Sarajevo (redirected from Sarajevo, Bosnia)

Sarajevo (sâr'əyā`vō), city (1991 est. pop. 529,000), capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the Miljacka River. An important industrial and railway center, its industries include food and tobacco processing and furniture manufacturing. Lignite and iron ore are mined nearby. The city is the seat of an Orthodox Eastern metropolitan, a Roman Catholic archbishop, and the chief ulema of Bosnia's Muslims, who constituted about 50% of the population before the city was torn apart by war in 1992. Sarajevo has a university (founded in 1946), several Muslim seminaries, and various institutes of higher education. It is noted for its Muslim architecture, including its Turkish marketplace and more than 100 mosques, the most important one dating from 1450.

Founded in 1263, Sarajevo, then a citadel known as Vrh-Bosna, fell to the Turks in 1429 and was renamed Bosna-Saraj, or Bosna-Seraj. The town established around the citadel became an important Turkish military and commercial center and reached the peak of its prosperity in the 16th cent. The Congress of Berlin (1878) gave Sarajevo and the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary, where it remained until its incorporation in 1918 into Yugoslavia. The city was a center of the Serbian nationalist movement. The assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914, was an immediate cause of World War I. Sarajevo was the scene of several important battles between Allied resistance fighters and the Germans in World War II, during which the city sustained considerable damage. In 1984 the city was host to the Winter Olympics.

Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia in Oct., 1991. Immediately following the international recognition of the republic's independence in Apr., 1992, the country's Serbs and Croats, backed respectively by Serbia and Croatia, began to claim large chunks of the country's territory. Sarajevo, though remaining largely under Bosnian government control, was under siege from Serbs in the surrounding hills and suburbs until 1996. The city sustained considerable damage to its infrastructure due to shelling, and many residents were killed. As the fighting ended and government control was reestablished (1996) over the city and suburbs, large numbers of Serbs fled. The damaged Oslobodenje newspaper tower is preserved as a memorial to the civil war.

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Sarajevo

City (pop., 1997 est.: 360,000), capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Turks invaded in the late 15th century, it developed as a trading centre and stronghold of Muslim culture. From 1878 it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see Austria-Hungary). In 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, which action precipitated World War I. After Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, it became a focal point of fierce civil war as Serb militias drove thousands of Bosnian Muslims from the countryside to take refuge in the city (see Bosnian conflict). Its pre-civil war industries included a brewery, furniture factory, tobacco factory, and automobile plant. It was the host of the 1984 Winter Olympic Games and is the centre of a road network. A rail connection to the Adriatic Sea was damaged during fighting in the 1990s but is now operational. Sarajevo retains a Muslim character, with many mosques and an ancient marketplace.

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Sarajevo, Serajevo

the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina: developed as a Turkish town in the 15th century; capital of the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian administrations in 1850 and 1878 respectively; scene of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, precipitating World War I; besieged by Bosnian Serbs (1992--95). Pop.: 603 000 (2005 est.)

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Sarajevo 

a city in Yugoslavia; the capital of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Situated in a mountain basin on the banks of the Miljacka River, a tributary of the Bosna. Population, 244,000 (1971).

Sarajevo is an important transportation junction and trade and industrial center of Yugoslavia. Its main industries are tobacco processing, brewing, vegetable and fruit canning, and the manufacture of rugs, textiles, leather goods and footwear, soap, wood products, and furniture. Traditional handicrafts are represented by more than 1,500 workshops. The most important new branches of industry are electronics and machine building (motors, machine tools, optical instruments, bicycles, and electrical engineering equipment). Sarajevo is the headquarters of Yugoslavia’s principal production and scientific electrical engineering association, Energoinvest, which designs and builds electric power plants, electric transmission lines, and other electric power facilities in Yugoslavia and abroad. Near Sarajevo there is a ferrous metallurgy plant (Ilijaš) and a porcelain insulation plant (Stup) as well as wood product plants (Ilidža, Blažuj, and other cities).

The Academy of Science and Art of Bosnia-Hercegovina is located in Sarajevo, as well as a university, other higher schools, research institutes in meteorology and hygiene, and a library. The city has a motion-picture studio, theaters, and other cultural institutions. The Picture Gallery and the Museum of the People’s Revolution are located in Sarajevo. The city, which is near the resort of Ilidža, is a tourist center.

Sarajevo is first mentioned in historical sources under the name of Vrhbosna in 1244, when it was part of a ž upa (territorial and administrative unit) of the same name. Conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1435, the town was named Sarajevo in 1507 (Turkish serai, “palace”). Between the 17th and 19th centuries the city repeatedly suffered catastrophic damage by fire. From the mid-19th century, Sarajevo was the administrative and political center of the Bosnian vicegerency of the Ottoman Empire. The city was the capital of Bosnia during the Hapsburg occupation from 1878 to 1908. From 1908 to 1918, Sarajevo was the administrative center of the provinces of Bosnia and Herce-govina, which had been annexed by the Hapsburg Empire.

On June 28, 1914, the Austrian crown prince Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo by members of the Young Bosnia organization. In December 1918 the city became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (since 1929, Yugoslavia). Occupied by fascist German troops in April 1941, Sarajevo was one of the centers of the National Liberation War in Yugoslavia (1941–45). The city was liberated from the fascist German invaders by the troops of the Yugoslav People’s Army on Apr. 6, 1945.

The city’s architectural monuments include the Old Church (15th century); mosques, such as the Husrefbegov (1531, architect Kodža Sinan), the Ali Pasa (1561), and the Careva (1566); and many other structures dating from the period of Turkish rule. A number of buildings in the eclectic style date from the Austrian occupation, including the Presidium, the Ministry of Finance, and a theater (all late 19th century). In the late 19th through early 20th centuries regularly planned quarters replaced the crowded residential districts. Among the city’s 20th-century buildings are the Mortgage Bank (1930’s) and the Museum of the People’s Revolution (1960’s, architects B. Magas and E. Ŝmidihen). New districts are being built under the general plan of 1963 (architect E. Kovačevic).

REFERENCE

Tihić, S. Sarajevo. Turistički vodić. Belgrade, 1966.