Young Bosnia

Formation, membership and ideology[edit]

There were a number of youth-oriented organizations before the rise of Young Bosnia, such as United Serb Youth in the 1860s and 1870s. Defining membership and the vague idea of "youth" (omladina) was debated at length among South Slavic intellectuals. One major obstacle to defining and organizing the youth in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the educational system, which underwent major changes in the Habsburg period. By 1900, a small but growing number of young men from Bosnia were studying in Prague, Zagreb, Vienna, Graz, Istanbul, and Belgrade. This put them in touch with Serbian and Croatian nationalist circles.^[3]


The Young Bosnia circle was formed after the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia in 1908, with significant influence from neighbouring Serbia.^[4] The ideologue of Young Bosnia^[5] and tyrannicide as its method of the political struggle, was Vladimir Gaćinović.^[6] In one letter to Dedijer, one of revolutionaries from Herzegovina (Božidar Zečević) stated that the name of Young Bosnia was first mentioned by Petar Kočić in journal "Homeland" (Serbo-Croatian: Отаџбина, Otadžbina) in 1907; according to some sources Zečević was mistaken about the year of publication.^[7] In 1911 Gaćinović published an article titled "Young Bosnia" in Almanac (Serbo-Croatian: Алманах, Almanah) published by Prosvjeta.^[8] The Serbian National Organization of Petar Kočić had ties with the Young Bosnia.^[9]


The members were predominantly school students,^[10] primarily Serbs but also Bosniaks and Croats.^[11] There were several motivations promoted amongst different members of the group. There were members who promoted Yugoslavist aims of pan-South Slav unification of territories including Bosnia into a Yugoslavia.^[12][13][9] There were members who promoted Serbian nationalist aims of pan-Serb unification into Serbia.^[9] Young Bosnia was inspired from a variety of ideas, movements, theorists, and events; such as German romanticism, anarchism,^[14] Russian revolutionary socialism, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Battle of Kosovo.^[2]


Young Bosnia received some assistance from the Black Hand – a secret organization founded by members of the Serbian Army.^[2] On the other hand, Vladimir Gaćinović was the only Young Bosnia leader to join Black Hand,^[15] although after the First World War broke out he condemned the assassination in a letter (presumably as a way to evade responsibility).^[16]

Two notable organizations are referred to in connection with Young Bosnia: Narodna Odbrana and Black Hand. During a Serbian Court Martial in French-occupied Salonika in 1916–17, Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis testified that he had organized the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, (the assassin was Gavrilo Princip). In the process, he used not only his power over elements of the Serbian military, but also the Black Hand. Leaders of the Black Hand in turn had penetrated Narodna Odbrana and used that organization to infiltrate the arms and assassins into Sarajevo.


Claimed members of Young Bosnia who participated in the assassination were:


An evening before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Princip, Čabrinović and Ilić visited the grave of Bogdan Žerajić for the last time.^[17] Žerajić's proclamation "He who wants to live, let him die. He who wants to die, let him live", was quoted by Gavrilo Princip in one of the songs he wrote (Serbian: Ал право је рекао пре Жерајић, соко сиви: Ко хоће да живи, нек мре, Ко хоће да мре, нек живи).^[18]