Aktivnosti Centra za istraživanje moderne i savremene historije Tuzla u 2024. godini // Activities of Center for Research of Modern and Contemporary History Tuzla in 2024

The aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period 1992-1995 resulted in the occupation of a large part of the state territory, which represented an attempt to realize the Greater Serbian project. This expansionist policy was accompanied by the practical execution of crimes against humanity and international law, based on a genocidal policy and practice that aimed at the physical, material, and cultural destruction and collapse of the Bosniak people's identity. Special emphasis is placed on the genocide committed in Srebrenica – a UN safe zone – in July 1995. All forms and scales of the committed crimes are denied and negated in the daily life of Bosnian-Herzegovinian society, including its public space. The most blatant forms of denial are manifested by political elites who follow the political path of those involved in the aggression and the attempt to achieve Greater State ideas. In the thirty-year period since the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the establishment of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there has been a continuous minimization, denial, and negation of the committed crimes. Despite numerous judgments by international and national courts which have convicted individuals, as well as bodies and institutions, for committed genocide – judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), judgments of domestic and German courts – the continuity of denial is present in the public space. Attempts to sanction this phenomenon through the adoption of laws by state institutions and parliaments were unsuccessful, which resulted in the imposition of an amendment to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Office of the High Representative (OHR) that sanctions this criminal offense. The first judicial proceeding against Vojin Pavlović is currently underway, which should sanction the public denial of genocide and disrespect for the High Representative's decision, i.e., a violation of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The indictment against Miodrag Malić, for acts of glorifying war criminals, has been forwarded to the Court of BiH for confirmation. Milorad Dodik, who is unquestionably the most obvious denier of genocide, has not yet been accused or sanctioned, a fact that points to the weakness of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian judiciary. Although the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has filed an indictment against him for disrespecting the decisions of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it does not contain a point that would initiate the re-examination and sanctioning of denial in the public space, where he persists in using it for daily political purposes. We also place within this entire context Resolution (A/78/L.67/Rev.1) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on May 23, 2024, which should also serve as a tool to prevent further denial of genocide and prevent revisionism of historical facts. Namely, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Resolution on the Srebrenica Genocide, declaring July 11 as „International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide,“ to be commemorated annually. The process of preparing the text of the Resolution and its proposal for adoption was accompanied by a campaign launched against the adoption of the resolution. The campaign was based on the denial of facts and historical revisionism. The leaders of the campaign were Milorad Dodik (President of the smaller Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity) and Aleksandar Vučić (President of Serbia) with their close associates and political followers. The leader of Republika Srpska organized protests in Republika Srpska, while Vučić tried to mobilize public opinion in Serbia, presenting the Resolution as an injustice to Serbs at the global level. Hate speech, glorification of war criminals, and revisionism or open denial of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes established by final court decisions threaten the rule of law and represent a direct obstacle to peace, reconciliation, and confidence-building, and ultimately jeopardize the prospects for a safe, peaceful future for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The