serbian nationalist who assassinated franz ferdinand

SERBIAN NATIONALIST WHO ASSASSINATED FRANZ FERDINAND SERIES

Serbia will be minting a silver coin with his face on it to mark the centenary, and the government will stage exhibitions. 'Now that there is no more Yugoslavia, his actions are being viewed more narrowly and he has been reborn as a Serbian hero.'Ī new monument to Princip is also due to go up in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, where children are taught that he was struggling for a just cause. It was only since the fall of Yugoslavia that Princip has been described as a Serbian nationalist rather than as a fighter for Yugoslav unity, he said. Zijad Sehic, a Sarajevo history professor, agreed that the past had been redrawn in the aftermath of the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 'The characterisation of Young Bosnia and Princip as terrorists is an attempt to place the blame for huge worldwide events on 'Serbian territorial expansion policies', which is evidently flawed,' Vujadinovic said. Suggestions that Young Bosnia was a 'pre-WWI al-Qaida' were a result of the 1990s conflict, he insisted. Zeljko Vujadinovic, a history professor from Banja Luka in Republika Srpska, said that in Bosnia, 'what we are looking at is the current political mind-set transferred to the past'. Unsurprisingly, this description of the war's outbreak is similar to the one contained in textbooks used in Serbia itself. But in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, Young Bosnia is simply described as an 'organisation' and textbooks stress that Austria-Hungary 'used' Franz Ferdinand's assassination 'to blame Serbia' and declare war on the country. The history book used by Bosnian Croat pupils also describes Young Bosnia as a 'terrorist' group. The textbook for Zenica describes Young Bosnia as a 'terrorist organisation'. The Sarajevo textbook says that Princip's group, Young Bosnia, was 'supported by secret organisations from Serbia', while the Bihac textbook states more directly that the plotters were 'supported by Serbia'. In mainly Bosniak areas, such as Sarajevo, the Bihac region in the north-west and the central Zenica-Doboj area, school textbooks highlight Princip's links to Serbia.

SERBIAN NATIONALIST WHO ASSASSINATED FRANZ FERDINAND SERIES

A series of events will be held in Sarajevo, including exhibitions, concerts and a meeting of young peace activists from around the world.īosnian Serbs will hold their own events in the eastern town of Visegrad, organised by film director Emir Kusturica, while a statue of Princip is due to be erected in Serb-run eastern Sarajevo. These divisions are also reflected in the rival commemorations that will be held in Bosnia. For Bosnian Serbs, the murder was merely a pretext for Austria-Hungary and Germany to attack Serbia. Different interpretationīosnian Serb children are taught a different interpretation than Bosniaks and Croats, for whom Princip was a Belgrade-backed political assassin. In ethnically divided Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is no commonly held view either about Princip or about the origins of the first world war.

Now the past is being adjusted to fit whatever discourse the ruling elites in these countries want at the present moment.' 'That country disappeared 23 years ago and the discourse disappeared with it, because the new countries that came out of the former Yugoslavia had different perceptions of the past. 'There used to be only one discourse about World War I while the country was still Yugoslavia,' said Nenad Sebek, executive director of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, which has analysed school textbooks in the region. Now they all have their own versions of the truth, shaped by the more recent wars, and are passing it on to the next generation. While they were part of Yugoslavia, children in all these countries were taught the same history. Princip is portrayed in the history books of the various countries of former Yugoslavia either as a terrorist or as a rebel with a cause – refecting contemporary divisions in a region still recovering from the more recent conflicts of the 1990s. As Balkan countries prepare to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war this summer, each is teaching its children a different interpretation of the killing that triggered the conflict.

Serbian nationalist who assassinated franz ferdinand