[THREAD]

How Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats are actually Bosniaks

According to the "History of the Kingdom of Bosnia - Lux" book, there was not a single Orthodox Church in the region, and few catholic ones. Orthodox Churches only got a presence after King Tvrtko I's conquest of Serbia.

It is a common Serbian myth that the Ottomans forced Bosniaks to convert to Islam, however the official ahdname issued by Sultan Mehmed II himself debunks this. In the Ahdname of Fojnica, the sultan clearly states that he gurantees religioue liberties for the Christians of Bosnia

So why is this important? It would be virtually impossible for the entire population of a nation to adopt one religion without forced conversions. There are no censuses from this time, but we can assume that one part converted to Islam, and other to Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

Now let us jump in time a bit further. Ivan Franjo Jukić and Antun Knežević were Franciscan Writers who considered themselves Bosniaks. They advocated for Bosniakism across the land. These were Christians who advocated for strong Bosniakism.

Now let's get into something more spicy. Ilija Garašanin, who is also known as the "Serbian Bismarck" said: "In Bosnia live Bosniaks of the Islamic, Catholic and Orthodox faiths". You would expect a Serbian Statesman to say "Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats" but he said "Bosniaks".

Here's more proof from the Serbian side. In the "Ljetopis Matice Srpske" from 1825. it says: "Bosniaks live between the Drina, Vrbas, Sava, Dalmatia and Hum. There are 450k of them, and they are either Muslims, Catholics or Orthodox Christians."

Montenegrin Politician and Historian, Novak Kilibarda, in an interview from 2012 stated that "Until the middle of the 19th century, there were no Croats or Serbs in Bosnia, everyone was a Bosniak." And if we look up at the Serbian Sources again, the timeline matches perfectly.

Now let's move onto A-U. The census on the left shows us the different religions in Bosnia, and the one on the right shows the census of those who consider themselves Bosniaks. Orthodox Christianity was the dominant religion, but more than 90% considered themselves as Bosniaks.

The Sarajevo Sacred Heart Cathedral was built in 1887 during Austro-Hungarian rule, but the interesting thing is that on one of the windows there is a text saying "Catholic Bosniaks of the Sarajevo City 1887." If those Catholics were Croats, then why have "Bosniaks"?

After WW1 came the rule of the State of SHS, and then Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During its rule, calling yourself a Bosniak was banned and Serbs and Croats invested heavily into Croatian and Serbian national propaganda in Bosnia.

Things were not made better during Communist Yugoslavia. The choice to call yourself a Bosniak was still prohibited, but in 1971. you could call yourself a "Muslim By Nationality" but not Bosniak.

It was during the time of these two Yugoslavias that broke the unity of Bosniaks, and Orthodox Christians and Catholics started refering to themselves as Croats and Serbs because of all the propaganda effort started by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Of course not every Bosnian Serb or Croat is a Bosniak, there were definitely a good number of settlements throughout time, but history shows that the vast majority are actually Bosniaks who were fooled into Croatian and Serbian National Propaganda.