense, Bosnia and Herzegovina should under no conditions
give up its RIGHT on issues that concern the fate of the STATE. That is
why the CONSTITUTION of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
could not have been annulled in a military base (Dayton), in an “agreement”
between the mighty criminal and the powerless victim. The state of Bosnia
and Herzegovina should have been protected by the UN as a full member,
not brought into the hands of suspicious negotiators at international
conferences which dissolved its state substance while the Bosnian Government watched powerlessly. At the same time, the arms embargo prevented
the country from exercising the right to self-defense while merciless
genocide unfolded before the eyes of the whole world in the early days
of the aggression in 1992. Those who were at the highest positions in the
UN at the time should be held responsible for participation in the Greater
Serbian crime committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Boutros B. Ghali and
Y. Akashi).
The abandonment of LAW has placed the state of Bosnia and HerzeSURVEY
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govina before unforeseen dangers – all of the country’s issues have been
reduced to one – humanitarian issue, the way F. Mitterrand had “foretold”
instead of protecting the country, a UN member, in accordance with the
UN Charter. Throughout the negotiation processes, the capital of Bosnia
and Herzegovina had been under siege, unseen in modern history. Dayton
brought about the annulment of legitimacy of the Government of Bosnia
and Herzegovina; the country’s constitution was abolished and negotiations
were held with the aggressor as an equal party in the negotiating processes
(the criminals faced trial after that, but their crimes remained). Politicians
(primarily Bosniak representatives) should also be held responsible, for
they had engaged in double standard politics before the citizens (especially
Bosniaks) for whatever reasons (blackmail, threats, deceit), thus enabling
the aggressor to become an “equal member”. Once the cynicism of Bosniak
politics is revealed, which significantly undermined Bosnian politics,
Bosniaks will be able, together with other citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to create conditions for the development of a state based on LAW,
instead of a state based on dangerous and non-transparent “gentlemen
agreements” of people who “do not know what they are doing” and who
are not up to the political moment. That is why the high representatives and
the OHR are here – to protect the The General Framework Agreement
for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, not the Republic (STATE) of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, as a unique, internationally confirmed country. The high
representatives keep the Dayton Agreement, not the state of Bosnia and
Herzegovina! That is why the OHR is a “beauty parlor” whose role is to
convince Frankenstein of being beautiful!
The Dayton Agreement accepted most of the demands laid down by
the Greater Serbian aggressor and it has been proven in practice that the
agreement depends on the will of the negotiators, not on the international
legal norms (so Sarajevo was made a part of BiH Federation on the basis
of Milosevic’s good will). We can partly claim that the Bosniak cynicism,
ethnicism, powerlessness and irresponsibility, as well as the cynicism of
the International Community and immoral character of secret diplomatic
games enabled the dominance of the Greater Serbian project in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In other words, Bosniak cynicism saves through negotiated
“agreements” the Greater Serbian project in the territory of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Bosniak cynicism is not capable of admitting that the Dayton
Peace Agreement is not an expression of law, for that confession would
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serve to think about bringing the state back to the path of international
law. Those “agreements” have “recognized” the act of genocide in the
territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina was and the norm of non-recognition
of illegal acts of genocide and aggression was thus abandoned. That is why
it should again be emphasized that the LAW precedes all POLITICS, not
the other way round. It would then become apparent that the Dayton
Agreement has long been abandoned, that the Greater Serbian project
mocks the entire world, that the Greater Serbian ideology recognizes only
the entity RS as a result of Greater Serbian aggression against the Republic
of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that it candidly turns against a state in
which it has been established through crime and genocide.
One of today’s deceptions of the Greater Serbian ideology and its
political matrix is the narrative that the RS entity can, by the “will” of only
one people (by a referendum), separate from the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina – that was not done even during the 1992 military aggression. The
international community and local politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina
need to turn to the law, and that means that the results of genocide need
to be annulled. That is what local politicians, with the assistance of the
international community, need to insist on if they truly are to represent
the interests of citizens loyal to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia is today
defended by having its future politics based on the law. Speaking from
the legal point of view, there is the verdict for the crime of genocide in
Srebrenica on the basis of which the international community can and
should take steps related to the implementation of the law to annul the RS.
