Ottoman city-rural dynamics created the Bosnian-Serb religious split

Evidence

Western policy makers maintain that the conflict in the Balkans is “age old.” Yet contiguous ethnic and religious groups throughout the world have old antagonisms. Armed conflict between Serbs and Croats is confined largely to this century. The conflict between Serbs and Slavic Muslims dates back to the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, the development of the Kosovo story in which Slavic Muslims and Serbs are ancient and fated enemies is more recent; it was constructed by nationalist Serbs in the nineteenth century and projected back to the battle of Kosovo in 1389, and then back further, even to the very creation of the universe. It is this rather recent national mythology which was revived in the late 198os in Yugoslavia. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 133 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Kosovo myth of ancient Serb-Muslim enmity is a recent nineteenth-century construction — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and…, 133; The Ottoman millet system organized society by religious community rather than territory — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3469; Ottoman society was relatively tolerant toward Jews and Christians

Broader Connections

• The Kosovo myth of ancient Serb-Muslim enmity is a recent nineteenth-century construction #complicates (0.85) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 133