Talk:History of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878–1918)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Map ambiguity

I'm concerned that on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BosniaHerzegovina.gif the map is described as "Religious map", but on this article it's labelled "Ethnic map". Religious groups and ethnic groups in Bosnia are NOT the same (notwithstanding a great deal of overlap), and confusion between the two concepts (or deliberate distortion) has played a part in some very nasty periods of Bosnian history. So, what is this a map of? Reported ethnic identity in any particular area? Religious majority in any particular area? Or something else?

Also, is this a measure of population or of land-ownership? The 1910 census recorded both, but since it reckoned that the vast majority of land was muslim-owned and the map is not dominated by a single colour, I can only assume the map is population-based.

In any case these 3 are not the only groups in Bosnia at the time; only the majority. The census reported on the presence of some other groups; for instance a number of "Romanian speaking" (ie. Vlach) settlements.

Thoughts?

I accidentaly came to here but I have really to coment the previous comment. In first, the religion and ethnicity are, in Bosnian case, completely together, even more in that period. The religious beleve and habits are the main characters of the ethnicities, and also the primary difference between them. So, it is the same. You can count with fingers (in a few millions population) Croats that are not Catholic, Serbs that are not Orthodox, and Muslims, pardon Bosniaks (I did it on purpose for this argument...) that are not Muslim. So, maybe in some other cases you couldn´t, but in this one you CAN perfectly use the religious separations as ethnic. Bosnia in this period: RELIGION = ETHNICITY need numbers? 99,9999999%!

And what was the third issue? Oh yes, other groups. Other groups? Vlachs? Are you joking with me? There are some thousands of Bosnians in United Kingdom, do you see the Bosnian "colour" in the British ethic map?

The map is wrong, but for other reasons that I don´t want to comment.

Don´t take it personal... Regards FkpCascais (talk) 22:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, if we both agree the map is wrong, that's a starting-point :-) Why else do you think the map is wrong? Bobrayner (talk) 23:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh,no! I didn´t wanted to start a discussion here. Figurately, I wanted to "throu a rock and run away...".

I think the map lines are wrong, and the map is obviously present day oriented. There is an issue that is allways forgoten when speaking about Bosnia. The Bosniaks used to live predominantely concentrated in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihać (the exeption) and other Central Bosnian towns where the "Islamization", during the Ottomans, was stronger, and the Serbs were dispered around. So the present day policy of dividing the territory by the % of total population is very distant from the ground reality. The map is very similar to present day presentation of ethnic divisions. FkpCascais (talk) 00:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

There is also another issue. There were really only 2 ehnicities in Bosnia in that period. Serbs and Croats, containing both within "Islamizate" population, that Tito only declared "different ethnicity" much latter, in the 60´s of XX century. So, the religion was the only way of finding the present day "Bosniak ethnicity". They are really Serbs and Croats, not Turks or Arabs. FkpCascais (talk) 00:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)FkpCascais (talk) 00:33, 20 September 2009 (UTC)