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People
Population
The population of Bosnia and Herzegovina numbers over 4.6 million people. The population is made up of Bosniaks (44 percent), Serbs (31 percent), Croats (17 percent), Yugoslavs (six percent), as well as a small percentage of other groups (two percent). "Yugoslav" is the term used to denote people born from mixed marriages. It is important to note that all such population data is subject to considerable error due to the dislocations caused by military action and ethnic cleansing. For example, the Croats claim they now make up only 17 percent of the total population. This number is a marked decrease in the last decade.
Religion
In terms of religion, 40 percent of the population consists of followers of Islam, 31 percent are Eastern Orthodox, approximately 15 percent are Roman Catholic, 4 percent are Protestant, and the rest hold other beliefs. Most "Bosniaks" (a term which will be delineated further below) are people of Muslim heritage and religion. Its use gained currency in recent years to denote ethnic Bosnians of the Muslim religion, and it distinguishes this group of people from Serbs, for example, who tend to be Christian Orthodox, and from most Croats who tend to be Roman Catholic. Nevertheless, according to official records, there are a number of people who do not claim to belong to any of these three major religions, and this discrepancy may account for the incongruity between the ethnic and religious data.
Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage
As aforementioned, most of the Bosniak population is Muslim. In terms of ethnicity, they are descendants of Slavic tribes -- the Serbs and Croats -- who converted to Islam during the 500 years when Bosnia was part of the Ottoman Empire. In this way, Bosniaks may be ethnically related to Serbs and Croats, but they have their own distinct culture, which is rooted in their Muslim religion as well as their own sense of national identity and heritage. Indeed, the very term, "Bosniak" is neologism that has replaced the term "Muslim, " in order to denote this distinctive identity, while avoiding confusion with the religious term, "Muslim."
The Serbs and Croats, mentioned above, are closely-related Slavic people who migrated to the Balkans back in the 7th century when the region was part of the Byzantine Empire. Eastern Orthodoxy was the major religion of that era. The Serbians continued to follow Eastern Orthodoxy in the next few centuries and developed their own independent kingdom. At the close of the 11th century, however, the Croats became part of the Hungarian Empire and converted to Roman Catholicism. In the 15th century, the Ottomans conquered Bosnia, which for the previous three centuries had been an independent kingdom. In the ensuring century and a half, many Christians converted to Islam and by the late 16th century and early 17th century, followers of Islam became the majority in Bosnia.
In the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, around the 18th century, Christian enclaves in Europe flourished, as illustrated by the development and encroachment of the Hapsburg and Russian Empires. Around this time, Christians within the Ottoman Empire, such as the Orthodox Christian Serbs, campaigned ardently for political autonomy and independence. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Croats spent centuries as part of Hungarian and Austro-Hungarian Kingdoms. Even though they were afforded a degree of autonomy and parliamentary representation within Hungary, however, they also became increasingly nationalistic and began to clamor for independence.
In 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was formed and in 1929, this entity was renamed Yugoslavia. Years of civil unrest, hostility and territorial disputes ensued and eventually led to occupation by German and Italian forces during World War II. After the war, Yugoslavia became a socialist republic and included Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Serbia, Montenegro, and other former Yugoslav territories. In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia disintegrated and Bosnia and Herzegovina became an independent republic. The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, looking to align themselves with other Serbians in the region, became entrenched in further conflict with the Croat and Muslim population. Today, the country is divided into two entities: a Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb-led "Republika Srpska" and reflects the cultural divisions that persist today.
Language
Despite the religious and ethnic differences that seem to be entrenched in the history and culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the languages of this country are remarkably similar. Contemporary Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian -- the three languages spoken in this country -- are all variations of the same language, with similar grammatical structure and small distinctions in vocabulary.
Health and Welfare
In terms of health and welfare, the population of this country has an average life expectancy at birth of 67.2 years, according to recent estimates. The life expectancy for males is 64.5 years of age, while the rate for females is as high as 70.1 years of age. The infant mortality rate is 43.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. About 10.9 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally good.
Education
Primary school education in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mandatory for eight years. After those first eight years, four years of secondary school and four years in universities and academies are the norm. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 407 primary schools with 250,000 students, 171 secondary schools with 80,000 students, six universities in the major cities -- Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Tuzla, and Bihac -- as well as six academies, four of which are pedagogic and two of which are art academies.
Human Development
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries and territories, the HDI placed Bosnia and Herzegovina in the high human development category, at 68th place -- a remarkable achievement for a country that endured political conflict and upheaval a decade earlier.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.
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