area of the Balkan Peninsula has been a zone of conflicting geopolitical interests for centuries. For centuries, influences from the West, East, North and South have shaped this area. The past three turbulent decades have brought great changes to this area. From changing borders and state structures, ideological changes, restructuring the economy, to international sanctions, ethnic and religious conflicts with tens of thousands of victims and war crimes. The collapse of the economic and political systems of the communist countries resulted in these societies falling into a state of complete social and value confusion. Continuity of national issues and frozen conflicts in Southeast Europe came to the fore again - due to the historical heritage, which created numerous ethnic and religious mixtures in this area, which again represents a fertile ground for geopolitical interference and foreign influences. The states created by the dissolution of the SFRY became to a greater or lesser extent subject to the influence of foreign factors, both in the regulation of internal policy and in the tracing of foreign policy directions. Such a factual state of limited sovereignty created a kind of: protectorates, semi-protectorates, ambassadorships. The turbulent geo-economic and geo-political movements of the past decades, the movement from a unipolar to a multi-polar global order, with more economic, military and political centers of power - has a significant impact on the areas located on the periphery of the capitalist system and vulgarized neoliberalism. The ex-YU space represents a typical syndrome of emphasizing small differences, and on the other hand - there is much more that unites, mutual respect, solidarity during natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, fires and during pandemics. There is an ongoing geopolitical struggle, in which, in order to realize certain political and economic interests, various means are used against the targeted states, from hybrid war, sanctions, armed conflicts based on the model of „controlled chaos“. The effort of the Great Powers to achieve stability in the world is often wrong, because the international environment is an excellent example of a chaotic system. The world is destined to be chaotic, because geopolitical players have different goals and values. Therefore, the great powers see chaos as a source of opportunity and pursue the illusory goal of global stability. The geopolitical strategy of „controlled chaos“ produced an adequate reaction, which is also reflected in the media field. The wide use of mass media and new technologies in such complex international relations, with multiple crisis hotspots (Middle East, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, islands in the South China Sea, neuralgic hotspots in Africa) is evident. So, even though a deceptive peace reigns at the global level, „below the surface“, the conflicting geopolitical interests of leading but also regional states intersect in the mediasphere through special services. At the beginning of the new millennium, the world is facing numerous challenges. The challenges are of a security, political, economic, ecological, cultural, technological nature, with the enormous power and use of mass media. The economic rise of China, the military and political rise of Russia, the creation of the BRICS economic alliance, the rise of South American economies striving for independence from the influence of the USA - represent new factors on the geopolitical map of the world. New, economic-political organizations are trying to reduce the power of the IMF and reduce the use of petro-dollars, while international political relations are moving towards the tendency of creating a new multipolar world, with more economic, political and military power centers. A multipolar world, the emergence of which can be seen during the second decade of the new millennium, global hotspots in the Middle East, the migrant crisis, the struggle over the deposits and flows of energy sources and water sources, the struggle for the influence of the Great Powers through the so-called hybrid wars - have their consequences on the territory of Southeast Europe.Small countries, like the Balkan ones, cannot allow themselves some foreign political freedom and strategy and geopolitical games. Therefore, they act towards the Great Powers - primarily with tactics of survival and short-term gains.

