WikipediaExtracts:Bosniaks
Extracted from Wikipedia --
Bosniaks are a South Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and constitute the largest ethnic group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by Serbs and Croats. They share a common ancestry, culture, history and language emanating from the Bosnian historical region; and traditionally and predominantly adhere to Sunni Islam for which reason they are often also referred to as Bosnian Muslims although this is an imprecise ethnic descriptor today. The Bosniaks constitute significant native communities in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo as well. Largely due to displacement stemming from the Bosnian War and Genocide in the 1990s, they also form a significant diaspora with several Bosniak communities across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.
Slavs settled the present-day territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 7th to 9th centuries amid the Migration Period. By the 12th century, they had formed an independent Bosnian state that would evolve into a kingdom by the late 14th century. Throughout the High Middle Ages, the Bosnian state was characterised by a disorganised Christian religious plurality, often accused of heresy due to a weak church organisation, brought about by rugged, mountainous terrain and poor communications with both Rome and Constantinople. Following the Ottoman conquest of the Kingdom of Bosnia in 1463, a distinct, native community of Bosnian Muslims began to form as the local Slavic population embraced Islam, mainly in the 16th century. Despite an initially steep increase upwards to three-fourths of the Bosnian population at its height, wars and plagues would later, throughout Ottoman rule, decimate the Bosnian Muslim population, who, in contrast to their rural Christian counterparts, lived in more densely populated urban centres and were obligated to partake in Ottoman military campaigns. In the late 17th century, a large influx of Muslim converts from neighbouring lands north and west of Bosnia and Herzegovina made up around half of the total Bosnian Muslim population as the Ottoman frontlines shifted across present-day Croatia and Hungary. Significant migrations of Slavic Muslims also occurred during the 19th century from present-day Serbia and Montenegro following the Serbian Revolution.
During Ottoman rule, the social and cultural life of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina was structured along religious lines, and the term Bosniak was primarily used as a territorial designation, with ethnic or national self-identification absent among the population, regardless of religious affiliation. With the collapse of Ottoman rule and the rise of European nationalism in the 19th century, a tri-ethnic reality was established in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Bosnian Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians gradually being incorporated into the neighbouring Croat and Serb national identities. For the Bosnian Muslims, interposed between the stronger and rivalling Serb and Croat national movements, and weakened by large-scale emigrations to Ottoman Turkey and the loss of influence, the process of ethno-national self-determination would proceed well into the late 20th century when the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence and the Bosnian Muslims affirmed the Bosniak name for their nation. Today Bosniaks are recognized by the Dayton Agreement and the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as one of the three constitutive nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina alongside Serbs and Croats.
Contemporary genetic studies have shown the three main ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats) to share, in spite of some lesser quantitative differences, a large fraction of the same ancient gene pool distinct for the region. Analyses have moreover revealed no significant difference between the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina and neighbouring populations.