The Verdict should, however, be respected. Bosnia and Herzegovina is
an internationally recognized country, regardless of the Dayton Agreement
as the “cumulative result of all the agreements achieved” (D. Owen); that
is, Bosnia and Herzegovina was not formed at a military base in Dayton,
as an extrajudicial project of the “agreement between warring parties”
policy. Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a state on the basis of the Dayton
Agreement or according to the Dayton Agreement, but in spite of the
Dayton Agreement’s extrajudicial, illegal deceit. The Dayton Agreement
has already and for a long time been considered an illegal agreement,
for it was not aimed to protect the legitimate state (the Republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina), but to conceal the fact that a territory had been created
by war crimes, in which a criminal rebel group gained power. Karadzic has
been aware of this and that is why he used to say the whole time that “the
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entire Serb people is with him”, that he was the first of the Serb sons and
all who did not follow were traitors. The High Representative cannot leave
Bosnia and Herzegovina and say that the “Dayton Peace Agreement has
been brought to the end” – such a statement cannot be true because almost
nothing has been implemented from the time of signing of the Agreement.
Greater Serbian nationalists immediately breeched the “agreement”
because they failed to adjust the entity with the state Constitution. In
accordance with legal logic all that was seized illegally and by crime,
captured and occupied from the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina should
be returned once OHR leaves.
The state of Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be compared with the
failed Yugoslavia, contrary to the frequent practice of Greater Serbian
propaganda. The UN admitted the dissolution of Yugoslavia as legal, for
the issue was that the republics had already become states (the statehood
of Bosnia and Herzegovina was confirmed back in 1943). Yugoslavia was
formed on November 29 1943, by a volunteer unification into a federation
– they did not unify in Serbia (the country’s name was Democratic
Federative Yugoslavia, Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia,
and, from 1963, Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia). On the
other hand, the RS entity is not a legally recognized state, that entity does
not have a legal continuity; on the contrary, it is the result of a military
campaign undertaken by Milosevic’s regime, which created, in the territory
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a “Serb territory” by crimes of genocide and
persecution of citizens, which should be made a part of Greater Serbia,
which is a realization of the goal – all Serbs in one state.
Nobody in the world, without the consent of the Assembly of the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and outside the prescribed legal
procedure, could have made amendments to or abolished the Constitution
of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then impose, within the
Framework Agreement on Peace, the Constitution of a country against
which aggression had been carried out (Annex IV). The octroyed constitution is outside the legal Constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and that is why the “peace agreement” cannot replace the
Constitution of the state (the UN Charter, the 1969 Vienna Convention on
Constitutional Law). The Dayton Agreement could not have neglected
the Constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and replaced
it with the planted Constitution in Annex IV– that is illegal and it is a par
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excellence example of an anti-state act. That is how dozens of international
legal norms, upon which international relations rest, were breeched. Bosnia
and Herzegovina was set aside the field of law, and that is how the ordeal
of the country was relativized. That is why both criminals and aggressors
are in a position to laugh at the victims because the truth about the suffering
is not established legally, but in accordance with agreements between
the “leaders” of the ethnic groups, at a moral and humanitarian level,
and through the “commissions for truth” etc., which only further drags the
substance of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the mud of human cynicism.
And that is the matter of arbitrariness; everything can be agreed there,
even if it means going against the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
L. Kolakovski used to say that the 20th century died in the 1992 – 1995
Sarajevo, during the barbaric siege of the city which took place before the
eyes of the whole world. “Again”, fifty years after the Warsaw ghetto, a
genocide against the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the name of
ethnic, nationalistic and religious goals took place. The hypocrisy destroyed
all the great hope of the European continent – that is why the issue of Bosnia
in Europe is absolutely a legal issue. The history has terribly repeated with
Bosniaks. It appears that Hegel’s thought is true – history teaches us that it
has nothing to teach us! People mostly learn nothing from history. They are
powerless and are left to fight the evil alone, the unprecedented human evil
springing out of the Greater Serbian expansionist ideology and destruction
of the different, and which represents the historical root of the continuity of
crimes over Bosniaks committed by the Greater Serbian savages. The preserved memory of the barbaric crime; of the unseen savagery of Greater
Serbian aggressors, should be the nerve center of future of the younger
Bosnian generations, because the Greater Serbian project has not been
stopped yet. That is why repeating the phrase “never again” is ridiculous.
Never again, except in Bosnia! No sane person will ever accept to be en
masse thrown out of his/her own country, from cities and towns of centuries’
old existence, only to later understand that as circumstances of fate!
National politics of Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina is of Bosnia and Herzegovina!!! That will one day probably be
understood by people living all the way from Bosanska Raca, through
Bosanski Samac, Bosanski Brod, Bosnaski Kobas, Bosanska Gradiska,
Bosanska Dubica, Bosanska Kostajnica, Bosanski Novi, Bosanski Petrovac and to the hills overlooking Trebinje…
Bibliography
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UNIVERSITY OF SARAJEVO
“SURVEY”
PERIODICAL FOR SOCIAL STUDIES
2009
Editorial Board
Obala Kulina bana 7/II
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
e-mail: [email protected]
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