From:
John Leach's Encyclopedia of Postal Authorities :

Bosnia & Herzegovina

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Bosnia and Herzegovina is a landlocked state in the north west Balkans. It is bounded by Croatia, Dalmatia, Montenegro and Serbia.

In ancient times, it formed part of Illyria which later became the Roman province of Illyricum. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was ruled by various Slav princes until being conquered by Hungarian forces in C12. Between 1463 and 1483, the area came under Ottoman control and the two territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina were separate Turkish provinces until late C19. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Austria-Hungary gained administration rights over the provinces and was able to annex the provinces outright in 1908. Throughout C19 and into the period of Austrian rule, ethnic tensions became evident and frequent disturbances occurred. The ethnic and religious mix was of Roman Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Muslims. The Serbs were especially nationalistic and it was a militant Serbian movement called The Black Hand that carried out the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.

On 1 December 1918, following the overthrow of the monarchy of Austria-Hungary at the close of WWI, Bosnia and Herzegovina merged and became part of the independent Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes under the Serbian monarchy of Aleksandar I from 1921 to 1934. When conflict between Croats and Serbs led to greater national tensions, Aleksandar tightened control over the country, and in 1929 he renamed the kingdom Yugoslavia, which means "Land of the South Slavs".

In 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by Germany and Italy. Quickly overrun, it was then dismembered with Bosnia and Herzegovina being incorporated into a pro-Fascist Croatian puppet state, nominally headed by native nationalists in Croatia. This state was attacked until the end of WW2 by the Yugoslav Communists under Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980), a Croatian. At the end of the war, Tito reconciled all the various parts of Yugoslavia and created a Yugoslav federation with Bosnia and Herzegovina as one of its constituent republics, despite insistence by Serbs that the region should be made only a province like Vojvodina and Kosovo. During the 1960s, Tito granted Muslims a distinct ethnic status, in an effort to put them on equal footing with Serbs and Croats. In the 1970s a collective presidency was instituted in the republic. Ethnic tensions worsened, however, following Tito’s death in 1980.

Following the collapse of communism in 1989, the unrest between the ethnic factions developed into open hostilities. During the three rounds of elections for members of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Assembly in November and December 1990, the Muslim Party of Democratic Action (PDA), which was involved in growing tensions with ethnic Serbs, won 86 seats. The Serbian Democratic Party (SDP) earned 72 seats, and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CDU) won 44 seats that same year. These three parties together also took all nine seats of the collective presidency.

After Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991, Serb nationalists throughout the Yugoslav republics began forming Serbian Autonomous Regions (SARs). These were rejected by the government in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result, armed hostilities began between Serbs and non-Serbs with the Yugoslav Army becoming involved on the Serbian side. Hostilities escalated after Macedonia declared independence in November.

The Sarajevo government in March 1992 proclaimed the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and declared independence from Yugoslavia. This state was recognised by the USA in April 1992 and then by the UN in May 1992. Despite recognition, the civil war situation escalated as the Bosnian Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav army, attempted to take control of the country and besieged Sarajevo.

As a result, Bosnia and Herzegovina split into three entities: Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic), based at Pale, which declared allegiance to Serb-dominated Yugoslavia; the Moslem-dominated "central government" based in Sarajevo; and a Croat administration based at Mostar.

Eventually, a settlement was reached by the Dayton Agreement of November 1995. As a result, the country became one state with two autonomous entities. The Sarajevo and Mostar administations agreed to merge and form the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Bosnian Serb Republic remained separate.

Stamps were issued from Sarajevo in 1993 and inscribed REPUBLIKA BOSNA I HERCEGOVINA. The currency at that time was 100 paras = 1 dinar. After the federation was founded in 1996, the word REPUBLIKA was dropped. The currency changed in 1997 to 100 fennig = 1 mark.
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Date last modified: 03/21/2008 04:05:59
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