Prikaz/Review: Merisa Karović-Babić, SIGURNOSNE ZONE UJEDINJENIH NACIJA U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI: prijedlozi, motivi i ideje tokom 1992. godine, Institut za istraživanje zločina protiv čovječnosti i međunarodnog prava Univerziteta u Sarajevu, Sarajevo 2024, 319 str

Prikaz/Review: Almir Grabovica, TRAGOVI GENOCIDA: GRAPSKA 1992–1995, Institut za istraživanje zločina protiv čovječnosti i međunarodnog prava Univerzitet u Sarajevu, Sarajevo 2025, 356 str

The continent of Europe is characterized not only by its common culture and history, but also by its many borders. The colorful historical landscape inherited from the Middle Ages created European states in the 19th and 20th centuries, most of which still exist today, each with its own individual development. Few countries have such little changed borders over the centuries as that of Spain and Portugal - one of the oldest in Europe. In specialized and popular literature in Spain and Portugal, the term “Luso-Spanish border” has acquired citizenship, and for this reason, in this article, we will use this particular term to denote the Portuguese-Spanish border. The border between the two Iberian countries Spain and Portugal, also known over the centuries as La Raya, experienced many vicissitudes during different historical periods. It is about the Middle Ages, the Reconquista and the New Age, to get to the Modern and the new realities in modern Europe. Of course, things have not always looked this way, and in this part of the European continent passions have raged and there have been conflicts. While Spain has land borders with four neighboring countries (with five if we include the border with Gibraltar) 19 km with Morocco in North Africa, 63 with Andorra, 656 km with France and 1234 with Portugal, the latter has only one neighbor, which is Spain. And it shows. The role and significance of state borders are not unambiguous over time. In most of the past historical eras, they have been changed very often, and there are relatively few stretches of time during which wars were not fought, the result of which in most cases was a change in these borders, thereby also changing the extent of the national geographical space of one or more countries. In this sense, borders have been political barriers separating often warring countries. In the modern world, as a result of a long and painful development, in many cases they have already become axes of good neighborliness and cooperation. An example of fruitful cooperation is the state borders between European Union (EU) countries, which now have an almost symbolic meaning with the abolition of border control, customs checks and other functions performed between them until recently. Things are changing significantly, especially after the signing of the Schengen Agreement. People on both sides of the border hardly imagined that one day it could disappear. The border has always been there and it has been felt by the people. However, things have changed dramatically now. There are no guards, no barriers, there are roads, bridges and well-maintained highways. These are changes that occurred after the accession of Portugal and Spain to the Schengen area after 1991. Thus, borders acquire other functions, from dividing lines they become unifying ones. This inevitably leads to symbiosis and mutual penetration between two neighboring peoples. This is an example that can also be useful for the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, where the historical past has also left its mark. Already several Balkan countries are full members of the EU, these are Greece (1981), Slovenia (2004), Bulgaria (2007), Romania (2007) and Croatia (2013). Most of the countries of the “Western Balkans” are countries applying for EU membership. Balkan member countries of the Schengen area are Greece, Slovenia and Croatia. The full membership of the other Balkan countries in the EU and Schengen will contribute to the European integration and rethinking of the borders from both a historical and a current point of view.

Prikaz//Review: PRILOZI/CONTRIBUTIONS, br. 52, Institut za historiju Univerziteta u Sarajevu, Sarajevo 2023, 282 str

Browsing among books on the History of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Hungarian language // Pretraživanje knjiga o historiji Bosne i Hercegovine na mađarskom jeziku

Prikaz//Review: Matematičari naučnici koji su obilježili čitavu jednu epohu, Mirjana Vuković, MATEMATIČARI – AKADEMICI, Akademija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine. Posebna izdanja, knjiga CCVII, Odjeljenje prirodnih i matematičkih nauka, knjiga 28, Sarajevo 2023, 150 str.

The creation of cadastral plans, and then different types of maps, is the procedure by which space is coded. During the creation of cadastral plans, they are topographed and different names and auxiliary text are written on them. The geological maps were also topographed during the procedure of creating geological maps. This is necessary in order for the content of the geological map to be complete. These procedures offer the user of cadastral plans and geological maps a lot of information about the terrain presented on the cadastral plans and geological maps. The first cadastral plans and geological maps of Bosnia and Herzegovina are related to the rule of the Austro Hungarian Monarchy. These cadastral plans arose as a result of the first systematic survey of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which took place after Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the then powerful Austro Hungarian Monarchy. The survey started in 1880. and it was successfully completed in 1884. Cadastral plans created as a result of this surveys are called plans of the old survey. They were create in scales of 1: 6250, 1: 3125, 1: 1562.5 and 1: 781.25. Unfortunately, a lot of these plans were destroyed during Second World War. In the environments in which they exist, these cadastral plans are inexhaustible historical sources for many researchers. Cadastral plans of the old survey have a special significance in the historical cartography of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The current cadastral plans are arising as a result of survey which realized after the Second World War, when Bosnia and Herzegovina were one of the federal units of the former Yugoslavia. Cadastral plans created on the basis of the results of a survey carried out in the aforementioned period are called plans of the new survey. They were created in scales of 1: 5000, 1: 2500, 1: 2000, 1: 1000 and 1: 500. The subject of the survey were all objects and data certained for recording in the cadastral register and land register. The survey included the madrasas that existed in Travnik: madrasa of Elči Ibrahim-paša, madrasa of Mehmed-paša Kukavica and madrasa of the Mehmed-paša Muhsinović. Madrasas on the cadastral plans of old survey is the subject of research in this paper. The madrasa of Elči Ibrahim- paša was also surveyed during the maintenance of cadastral register. The paper analyzes the depictions of the madrasas in the on the updated lithographic copies of the original cadastral plans of the old survey, which served as working originals of the cadastral plans on which the graphic part of the cadastral register was maintained.